Makerspace Research Pitch

Elizabeth Davis, Meghan Gore, Olivia Listrom, & Robert Raikin

Research Proposal

On Today’s Agenda…

1. BeAM’s Questions2. The Issue3. Our Goal 4. How?5. Importance

BeaM wants to know...

How is the customer service affecting the outlook of BeaM upon first user contact?

How do people and what people move through the space?

Do people come back?

How are BeaM staff members impacting the community of the Makerspace network?

Our research will focus on...

How can we make the Makerspace more accessible to students?

What people are coming and what people are coming back?

Methodology: A Two-Tiered ApproachWe plan to use data provided by the Makerspace, of staff and students, to run correlations on...

Major Gender Tools they Use

How did they find out about the space

What is their reason for coming to the space?

Methodology: A Two-Tiered Approach➔ Next, we utilize

observational research strategies to support the findings of correlational data.

➔ Observations will be beneficial in answering more specific questions about how people move through the space and the staff’s impact on the environment.

Why we want to do this?

Observational data will help us understand the type of the environment that BeaM creates in their Makerspaces.

Demographic data will give us a better understanding of the types of people that use the Makerspaces

Together, both measures can be used to understand why people are returning to the makerspaces

This plan makes sense!

Positive and negative interactions can be coded.

We already have the data provided by the Makerspace for the correlations.

Observations allow us to collect data in the natural setting of Makerspaces.

Benefits of this Research

These findings could help future researchers look into other problems that may be affecting the Makerspace use (advertising, location, etc.)

Analyses could help pinpoint the types of students that BeaM Makerspaces attract and why these types of students return

Results could help BeaM employ strategies to help increase retention rate of Makerspace users through implementation of inclusive customer service or by hiring more diverse employees

QU STIONS?