The Double-Edged Sword of Automating Personalized Interventions in Makerspaces: An Exploratory Study of Potential Benefits and Drawbacks

While the affordance of a project-based and instructor-facilitated curriculum is a strength of makerspaces, they can be challenging learning environments for many students. This paper recognizes the need for instructors to personalize their approach in supporting students’ needs. While there are opportunities to create automated systems to help instructors personalize their interventions, much care must be taken to prevent the introduction of unintended outcomes. In this study, we designed a weekly personalized intervention cycle based on students’ self-reports. The effect of such personalized intervention was then evaluated using a repeated measure ANOVA. Findings suggest that students receiving personalized interventions were more time efficient in makerspaces and on assignments. Additionally, they reported a lower level of frustration. Students with personalized intervention, however, expressed a lower sense of community. This suggests that while additional data provided to instructors can support personalized assistance, a more nuanced approach may be needed to avoid unintended consequences.