In Society 5.0, Education 5.0 enables economic development with the resolution of social problems through advanced technologies and manages technological power appropriately in terms of a humanistic perspective. Education 5.0 is a future education model aiming to encourage student ownership to form a contemporary student-participatory curriculum with teacher mentoring. While STEM education as an Education 5.0 enabler is the key to realizing Industry 5.0 to personalize and rehumanize the manufacturing process, this paper will look at the need to better align secondary STEM education with Vocational and Professional Education and Training (VPET) initiative by transdisciplinary integration to facilitate Hong Kong better transiting to Industry 5.0. The objective is to examine the secondary STEM education development and its potential role and benefits of creating a foundation of transdisciplinary STEM secondary education in overcoming the current shortcomings of the vertical division of academic disciplines. It seeks to restore the VPET nature in the STEM scholarship and emanate from the secondary STEM curriculum renovations and transformations to tackle social and economic challenges, so the processes of STEM pedagogy will be changed significantly to adapt humanization empowerment by adjusting the methods and approaches to achieve new industrialization and help align with the call of Education 5.0 in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

STEM education has taken on high importance in Hong Kong K-12 education landscape. Despite policy advocacy and curriculum endeavour, the quality of STEM education varies significantly between schools. Research literature indicates that high-quality STEM education requires teachers’ rigorous delivery of topics and appropriate pedagogies, and one approach to improve such practices is teacher professional development (TPD). However, because current research on TPD has not given explicit consideration to the complex nature of STEM education, there remains a lack of a clear blueprint of how TPD should be conducted to build teachers’ capacity for STEM education effectively. This paper presents a case study that explores the necessary attributes and identifies the missing links of STEM education TPD by understanding how various TPD models supported a Hong Kong K-12 school embracing STEM education. Qualitative data collection methods, including semi-structured interviews and classroom observations, were employed to draw a picture of TPD implementations in the selected school. The findings suggest that, at the macro-level, effective STEM TPD should not stop at employing mixed use of TPD models; the models have to be integrated organically with respect to a school-based STEM curriculum implementation approach. A collaborative culture between teachers must be cultivated for effective inter-disciplinary integration. Collaborative action research should also be promoted to develop collective wisdom of STEM pedagogies. At the micro-level, TPACK and cross-disciplinary integration skills need to be focusing areas of STEM TPD. With these guiding principles, some possible strategies for effective STEM education TPD are suggested. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Background Despite the focus of many global education systems on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, research on teachers' concerns about this relatively new educational phenomenon remains scarce. Purpose This study used the concerns-based adoption model as the theoretical framework to examine the primary concerns expressed by teachers about STEM education and identified a typology of teachers based on the response patterns of their concerns. Sample A regionally representative sample of 331 primary and secondary school teachers of STEM-related subjects in Hong Kong participated in this study. Design and methods Data were collected from the teachers through an online, self-reported survey. Latent class analysis was used to profile teachers' concerns about STEM education in this study, and multinomial logistic regression analysis was performed to regress the latent class outcome variable on the covariates. Results The majority of the teachers reported high levels of concern at all five stages of STEM education implementation, namely evaluation, information, management, consequence, and refocusing. Latent class analysis revealed three classes of teachers who were extremely concerned (49.1%), considerably concerned (43.5%), or moderately concerned (7.4%) about STEM education. Multinomial logistic regression analysis indicated that the teaching sector (primary or secondary) and participation in STEM education training significantly contributed to the prediction of the latent class outcome variable. Conclusion Given that 96% of the teachers in this study were trained in STEM education through workshops, seminars, courses, and trips, these findings highlight the necessity of designing personalized professional learning experiences for teachers and provide empirically supported evidence to indicate teachers' preparedness and readiness to adopt STEM education as an educational innovation and directions for future research in related areas. This

This article begins with a historical overview of the STEM education policy and related classroom practices in Hong Kong. Against the backdrop that the Hong Kong education authority has been promoting STEM education over the past few years, there has been a pressing need for effective strategies of implementing STEM education in the context of reduced class size classrooms (i.e. small class teaching). With a view to addressing this need, this article strives to exemplify the incorporation of STEM education into small class teaching settings. Intended as a conceptual paper drawing on design approaches for STEM lessons and a small class teaching framework, the article demonstrates the relevance of STEM education to small class teaching. Two illustrative lesson design examples are provided to showcase how the design approaches and framework can be operationalised. In addition, the article also offers a thoughtful discussion concerning the potential challenges of delivering the two sample lessons as well as the coping strategies. It contributes to understanding of STEM education theories and provides a valuable reference for educational practitioners. Copyright © 2022 Springer.

In many disciplines of STEM education, online experiments (OEs), commonly called remote-controlled experiments, become an emerging practice in technology-enhanced learning because of their many merits perceived in educational research. We recently formulated an innovative, low-cost, and open-source approach to developing new OEs rapidly. It won a gold medal and a special prize in an international innovation and invention competition in 2018. Using this new approach, teachers and students can easily access OEs with a lightweight web browser using any hardware and any operating system without installing additional software or apps. They can observe and/or control the experiments and collect authentic data (over a very short or long time) for further analysis by plotting graphs and/or conducting calculations to obtain important results. Some well-accepted instructional approaches or pedagogies have been integrated into online science/STEM experiments, which can also be aligned with school-based curricula to provide self-contained courseware for students’ online self-regulated learning. In this chapter, we will focus on whether OEs could really and effectively provide the essential elements of experimental learning to ‘school students’ as expected in traditional laboratory work. From our pilot implementation in four Hong Kong (HK) and Mainland China (CHINA) secondary schools with a total of 172 participants, we explored the OE experiences of different experiments and cognitive performance among students from different regions and genders using the conventional mixed methods research and design-based research. Students’ feedback and suggestions for improvement of the OEs were also analysed together with some specific implications for science/STEM education. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s).

To enhance understanding of factors that may improve students’ STEM career participation, we explored Hong Kong secondary students’ self-perceptions of STEM subjects and career interests using the STEM Semantic Survey and Career Interest Survey questionnaire. Results showed that most students thought technology was more appealing than science, mathematics, and engineering subjects. Science was the only subject in which male and female students showed similar attitudes. A gender gap was found in these students’ career interests in STEM. Students held a neutral to mildly positive stance toward a career related to science, technology, and mathematics but had the least interest in a career related to engineering. Males showed more interest than females in careers related to all four subject areas. Results revealed a need to stimulate students’ interest in STEM education and search for ways to make a connection between STEM subjects and future careers through STEM teaching in the classroom. More attention should be paid to encouraging girls to engage in STEM-related activities. Copyright © 2022 Technology Education Program, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Mathematical modeling is considered a bridge to STEM education and has been incorporated into K–12 mathematics curriculums in various countries. However, it has a relatively short history in Hong Kong schools. The lack of high-quality, relevant exemplars of mathematical modeling activities is a challenge to teacher practice in this area. Hence, this study aims to establish a design framework for mathematical modeling activities suitable for teachers and students in Hong Kong. We explore the design and content of the official mathematical modeling exemplars published by the Hong Kong Education Bureau using a document analysis approach. The findings provide the basis for developing a framework to be used in the future design of mathematical modeling activities. Four exemplars were found and analyzed in terms of their structural components, level of learning experience in mathematical modeling, and design characteristics. Based on our findings, we discussed various strategies to enhance the design of a mathematical modeling activity, including setting diversified learning objectives, cross-subject collaboration when formulating the problem context and instructions, designing more activities suitable for average and underperforming students, emphasizing the evaluation of modeling outcomes, and providing relevant supporting materials. Our study thus lays the groundwork for advancing the teaching and learning of mathematical modeling in school contexts. Copyright © 2022 by the authors.

Aviation is an interdisciplinary subject that has influenced human development over the last century. Learning about aviation exposes students to principles of flight, language, earth science, aeronautical engineering, flight training and airmanship. In K-12 education, educators have started to encourage children to learn science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects via aviation-themed activities to develop future scientists and engineers. This study investigated upper primary students' motivations to learn STEM via engaging in flight simulation experiences. The sample consisted of 345 10- to 13-year-old Hong Kong students from 8 primary schools. A modified version of the 31-item Science Motivation Questionnaire II (SMQ II) with four subscales with a focus on aviation was used. The relationships between intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, self-efficacy and peer support across gender and performance were examined. The data obtained were analysed using factor analysis and a regression model. According to our model, students are most strongly motivated by peer support, followed by intrinsic motivation, and they are least motivated by self-efficacy. As expected, our results indicate that a gender gap exists in aviation-themed STEM learning. These findings can help educators to better understand students' perceptions of aviation science and further develop related learning activities. Copyright ©2021 Springer.

For over a decade, STEM education has been developed as an integrative curriculum for promoting students' performance in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, its development in Hong Kong is still at an early stage, and more studies are necessary to explore the impact of STEM education on local students. In addition, gender stereotyping is a long-standing issue that needs to be addressed in information communications technology (ICT) education. Through surveys used to evaluate a local ICT training workshop in Hong Kong with 411 female students in junior secondary school, this study provides empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of a STEM education program for promoting student development and alleviating gender stereotyping in ICT. The results showed that an inquiry-based model of learning, which focuses on students' problem-solving skills and analytical ability, significantly enhanced ICT self-efficacy and reduced perceived difficulties in using ICT. Moreover, ICT-related gender stereotyping was associated with both ICT self-efficacy and perceived difficulties in using ICT, indicating that gender stereotyping in ICT can be reduced by granting more ICT learning opportunities to female students. Although the perceived value of studying ICT did not show a statistically significant improvement as a result of the ICT workshop, perceived value played a critical role in moderating the effect of ICT self-efficacy on ICT-related gender stereotyping and mediated the relationship between perceived difficulties in using ICT and ICT-related gender stereotyping. It is recommended that more emphasis should be placed on promoting perceived values in future ICT programs. Copyright ©2021 Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd.

Purpose:Amid rapid technological development in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, this article engages with an important question, especially in the context of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education: Can technology itself transform teaching and learning? Design/Approach/Methods:Constructionist learning responds to the current "maker movement," which draws upon the innate human desire to make things with our hands. Two important elements of constructionist learning-technology literacy and engineering design-have implications for meeting the global need for expertise in the STEM disciplines. To date, the practice of teaching and learning mathematics remains to be dominated by manipulation of symbols with the paper-and-pencil medium. In response, this article discusses how constructionist learning can play an important role in teaching and learning school mathematics via a transdisciplinary approach for STEM education.Findings:Two examples of the authors' empirical research on constructionist learning in school mathematics classrooms with 3D printing are illustrated. Findings suggest that the 3D Printing Pens played an active role in the construction of artifact (physically) and mathematical meaning (cognitively).Originality/Value:The empirical results as discussed in this article warrant more design-based classroom interventions to further investigate students' constructionist learning in technological, hands-on, and innovation-oriented environments. Copyright ©2021 SAGE Publications.