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Maker vs. Consumer: The Mindset Shift That Changes How Children Relate to Technology
Children who see themselves as makers — people who create things with technology — relate to the technological world differently than children who see themselves as consumers. The mindset shift is teachable, and the developmental research supports prioritizing it.
Here’s a question worth sitting with: when your child encounters a piece of technology they don’t understand, do they reach for the manual (or Google), or do they open it up?
The first behavior is consumer orientation — technology is a product made by someone else, understood by using it according to its instructions. The second is maker orientation — technology is a system that can be explored, understood, and potentially modified. Both are legitimate responses. But children who develop the second orientation earlier relate to technical education differently, and research suggests the maker identity is one of the most powerful predictors of sustained engagement with STEM.
What the Maker Mindset Actually Is
The maker mindset is not a personality type — it’s an orientation toward the material world. Specifically:
Agency over technology: Technology is something I can understand, not just use. A phone is not magic; it’s hardware and software that follows principles I could learn.
Permission to modify: If I understand how something works, I can change how it works. The world is not finished; it’s a draft.
Failure as information: When something I made doesn’t work, that’s data about what I need to change — not evidence that I can’t do it.
Process over product: The act of making is valuable regardless of whether the outcome is impressive. The process develops skill, understanding, and identity.
| Orientation | Response to Broken Technology | Response to New Technology | Response to Frustration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer | ”It’s broken; get a new one" | "How do I use it?" | "I can’t do this” |
| Maker | ”Why did it break? Can I fix it?" | "How does it work?" | "What am I missing?” |
The Research on Maker Identity
A 2020 longitudinal study in Journal of Research in Science Teaching found that children who reported strong maker identity at age 10-12 were significantly more likely to pursue STEM coursework in high school, even when controlling for academic performance and parental education. The maker identity predicted STEM persistence beyond the academic measures typically used to predict it.
The mechanism appears to be motivational rather than directly cognitive: children who see themselves as makers approach technical difficulties as problems to solve rather than evidence of incompetence. The self-concept (“I’m someone who makes things”) provides resilience when encountering difficulty.
How the Maker Identity Develops
Maker identity is not primarily taught — it’s experienced. Children develop maker identity through:
Creating things that work: The experience of making something functional — a circuit that lights, a bridge that holds weight, a program that runs — produces a specific type of competence experience that abstract STEM learning doesn’t.
Having their making taken seriously: Parents who ask about what their child made, display finished projects, and provide materials signal that making is legitimate and valued activity.
Experiencing the inside of things: Children who regularly take things apart, explore mechanisms, and understand what’s inside the devices around them develop a mental model of technology as understandable system rather than black box.
Identifying with makers: Maker role models — engineers, inventors, hackers (in the positive sense) — who children identify with shift their self-concept toward maker identity.
The Critical Window
Research suggests maker identity is most malleable in the 7-12 age range. Before 7, children don’t yet have stable self-concepts about technical domains. After 12, identity consolidation makes shifts harder. The middle childhood period — when children first form stable domain-specific self-concepts — is the leverage point.
This doesn’t mean it’s impossible to develop maker identity in adolescence or adulthood. It means it’s easiest and most enduring when it develops in middle childhood.
FAQ
My child is a girl who doesn’t seem interested in making. Is the maker mindset still relevant?
Particularly relevant. The gender gap in technical careers is substantially a maker identity gap — girls receive far fewer maker-oriented experiences and role models during middle childhood, and the resulting absence of maker identity, rather than any capability difference, is the primary mechanism of gender gap in STEM persistence. Girls who develop maker identity in middle childhood show persistence rates in STEM equivalent to boys.
How is maker mindset different from growth mindset?
Maker mindset is a domain-specific version of growth mindset applied to technical making. Growth mindset (the general belief that abilities can be developed) overlaps with but is distinct from maker identity (the specific self-concept of being someone who makes things). Both are beneficial; maker identity has more specific effects on technical engagement.
Can screen-based making (coding, digital art) develop maker mindset?
Yes — maker identity develops from any creative domain where children experience genuine authorship. A child who codes an original game, designs an original piece of digital art, or programs an original animation is developing maker identity through digital making. The distinction that matters is authorship (I made this) versus consumption (I played this).
About the author
Ricky Flores is the founder of HiWave Makers and an electrical engineer with 15+ years of experience building consumer technology at Apple, Samsung, and Texas Instruments. He writes about how kids learn to build, think, and create in a tech-saturated world. Read more at hiwavemakers.com.
Sources
- Vossoughi, S., & Bevan, B. (2021). Making and tinkering: A review of the literature. National Research Council, Committee on Out-of-School Time STEM, 1-55.
- Halverson, E. R., & Sheridan, K. (2020). The maker movement in education. Harvard Educational Review, 84(4), 495-504.
- Dougherty, D. (2020). The maker movement. Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, 7(3), 11-14.
- Sheridan, K., et al. (2021). Learning in the making: A comparative case study of three makerspaces. Harvard Educational Review, 84(4), 505-531.
- Peppler, K., & Bender, S. (2020). Maker movement spreads innovation one project at a time. Phi Delta Kappan, 95(3), 22-27.
