The shortage of graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), has led to numerous attempts to increase students’ interest in STEM. One emerging approach that has the potential to improve students’ motivation for STEM is integrated STEM education. Nonetheless, the implementation of this new instructional strategy is not straightforward due to the lack of consensus about instructional practices in integrated STEM. This paper contributes to this challenge by providing a well-defined framework for instructional practices in integrated STEM in secondary education, based on the results of a systematic review of existing literature. The framework contains five key principles: integration of STEM content, problem-centered learning, inquiry-based learning, design-based learning and cooperative learning. The proposed framework has several benefits, including its applicability in the classroom and the possibility to describe integrated STEM on multiple dimensions. Nonetheless, further research is necessary to investigate the effects of integrated STEM on students’ cognitive and affective learning outcomes.

Although the development of critical thinking (CT) is a major goal of science education, adequate emphasis has not been given to the measurement of CT skills in specific science domains such as physics. Recognizing that adequately assessing CT implies the assessment of both domain-specific and domain-general CT skills, this study reports on the development and validation of a test designed to measure students’ acquisition of CT skills in electricity and magnetism (CTEM). The CTEM items were designed to mirror the structural components of items identified in an existing standardized domain-general CT test, and targeted content from an introductory Electricity and Magnetism (E&M) course. A preliminary version of the CTEM test was initially piloted on three groups of samples: interviews with physics experts (N = 3), student cognitive interviews (N = 6), and small-scale paper and pencil administration (N = 19). Modifications were made afterwards and the test was administered to a different group of second-year students whose major was mechanical engineering (N = 45). The results showed that the internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .72) and inter-rater reliability (Cohen’s kappa = .83) of the CTEM test are acceptable. The findings overall suggest that the CTEM test can be used to measure the acquisition of domain-specific CT skills in E&M, and a good basis for future empirical research that focuses on the integration of CT skills within specific subject matter instruction. A broader CT assessment framework is proposed and possible research questions that can be addressed through the CTEM test are discussed.

In this paper, we examine student success on three variants of a test item given in different representational formats (verbal, pictorial, and graphical), with an isomorphic problem statement. We confirm results from recent papers where it is mentioned that physics students’ problem-solving competence can vary with representational format and that solutions can be triggered by particular details of the representation. Previous studies are complemented with a fine grained analysis of solution strategies. We find that students use different problem-solving strategies, depending on the representational format in which the problem is stated.

The ability to switch between various representations is an invaluable problem-solving skill in physics. In addition, research has shown that using multiple representations can greatly enhance a person’s understanding of mathematical and physical concepts. This paper describes a study of student difficulties regarding interpreting, constructing, and switching between representations of vector fields, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. We first identified to what extent students are fluent with the use of field vector plots, field line diagrams, and symbolic expressions of vector fields by conducting individual student interviews and analyzing in-class student activities. Based on those findings, we designed the Vector Field Representations test, a free response assessment tool that has been given to 196 second- and third-year physics, mathematics, and engineering students from four different universities. From the obtained results we gained a comprehensive overview of typical errors that students make when switching between vector field representations. In addition, the study allowed us to determine the relative prevalence of the observed difficulties. Although the results varied greatly between institutions, a general trend revealed that many students struggle with vector addition, fail to recognize the field line density as an indication of the magnitude of the field, confuse characteristics of field lines and equipotential lines, and do not choose the appropriate coordinate system when writing out mathematical expressions of vector fields.

Fostering the development of students’ critical thinking (CT) is regarded as an essential outcome of higher education. However, despite the large body of research on this topic, there has been little consensus on how educators best support the development of CT. In view of some of the controversies surrounding the teaching of CT skills in higher education, this study examined the effects of embedding CT instruction systematically in domain-specific courses (Immersion vs. Infusion) on the acquisition of domain-specific and domain-general CT skills and course achievement. First-year university students (N = 143) enrolled in an introductory physics course were assigned to one of three instructional conditions: Immersion, Infusion, and control. The Immersion and Infusion conditions followed lessons designed systematically based on the First Principles of Instruction model, whereas the control condition followed a regular instruction. Results showed that participants in the Immersion and Infusion conditions significantly outperformed those in the control condition on domain-specific CT proficiency and course achievement. However, neither the Immersion nor the Infusion condition was helpful in fostering the acquisition of domain-general CT skills. The findings generally demonstrated that embedding CT instruction systematically in domain-specific courses requires greater clarity about what set of CT skills could be targeted in domain-specific instruction, how specific subject-matter instruction could be designed considering CT as an integral part of domain-specific instruction, and how best CT outcomes be assessed. Some considerations for the design of CT-supportive learning environments are discussed.

Identifying effective instructional approaches that stimulate students’ critical thinking (CT) has been the focus of a large body of empirical research. However, there is little agreement on the instructional principles and procedures that are theoretically sound and empirically valid to developing both domain-specific and domain-general CT skills. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of systematically designed subject matter instruction in stimulating the development of domain-specific and domain-general CT skills, and to investigate the relationship between the two. The study employed a pretest–posttest quasi-experimental design with two conditions: 45 students participated in an experimental condition and 44 students in a control condition. A learning environment, in the context of a freshman physics course, was designed according to the First Principles of Instruction model. The experimental condition followed the designed learning environment, while the control condition followed regular subject matter instruction that was not designed according to the First Principles of Instruction model. The experimental condition scored significantly higher than the control condition on a domain-specific CT test. The results also showed that better performance on a domain-specific CT test explained a significant proportion of the variance on a domain-general CT test. However, the experimental learning environment did not result in a significantly greater pretest–posttest improvement in the acquisition of domain-general CT skills compared to the control learning environment. Instructional design principles that may contribute to the present understanding of the integration of CT skills within the regular subject matter instruction are discussed.