Contents
- Maker space participation statistics: attendance and participation rates
- Maker space participation statistics: participant demographics and backgrounds
- Maker space participation statistics: youth participation and programming
- Maker space participation statistics: tools, projects and activities
- Maker space participation statistics: user experiences and outcomes
- Sources
Maker space participation statistics: attendance and participation rates
Maker space participation statistics depend on what a study counts. A visit during an academic year, a survey respondent who has spent time in a facility, a registered unique user, and weekly hours are different measures. The figures below describe particular samples and places; they are not a single attendance rate for makerspaces overall.
In a two-institution study of first-year undergraduate engineering students, 73 students completed the paired surveys used in the analysis. During academic year 2022–2023, 32 of them visited a campus makerspace and 41 did not. The reported visitor share was 43.8%. This is a measure of whether students in that analytical sample visited during the academic year, not how often they visited or how many hours they spent there. Source: Board 238: Designing this Space for Whom? Characterization of Makerspace Non-users
A University of Pittsburgh study presents two other kinds of counts. The makerspace registered around 500 unique users during academic year 2017–2018. The same paper compares that figure with nearly 3,900 enrolled undergraduate and graduate engineering students, but registered users and enrolled students are different populations and the paper does not state that all enrolled students were eligible or expected to use the space. Source: Assessment of a University Makerspace Using a Quantitative and Qualitative Student Survey
In Fall 2018, the Pittsburgh survey collected 317 responses from undergraduate and graduate engineering students. Of those respondents, 117 said they had spent time in the makerspace and 200 said they had not. This self-selected survey count should be read as a description of the respondents, not a campus-wide participation estimate. Among surveyed users, weekly time was reported in these categories:
| Self-reported time in the Pittsburgh makerspace | Share of surveyed users |
|---|---|
| Less than 1 hour per week | 46% |
| 1–5 hours per week | 38% |
| 6–10 hours per week | 5% |
| 11–15 hours per week | 6% |
| Over 15 hours per week | 5% |
The distribution shows that the largest reported category was less than 1 hour per week. It describes users who answered the survey and should not be generalized to every registered user or to other facilities. Source: Assessment of a University Makerspace Using a Quantitative and Qualitative Student Survey
Maker space participation statistics: participant demographics and backgrounds
The Pittsburgh Fall 2018 paper reports demographics for respondents who said they used the makerspace. In that user group, 70% identified as male and 81% identified as white. These percentages describe survey respondents who reported using this particular university facility; they are not demographics for all makerspace users or the university population. Source: Assessment of a University Makerspace Using a Quantitative and Qualitative Student Survey
Class year also varied among surveyed users. Juniors and seniors comprised 68% of total users in the survey, while freshmen and sophomores combined accounted for 26%. Graduate students accounted for 6%. The figures distinguish undergraduate class years from graduate study, but they do not establish why students in one class group used the space more often. Source: Assessment of a University Makerspace Using a Quantitative and Qualitative Student Survey
A separate 2017 Maker Ed survey gathered site-level responses from 48 youth-oriented maker sites: 20 in-school and 28 out-of-school. Its demographic results are proportional mean shares across responding sites, rather than pooled percentages of all young people served. Across sites, the mean share of youth participants categorized as White was 45.5%; the median site share was 50.5%, with a standard deviation of 31.1%. The mean share categorized as Black/African-American was 21.6%; the median was 15.0%, with a standard deviation of 23.4%. The spread between means and medians, and the reported standard deviations, show that site-level shares varied. Source: Survey of Assessment in Makerspaces: Research Brief 17
Maker space participation statistics: youth participation and programming
The Maker Ed survey describes the scale of youth-serving sites, not a count of unique young people across a common program. Responding sites reported serving a mean of nearly 6,750 participants annually, and annual site counts ranged from 25 to 200,000. These are site-reported counts with a very wide range; they should not be interpreted as a pooled participant estimate or as a typical individual site’s attendance. Source: Survey of Assessment in Makerspaces: Research Brief 17
The site sample included both in-school and out-of-school settings, which makes the report useful for understanding the variety of places youth programming takes place. However, the counts do not measure the same thing as the student-level campus visit study: one reports annual reach at sites, while the other asks whether first-year engineering students visited a campus space during academic year 2022–2023. Source: Survey of Assessment in Makerspaces: Research Brief 17; Source: Board 238: Designing this Space for Whom? Characterization of Makerspace Non-users
Taken together, these studies provide distinct windows on participation: youth-site reporting, campus users, and student visits. Their periods and populations differ, so they do not support a single trend line or a direct comparison of participation levels across youth and university settings.
Maker space participation statistics: tools, projects and activities
A maker-community survey fielded from August 26 to December 22, 2020, retained a cleaned sample of 428 respondents recruited worldwide. In this sample, 69.8% reported pursuing hardware or combined software-and-hardware projects, while 3.5% reported software-only projects. These categories describe respondents’ project areas, rather than the share of all makers or all makerspace visits devoted to each activity. Source: Open Innovation With Maker Communities: Exploring Collaboration Motives and Preferences of Makers
The same survey asked about tools used in makerspaces. 3D printing was reported by 76.9% of respondents and laser cutting and engraving by 68.5%. These are tool-use shares within the cleaned maker-community sample. They indicate which tools were commonly reported by those respondents, but do not establish the prevalence of equipment across spaces or the number of times each tool was used. Source: Open Innovation With Maker Communities: Exploring Collaboration Motives and Preferences of Makers
The project and tool results can be read together as a snapshot of respondents’ reported practices: hardware-oriented work and digital fabrication tools featured prominently in this sample. The source does not make these figures a representative estimate of worldwide maker activity. It contacted over 2,300 listed spaces and retained 428 responses after cleaning, so participation in the survey itself was selective. Source: Open Innovation With Maker Communities: Exploring Collaboration Motives and Preferences of Makers
Maker space participation statistics: user experiences and outcomes
Experience length offers another measure of engagement. In the 2020 maker-community sample, 57.5% of respondents had used makerspaces for more than 3 years. This indicates that experienced users were well represented among survey respondents; it does not mean that 57.5% of all makerspace participants have that tenure. Source: Open Innovation With Maker Communities: Exploring Collaboration Motives and Preferences of Makers
Pittsburgh’s Fall 2018 user survey asked 103 makerspace users to rate statements on a five-point response scale. Their mean rating for feeling comfortable working in the makerspace was 4.13. The mean rating for the statement that using the makerspace had contributed to their learning was 4.08. For the statement that makerspace mentors had been knowledgeable about the makerspace, the mean was 3.93. Each measure reflects respondents’ reported agreement, not an independently measured change in skill or learning. Source: Assessment of a University Makerspace Using a Quantitative and Qualitative Student Survey
These ratings offer a view of user perceptions alongside the attendance and activity measures. The Pittsburgh study describes its assessment as preliminary, and its self-reported responses do not establish that makerspace use caused a learning outcome. Across the evidence here, the clearest interpretation is specific: people reported visits, time spent, project interests, tool use, experience length, and impressions of one university facility. The differing samples and measures leave no basis for treating them as a current national participation rate.
Sources
- Board 238: Designing this Space for Whom? Characterization of Makerspace Non-users
- Assessment of a University Makerspace Using a Quantitative and Qualitative Student Survey
- Survey of Assessment in Makerspaces: Research Brief 17
- Open Innovation With Maker Communities: Exploring Collaboration Motives and Preferences of Makers