Light Blue Walls and Tan Flooring: A Culture of Belonging in Engineering Making Spaces (or Not?)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript coherently discusses an interesting study on the culture of belonging in engineering education environments. The overall study has merit and should be considered for publishing after the following revisions. 

Section 2 (Relevant Literature)

• Page 4 - Paragraph 1: It is recommended to add more specific information on why and how fail-forward cultures tend to foster equity. This would add value to the paper. 
• Throughout the literature review section, the authors argue the value of exploring the connection between the belonging and culture. However, at the end of the literature review (Section 2), the authors mention that they are adding knowledge about the interaction between the belonging and space-design-and-operation. It would be valuable to further elaborate the existing similarity or discrepancy between these two arguments. 

Section 3 (Results and Discussion)

• The quotes presented in Theme B (Results and Discussion), do not strongly support the core essence of the as the authors have suggested. Is there any further evidence from the study to strengthen this claim by the authors?

Section 4 (Implications and Recommendations)

• In its current form, the overall Section 4 (Implications and Recommendations) section lack specificity. More specific recommendations or guidelines would enhance the overall quality of the paper. 

Typos and Punctuation

• There were a few typographical and punctuation errors in the manuscript. 

Author Response

Reviewer 1:

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript coherently discusses an interesting study on the culture of belonging in engineering education environments. The overall study has merit and should be considered for publishing after the following revisions. 

Section 2 (Relevant Literature)

• Page 4 - Paragraph 1: It is recommended to add more specific information on why and how fail-forward cultures tend to foster equity. This would add value to the paper. 

Thank you for the recommendation. The authors have made additional clarifications to bring this point across better. We hope the changes are appropriate.

• Throughout the literature review section, the authors argue the value of exploring the connection between the belonging and culture. However, at the end of the literature review (Section 2), the authors mention that they are adding knowledge about the interaction between the belonging and space-design-and-operation. It would be valuable to further elaborate the existing similarity or discrepancy between these two arguments. 

Thank you for the recommendation. The authors have made additional clarifications to bring this point across better. We hope the changes are appropriate. More specifically, we clarified that because the scope of the work is on makerspace leaders, faculty and staff, that designing a space that enacts a culture of belonging is important as it can guide future decision-making, designs, and operations of the spaces.

Section 3 (Results and Discussion)

• The quotes presented in Theme B (Results and Discussion), do not strongly support the core essence of the as the authors have suggested. Is there any further evidence from the study to strengthen this claim by the authors?

Thanks for the comment. In re-reading the Theme B from the Results and Discussion section, we agree that the rationale may have not been clear. We have re-written and clarified this section in hopes that the point we wanted to bring across is clearer to follow. The quotes have been re-evaluated and sections that elucidate our points have been highlighted.

Section 4 (Implications and Recommendations)

• In its current form, the overall Section 4 (Implications and Recommendations) section lack specificity. More specific recommendations or guidelines would enhance the overall quality of the paper.

Thank you for the recommendation. We have included additional recommendations and guidelines and provided them in more specific ways. We hope our changes strengthen this section and the paper.

Typos and Punctuation

• There were a few typographical and punctuation errors in the manuscript. 

We re-read the manuscript and corrected the typographical and punctuation errors we identified.

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper presents a qualitative study that explores the “culture of belonging” in engineering making spaces. The research involved six sites and was conducted from 2017 to 2019. The methodology is sound and included a process to discuss and resolve disagreement among multiple coders. The authors present and discuss four themes that they identified through open-coding, and discuss their implications for supporting a culture of belonging in making spaces.

Here are my suggestions for this paper.

* Although 148 undergraduate students participated in this study, their perspective is not captured when describing the four themes in the Results section. It would have been interesting to add qualitative remarks from these students in the Results section, and describe how they contribute to the themes and recommendations. If the authors think this may go beyond the scope of this study, I suggest not even mentioning the 148 students in the methodology.

** The abstract states that the four themes seem to be based on traditionally “white- and male-dominated” engineering classrooms. This is an interesting point, but I do not see much along these lines in the Results and Discussion section. I would suggest extending these ideas in the discussion.

*** The rationale for this study could be better clarified in the Introduction. In particular, the Introduction ends with: Our work seeks to expand the understanding of the culture of belonging in engineering making spaces”. Why do we need to discover more about the culture of belonging? What are the long-term goals of this project for supporting engineering education?

**** This sentence in the abstract is cryptic and needs to be re-written: “which were using a phenomenological approach, to find the common essence of the cultures being described by the participants.” The definition of “phenomenological” and the meaning of “common essence of the cultures” are unclear.

Author Response

Reviewer 2:

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper presents a qualitative study that explores the “culture of belonging” in engineering making spaces. The research involved six sites and was conducted from 2017 to 2019. The methodology is sound and included a process to discuss and resolve disagreement among multiple coders. The authors present and discuss four themes that they identified through open-coding, and discuss their implications for supporting a culture of belonging in making spaces.

Here are my suggestions for this paper.

* Although 148 undergraduate students participated in this study, their perspective is not captured when describing the four themes in the Results section. It would have been interesting to add qualitative remarks from these students in the Results section, and describe how they contribute to the themes and recommendations. If the authors think this may go beyond the scope of this study, I suggest not even mentioning the 148 students in the methodology.

Thank you for the recommendation. We have amended the statements to clarify that these students’ interviews were used for confirmatory purposes but that it was not the focus or was within the scope of our study.

** The abstract states that the four themes seem to be based on traditionally “white- and male-dominated” engineering classrooms. This is an interesting point, but I do not see much along these lines in the Results and Discussion section. I would suggest extending these ideas in the discussion.

Thank you for the recommendation. We have removed the statements in the abstract as we agree that these points were not elaborated at length to warrant its placement on the abstract. However, we clarified some further points regarding this majority domination in engineering in the Results and Discussion section and included additional citations.

*** The rationale for this study could be better clarified in the Introduction. In particular, the Introduction ends with: Our work seeks to expand the understanding of the culture of belonging in engineering making spaces”. Why do we need to discover more about the culture of belonging? What are the long-term goals of this project for supporting engineering education?

Thank you for the recommendation. The authors have made additional clarifications in the introduction to bring these points across better. We hope the changes are appropriate.

**** This sentence in the abstract is cryptic and needs to be re-written: “which were using a phenomenological approach, to find the common essence of the cultures being described by the participants.” The definition of “phenomenological” and the meaning of “common essence of the cultures” are unclear.

Thank you for the recommendation. The authors have removed some of this language form the abstract but made additional clarifications in the manuscript to bring this point across better. We hope the changes are appropriate.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

• The revisions have improved the quality of the paper. 
• The information about human research ethics approval for the study would add value to the paper. 

Author Response

• The revisions have improved the quality of the paper. 
• The information about human research ethics approval for the study would add value to the paper. 

Thank you for the comments. We have refined the paper and added more information about the human research ethics approval (Institutional Review Board- IRB) for this study. In the acknowledgement, after unblinding, we will include the institution's name by which these IRB approvals were attained from. Also, minor grammatical changes were corrected and tracked changes are included.