Developing a Taxonomy Concerning Physical Existing Makerspaces in and Used by Schools

Abstract

This systematic literature review addresses strongly on makerspaces in schools. An evaluation of literature about their status-quo shows qualitative and quantitative knowledge gaps in the relatively new field of makerspaces in and used by schools according to infrastructure, funding, and administration. A taxonomy concerning physical existing makerspaces in schools and used by schools including parameters like location, responsibilities, financing, instructors, users, time restrictions, and feasible maker activities is developed. Two different electronic journal databases, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and ScienceDirect, acted as source for this literature review. Most of this existing literature concentrates on the educational maker activities and only some feature additional information like the physical space, the financing or else. Nonetheless, these rare findings suggest four main categories of real-world makerspaces used for educational pur-poses in schools: External makerspaces, school makerspaces, open makerspaces located in schools, and temporary (Pop-up) makerspaces. Furthermore, we identified the need for investigations on the question of open makerspaces located in schools and the financial and organizational structure to operate them.