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In K-12 STEM education, engineering design is emphasized, as demonstrated by the bridge-design project. Due to the iterative nature of engineering design, engineering practice is frequently complicated and requires pedagogical guidance. As an emerging pedagogy in STEM education, REP (Reverse Engineering Pedagogy) is showing, but not enough, some benefits in several cases. This paper aims to explore the effects of REP in a bridge-design course. A comparison experiment, REP versus PBL (Project-Based Learning), was conducted by randomly forming two groups of fourth-grade students from a primary school in China. Results indicated that REP was more advantageous than PBL in terms of decreasing students' cognitive load, boosting their scientific knowledge level and engineering design skills. However, REP and PBL have the same effect on the students’ learning attitude and engagement. The key findings, possible reasons, and suggestions for practice are also discussed.

As a human-friendly system, the artificial intelligence (AI) robot is one of the critical applications in promoting precision education. Alongside the call for humanity-oriented applications in education, AI robot-supported precision education has developed into an active field, with increasing literature available. This study aimed to comprehensively analyze directions taken in the past in this research field to interpret a roadmap for future work. By adopting structural topic modeling, the Mann-Kendall trend test, and keyword analysis, we investigated the research topics and their dynamics in the field based on literature collected from Web of Science and Scopus databases up to 2021. Results showed that AI robots and chatbots had been widely used in different subject areas (e.g., early education, STEM education, medical, nursing, and healthcare education, and language education) for promoting collaborative learning, mobile/game-based learning, distance learning, and affective learning. However, a limited practice in developing true human-centered AI (HCAI)-supported educational robots is available. To advance HCAI in education and its application in educational robots for precision education, we suggested involving humans in AI robot design, thinking of individual learners, testing, and understanding the learner–AI robot interaction, taking an HCAI multidisciplinary approach in robot system development, and providing sufficient technical support for instructors during robot implementation.

STEM education has been extensively recognized by the Chinese government and the public nationally. However, there is no consistent terminology for naming STEM education in China, which leads to confusion about the use of STEM label in practice. Meanwhile, STEM-related evaluation has not received sufficient consideration by the Chinese government except for the Ministry of Education. In addition, macro-regulation and policy support at the national level in STEM education are limited, especially for vulnerable groups, contrasting with the United States. In order to fully release the enormous potential in developing science and technology, four approaches to reforming China’s STEM-related actions are discussed: (1) China should develop a consensus terminology based on national conditions as well as international communication. (2) China’s K-12 education should move forward along with four levels of STEM education and gradually reach the corresponding thinking degrees. (3) A multi-party collaborative service mechanism should be established. (4) It is critical to establish a school culture and environment that supports the integrated implementation of STEM-related education, including targeted instruction and training for vulnerable populations. In the future, a systematic top-level design is expected to promote the development of Chinese STEM education.

The increasingly ubiquitous use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education have brought vast boons to educators and learners but also caused technostress for some of them due to their maladaptation to ICT-supported work and learning. Scientific research on technostress in educational settings has been growing ever since this concept was first proposed in 1984 in the business sector. However, there is currently no systematic understanding of prior research on this issue. The present study aimed to bridge this gap by reviewing previous publications related to technostress in education through the bibliometric analysis approach, involving the joint use of Bibliometrix, CiteSpace, and VOSviewer. Based on the analysis of 125 publications retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science, this study found that the annual scientific production increased slowly from 1991 to 2018 but skyrocketed from 2019 to 2022, coinciding with widespread online learning caused by COVID-19. Most papers were published by the following countries: China, the USA, Spain, Malaysia, and India. The salient research themes included the effect of COVID-19 on technostress, technostress in higher education, technostress among teachers, and countermeasures against technostress. Thematic evolution analysis revealed the development of this topic over time. This study also identified the most productive authors, institutions, and landmark publications in this research field. This study facilitates a better understanding of technostress research in educational settings spanning about three decades and can inspire countermeasures against this issue so as to maximize the bright side associated with the use of ICT.

Many countries and regions have reached a consensus to promote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the past decade. A body of studies have demonstrated that the design and organization of interdisciplinary teaching activities are important for the effective implementation of STEM education. So far, however, little attention has been paid to the taxonomy of teaching models in STEM education. This paper aims to propose a taxonomy based on the dimensions of learning outcomes (i.e., product-oriented and knowledge-oriented) and teaching process (i.e., forward teaching model and reverse teaching model) in STEM education. Through the intersection of the above two dimensions, four teaching models in STEM education have emerged, including project-based learning (PBL), reverse engineering (RE), scientific inquiry (SI), and troubleshooting/debugging (T/D). In addition, four cases are introduced to explain how these four teaching models operate in STEM education. The implications of this work for future research are also discussed. It is promising that the study will be valuable to enrich the current research, and shed light on the theory and practice of STEM education.

Background: Science, technology, reading and writing, engineering, art, and mathematics (STREAM) education is an emerging form of STEM/STEAM education. STEM education research focuses on how students acquire knowledge and skills. The potential of reading and writing to effectively support students in STEM education has been the focus of research. Although researchers have noted the role of language, they have not explored it in depth. Purpose/Hypothesis: This paper presents a systematic review of STREAM education to clarify how reading/writing is integrated with STEM/STEAM education and explores the level of cognitive goals in instruction. Design/Method: By searching for articles related to STREAM education up to 2021, we coded some important features of STREAM education and highlighted the correlations between two or more features. Results: (i) STREAM education has developed rapidly in the past 3 years; (ii) Writing appeared in STEM education before reading, and the trend of research is spreading from college to lower school levels; (iii) The combination of reading and writing is better in primary school and is underemphasized in middle school; (iv) The cognitive goals of STREAM education in higher education are slightly higher overall than those before college; (v) Current studies focus on the reflection process of the course, while the main process deserves more attention; and (vi) reading/writing activities in the reflection process achieved the highest levels of cognition than in the entry and main processes. Conclusion: The integration of language activities (reading and writing) into STREAM education is a trend toward disciplinary integration, which helps develop students' cognition and form knowledge constructs.

The digital divide is an important issue that has been addressed in the world for several decades. However, little attention has been paid to the special population that emerged in cities of developing countries: rural migrant workers. Previous studies have shown that family background is a potential determinant of digital inequality among schoolchildren. The study aims to explore whether the disadvantaged conditions of rural migrant workers have an impact on their children (i.e., migrant students). A questionnaire survey and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) were conducted to examine the digital divide in information and communication technology (ICT) access, ICT usage, and ICT skill between urban and migrant students. We draw upon 1,230 fifth and eighth grade students from six urban public schools in China. Results indicate that all the indicators of the digital divide are statistically non-significant between the two groups, and the predictor of parental education level is invalid to an extent. Additional analyses suggest that providing equal opportunities like Chinese government for disadvantaged migrant students to enroll in urban public schools would reduce the digital divide between migrant students and urban students.

In recent years, Game-Based Learning (GBL) has been widely adopted in various educational settings. This paper aims to review empirical studies that adopt GBL in the field of AI education and explore its future research perspectives. After a systematic keyword search in the online database and a snowballing approach, a total of 125 empirical papers with 133 studies were targeted as samples. Results indicated that the games in AI education are mainly fell into five categories: Puzzle games are the most used in the curriculum (27.07%), followed by Reasoning strategy games (23.31%), Robot games (18.05%), Role-playing games (9.02%) and Simulation games (6.77%). Among them, 22.39% of games were with real characters, 11.94% were with virtual characters and 64.18% were with no characters. Besides, games were used in three main forms in AI education: games as teaching tools (78.95%), games as student works (12.03%), and games as a competing mechanism (9.02%). Researchers mainly paid attention to the effect of GBL on students' Opinions and Attitude (52.96%) and Learning achievement (24.04%), while the other three categories such as Skills and ability, Interaction, and Cognition were not extensively measured. The cross-sectional analysis, research gaps, and potential directions for future research were also discussed.

Brief Summary: Technology-Based Embodied Learning (TBEL) is a hotspot in learning science. By systematically reviewing 49 SSCI journal articles, this paper revealed the relationship between any two of sample group, sample size, duration, subject distribution, research design, and measurement instrument, etc. In general, the major results showed TBEL is helpful for students to enhance the knowledge comprehension and skills, improve long-term retention and transfer, et al. But sometimes, the effect of embodied learning may be limited by types of learning, age of learners, or redundant strategy. We also derive some limitations and future research directions from reviewed papers. Abstract: Technology-Based Embodied Learning (TBEL) has become a hotspot in learning science. This paper systematically reviewed 49 SSCI journal articles. The results mainly indicate that: (1) The learning phase is proportional to sample size; (2) The sample size of experiments is inversely proportional to the duration; (3) The experiment duration may be inversely proportional to the learning phase; (4) The integration between experiments and various subjects in middle and high school still needs to be improved; (5) A variety of measurement tools are used for almost every type of research design; (6) TBEL has been integrated with a variety of embodied learning theories in various disciplines, especially mathematics and language; and (7) Comparing with other interaction modes, tangible interaction is more conducive to achieve a higher degree of embodied learning, et al. In general, the major results showed TBEL is helpful for students to enhance the knowledge comprehension and skills, improve long-term retention and transfer, achieve high levels of engagement and attention, increase positive learning attitude, and decrease cognitive load. But sometimes, the effect of embodied learning may be limited by types of learning, age of learners, or redundant strategy. We also derive some future research directions from reviewed papers.