This study aimed to provide an overview of trends in STEAM education in Japan, identify the challenges and factors that make implementing STEAM education in schools difficult, and identify the challenges and factors that hinder effective collaboration between industry, government, academia, and the public. First, to understand the current state of STEAM education research in science education, related papers were extracted from a domestic journal database, and the research content was categorized into eight topics using BERTopic, a machine learning method. Next, we focused on research on practice within the topics and, based on the relevant papers, examined the factors that hinder the introduction of cross-disciplinary learning in schools, focusing on “theory,” “curriculum,” “practice,” “human resource development,” and “informal education.” STEAM education requires curriculum management that accounts not only for the school curriculum but also for informal learning outside it. It also requires improving teachers’ qualifications and abilities to set practical problems and design creative activities to solve them. Future science education research will address the need to enrich individual subject education and cross-disciplinary learning by integrating formal and informal learning.

Interdisciplinary STEAM education is garnering significant global attention within secondary and higher education, driven by the imperative to address complex societal challenges. However, within the domain of learning assessment for interdisciplinary STEAM, methods for adequately evaluating the learning processes that involve the high-level integration of multiple disciplines remain insufficiently established. This study aims to elucidate current trends in learning assessment within interdisciplinary STEAM education, situating these trends within the broader context of interdisciplinary higher education. Furthermore, the study conducts theoretical considerations of these trends, grounded in boundary-crossing theory. Finally, based on this analysis, this study proposes new prospects for the theoretical and practical advancement of interdisciplinary STEAM education.

The purpose of this study was to develop a teaching material, “Thermosensitive Liquid”, and to conduct experiments using it at a workshop for elementary school teachers to discuss and verify its usability. The following three points were clarified.

1. All of the participants’ observation records corresponded to the correct water heating concept. This indicated that the “Thermosensitive Liquid” was appropriate as a teaching material for investigating how water heats up.

2. The time required for the experiment was suitable for an experiment to be conducted within the class time of elementary schools.

3. The participants’ awareness of the experiment was indicating a positive response. The positive factors were that the temperature change was clearly visible and occurred at low temperatures.

The ability to critically evaluate the reliability of scientific information online is required, yet there is a shortage of teaching materials for secondary education. This study developed foldable paper-based teaching materials to promote understanding of reliability criteria for scientific information on social media and implemented them in high school. The results revealed that students perceived the learning as being of moderate difficulty and gained confidence in their ability to recognize fake news. Specifically, we examined whether students recognized and attempted to interpret information related to the intended reliability criteria through the developed materials, and whether the use of the materials contributed to students’ overall understanding of these reliability criteria. In particular, the review rate tended to be high in content-related criteria. Regarding the latter, since understanding significantly improved through learning, it can be said that the use of the materials contributed to students’ understanding of reliability criteria. However, understanding of composition-related criteria tended to be high even before learning began. On the other hand, trends varied depending on the item, and it is considered that additional information, such as explanations by teachers, is necessary for understanding unfamiliar information. This teaching material is a promising educational resource for fostering science media literacy. However, its limitations have also become apparent. Improvements such as transitioning to an online format are expected to enable more practical application.

In the past years, many countries worldwide have shown increasing interest in STEM education, which integrates science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, no model of the learning process for implementing STEM education in science lessons in Japan has been presented. In the United States, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has developed unique Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) educational materials that focus on the Engineering Design Process (EDP) as a thinking process. On the other hand, the 5E instructional model is the most widely used model in science education for both inquiry-based and STEM education. The purpose of this study is to examine the characteristics of NASA’s EDP and to clarify the relationship between the EDP and the 5E instructional model through analyzing the STEM educational material “Design a foam rocket with stabilizing fins” developed by NASA for secondary education. The results revealed the following four points regarding the EDP. First, the four cyclic stages of the EDP, “Plan” “Create,” “Test” and “Improve” are repeated. Second, in the “Imagine” stage of the EDP, students formulate a hypothesis using “inference” skills. Third, in the “improving” stage of the EDP, students formulate a new hypothesis using “inference” skills after using “reasoning” skills. Fourth, the four cyclic stages of the EDP correspond to the “Elaboration” phase of the 5E instructional model. In Japan, the introduction of EDP into manufacturing activities suggests the possibility of improving manufacturing in science education.

In this study, a simple polarized light microscope using a tablet device was made so that each student can observe a thin slice of rock. The purpose of this study is to deepen understanding of igneous rocks by understanding the difference between volcanic rocks and plutonic rocks and identifying minerals contained in igneous rocks in the study of igneous rocks in lower secondary school. The use of a tablet terminal makes it easy to keep records. In addition, we focused on making the microscope inexpensive and capable of identifying minerals. As a result of using the simple polarized light microscope, students were able to understand the difference between volcanic rocks and plutonic rocks and to identify minerals.

In science classes in elementary school teacher training courses of universities, problems may arise because teachers who are science experts do not understand non-expert students well. In this study, we investigated the actual state of students’ awareness and understanding of science and tried to clarify what university teachers should understand to conduct easy-to-understand classes. According to the results of the survey, students’ interest in science is similar to those of non-science university students in Japan, and the main reasons why students who are non-experts in science find it difficult to understand what science experts talk about are the frequent use of technical terms, lack of explanations with diagrams and images, too rapid speech, and indifference of science experts to non-experts. In addition, it was found that the level of understanding of science terminology in junior high school science is sufficient to be treated as pre-learned content to review, but the level of understanding of some terms in physics and earth science is low, and caution is required. Regarding memorable science experiences, more students answered about what they had experienced in science classes (especially in elementary school) than about experiences outside of class.

The purpose of this paper is to theoretically clarify the diversity of reading comprehension types in solving word problems in arithmetic and mathematics, based on the relationship between subject-general reading comprehension and subject-specific reading comprehension. To achieve this goal, the author first clarified the relationship between the problem-solving process for word problems and mathematical modeling. Next, to capture the reading aspects of word problems, the author focused on two cognitive behaviors—“top-down processing” and “bottom-up processing”—and developed a framework for identifying reading comprehension types. Finally, to verify how the proposed classification of reading comprehension types can be described in concrete problems, the author analyzed textbook problems as examples. The discussion revealed two key points: (1) the detailed mental processes involved in reading comprehension for word problems, and (2) the fact that situations of “inability to comprehend” are actually diverse. Since the arguments in this paper are purely theoretical considerations, analyzing actual student answers is desirable to understand student realities.

One of the challenges in mathematics at public correspondence high schools is the low credit acquisition rate. The purpose of this study was to clarify the effectiveness of the design and practice of face-to-face instruction based on the personalized system of instruction (PSI) to improve the credit acquisition rate of Mathematics I in a public correspondence high school. Among the 11 characteristics of face-to-face instruction design, 6 were features of PSI, and 5 were unique characteristics of this study. The practice was conducted in consideration of the students’ difficulties in interpersonal relationships. The credit completion rate, the pass rate for credit requirements, and exam scores were analyzed. Furthermore, free-response statements were analyzed. The results of the credit completion rate analysis suggest that the practice of personalized in-person instruction including PSI was effective in credit acquisition compared to the practice of traditional lecture-style in-person instruction. The results of the free-response statements analysis suggested that the three features of “individualized instruction,” “self-paced learning,” and “formative assessment tests” were highly valued by the students. Future work is to conduct practical research to further improve the credit acquisition rate, and to conduct research to support the improvement of in-person instruction based on the findings of this study.

This study analyzes a sixth-grade STEM lesson plan implemented in Ontario, Canada—specifically the “Make a Glider” lesson—to elucidate the function of critical thinking within its problem-solving framework. The analysis yields two principal findings. First, the lesson strategically integrates “Strand D: Structures and Mechanisms” with “Strand A: STEM Skills and Connections” to deepen pupils’ conceptual understanding of “Flight,” support systematic inquiry into glider‑flight phenomena, and foster the application of critical thinking to authentic, real‑world problem contexts. Second, critical thinking skills—such as questioning, predicting, analyzing, examining perspectives, and identifying issues—are consistently and iteratively mobilized throughout the problem-solving sequence. This pattern indicates that critical thinking and problem solving operate as an interdependent, unified competency rather than as discrete skill sets. Collectively, these findings suggest that in STEM education, where the cultivation of critical thinking is a central pedagogical objective, embedding iterative critical‑thinking processes within science and technology‑related problem solving may substantively enhance elementary pupils’ problem‑solving proficiency.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the characteristics of changes in how sets were introduced into elementary school arithmetic during the new math movement in Japan, as presented in Ministry of Education-approved textbooks, and to interpret the historical significance in mathematics education of the concept of sets addressed here. The author compared and analyzed textbooks published by six textbook publishers: the 1971, 1974, and 1977 editions as textbooks during the modernization period; the 1968 edition as a pre-new math textbook; and the 1980 edition as a post-new math textbook. As a result, the way sets were treated varied among textbooks. Differences were seen not only in the units introducing sets but also in how instructional content using sets was handled. After the new math movement, sets were removed from the instructional content, but the same instructional topics were still included. However, these instructional topics also appear in pre-new math textbooks, so this did not mean that a new way of thinking was introduced by the new math movement. In other words, the feature was that ideas that had existed before the new math movement were positioned from the perspective of sets during the new math movement in Japan.

Educational ICT is not solely sustained by initiatives within schools; rather, it is founded upon the interrelations among a diverse array of stakeholders, including private enterprises. To ensure the continuous development of educational ICT, it is essential to first attain a structural understanding of these interrelations. Accordingly, this study analyzes and examines the applicability of the ecosystem concept—commonly employed in the business domain—to the context of educational ICT. Following a review of the diversity of research on general business ecosystems and the lack of structural clarity in ecosystem models currently applied within Japan’s educational sector, this study identifies cases involving Chinese enterprises as precedents for educational ICT ecosystems. Building upon these prior models, the study explores the potential for constructing a model tailored to Japan by shifting the perspective from enterprise-centric to learner-centric, incorporating Japan-specific contextual factors, and integrating feedback from various stakeholders. This paper proposes this model-building endeavor as a new theoretical framework, referred to herein as the “Educational ICT Ecosystem Theory.”