Informing Recommended Makerspace Outcomes Through Linguistic Analytics

An after-school maker club collected student reflections on makerspace projects in different formats over two years: private written reflections captured in the 3D GameLab gamification platform and video-recorded reflections posted in the more social FlipGrid platform. Club mentors selected these documentation platforms on the basis of their motivational affordances thought to encourage club members to document their work. Transcribed documentation was analyzed using Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) software to generate linguistic profiles for comparison. Differences between written and video-recorded documentation suggest: private, written documentation is more likely to capture evidence of cognitive processing and achievement- or risk-oriented drives, but may be more negative in tone; semi-public, video documentation is more likely to capture evidence of social affiliation-oriented drives and may be more positive in tone. Future research should investigate linguistic impacts given merged approaches of reflective writing for social spaces, or reflective writing in social groups