A Methodological Roadmap for Phenomenologically Based Interviewing in Engineering Education: Identifying Types of Learning in Makerspaces

Background: The complex nature of engineering education requires methodologies that enable insight into dynamic and multifaceted phenomena.

Purpose: This paper describes a roadmap for applying phenomenologically based interviewing as an approach for understanding engineering students’ lived academic experiences.

Scope: To demonstrate the methodology in practice, the paper offers an exemplar of its use in a study of women’s experiences learning through making in academic makerspaces. Specifically, the example showcases the power of this methodology for generating cognitive and behavioral typologies in engineering education research.

Discussion/Conclusions: Phenomenologically based interviewing holds potential to generate rich datasets toward the discovery of a wide range of areas of interest in engineering research. The lived experiences of women students illuminates both breadth and depth of learning through which they engage as participants in academic makerspaces. A wide variety of complex phenomena and understudied populations can be examined in engineering such as the influence of past experiences, developing typologies, team processes over time and gaining insights into process changes overtime. For the example presented, the interviews resulted in a typology of learning through making.