This special issue on early STEM education collects ten articles that present a series of studies covering topics about curriculum and pedagogy, teacher education and professional development, family environment, and inclusive education for enhancing young children’s STEM learning experiences. These collected studies have presented empirical evidence obtained from diverse cultural contexts, including Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Mainland China, Singapore, and the United States. With varying designs and diversified approaches, these studies jointly present a vivid picture of the STEM world and may therefore provide some contributions to theoretical developments and practical improvements. Copyright © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This study explored the demographic predictors of teachers’ stages of concern (SoC) for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in Hong Kong. Results of multiple regression analysis demonstrated that teaching sector and participation in STEM education training predicted four SoC, whereas teaching subject area predicted two SoC. We discussed the significance of these findings by adopting a personalized approach to teacher professional learning. Copyright © ICCE 2020 - 28th International Conference on Computers in Education, Proceedings. All rights reserved.

There is an increasing need in Hong Kong kindergartens for exploring children with exposure to Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math (STEAM) in school settings. The aim is not the subject-based learning but the way of integrating the STEAM concepts in the holistic learning experience. Guiding children to explore the concepts in the process of solving problems, providing hands-on experience to stimulate children's intrinsic motivation. However, the challenge is apparent that the lack of professional development to prepare the teachers for STEAM education in early childhood education. This project adopted a Pedagogical Play-framework (Edwards, 2017) to prepare kindergarten teachers to integrate STEAM education through play. Accordingly, three types of play were explored, including 1) open-ended play, 2) modelled play and 3) purposefully framed play. The initial finding indicates that kindergarten teachers showed the positive attitude to involve STEAM education in the classroom practice, and used the Pedagogical Play-framework for improving children’s engagement. Teachers were lack of the subject concepts especially the science and the engineering areas. More school-based support were needed to create the multimodal learning spaces.越來越多香港的幼稚園開始探索融入STEAM的元素，包括科學、科技、工程、藝術及數學的學習範疇。但其目標不是主張孩子學習獨立學科，而是希望進行統整的學習，在解決問題的過程中探索所需的概念，以動手解難為基礎讓孩子整合學習經驗，激發孩子的內在學習動機。然而教師培訓是STEAM教育在幼兒教育推行的一個難點。本研究以一個幼師培訓課程為例，使用教學遊戲架構（Pedagogical Play-framework）來透過遊戲來設計STEAM教學活動，三類型遊戲包括1）開放式遊戲，2）示範式遊戲以及3）目的性的遊戲。研究初步發現大部分教師對STEAM教學的態度積極，使用教學遊戲架構能夠幫助教師提升兒童參與程度。但初步的研究結果顯示教師缺乏STEAM的學科知識，特別是在科學和工程方面，以及需要更多的校本支持來設計多元學習空間。 Copyright © 2018 Learning & Teaching Expo.

Although encouraging student creativity is a commonly recognised goal of STEM education, there is a lack of research in this area. In this study, the effects of epistemic beliefs on STEM creativity and the mediation of intellectual risk-taking were investigated. The subjects were 461 primary students in Hong Kong. The findings revealed that (i) intellectual risk-taking was a significant and positive predictor of STEM creativity; (ii) the certainty and justification dimensions of epistemic beliefs had direct, negative and significant impacts on STEM creativity; and (iii) the complexity dimension of epistemic beliefs had both direct and indirect significantly positive impacts on STEM creativity, and the indirect impacts were mediated by intellectual risk-taking. This study revealed the complicated relationships between different orientations in epistemic beliefs and STEM creativity, which include both constraining and facilitating effects, and both direct and indirect impacts. We argue that although reducing naïve and relativistic epistemic beliefs is essential for the development of creativity in STEM education, the effects of cultivating mature epistemic beliefs may not be sufficient. Further direct and explicit approaches are required to more effectively enhance students’ STEM creativity. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This commentary aims to discuss an overarching boundary crossing framework under which integrated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) pedagogy can be conceptualized. Four potential learning dialogical processes for boundary crossing are presented and used as the main theoretical construct for the discussion. A proposal of an interactive pedagogical framework is put forward accompanied by a provisional statement to relate the connective factors that are critical in the formation of a boundary crossing STEM pedagogy. These factors are situated learning, communities of practices, problem solving, learning dialogical processes, and boundary objects. A Hong Kong school STEM case is employed to illustrate the applicability of this framework. The commentary ends with a reflective remark on boundary crossing STEM pedagogy. Copyright ©SpringerOpen.

This study questions whether Hong Kong (HK) students' engineering aspirations are facilitated within their secondary school STEM curriculum or elsewhere. HK students perform strongly on international science and mathematics assessments, although its economy is reliant on a dwindling number of engineers. We consider STEM education metaphors, recent government attempts to improve STEM education and lack of Asian STEM literature. A representative twenty-four students (sex, age, secondary school type) were interviewed to elicit school/home e/STM (engineering within/STM subjects) experiences and aspirations. Thematic content analyses found: e/STM aspirations most susceptible to (pathway-based) home and cultural inequalities; younger students excluded from engineering interests; and, inhibiting in-school activities/pedagogies. Within this high-performing Asian society, inhibitors to engineering engagement were similar to current Western findings. Copyright ©Elsevier Ltd.

School-based pipelines/routes for university and technical engineering education are recognised as important for economic development and the high-school years are critical for shaping students' career aspirations and attitudes. This study examined a range of attitudes/experiences on the aspirations of secondary students to pursue engineering education and vocation. Experiential/attitudinal aspects covered demographic characteristics, family/school support, practical learning experiences, curricular/extra-curricular experiences, attitudes, perceptions and engineering-efficacy that may affect aspirations. A validated questionnaire capturing these variables was administered to respective samples of secondary school students from four Chinese geo-engineering regions (Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and ShanXi; 5965 students) that represent differing degrees of industrialisation. Comparative analyses across regions show 'doing' engineering is key to motivating students' aspirations; while regional variations suggest that schooling and family factors are generally more significant in industrialising Mainland cities, and extracurricular opportunities and personal factors are more significant for students in post-industrial Hong Kong.
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