Abstract
The STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) approach to education has acquired considerable prominence among teachers in recent years. Putting forward integrated proposals is nonetheless complex and many educators opt to implement the ones set out in textbooks. We consequently deemed it worthwhile to analyse how content common to mathematics and science is addressed in primary school textbooks with a view to determining whether the approaches adopted complement one another and are compatible with STEM education. More specifically, in light of the importance of measurement in both areas of learning and in everyday life, we describe the meaning of mass and volume found, in two publishers’ textbooks. Based on the components of the meaning of measurement and deploying content analysis techniques, we analysed the explanations and tasks set out in these mathematics and science books to identify the similarities and differences in the handling of those magnitudes in the two subjects. Our findings showed the proposals for teaching mass to pursue similar objectives in the earliest grades, addressing matters that could be included in STEM proposals. On the contrary, inconsistencies were detected in the distribution of volume measurement-related content, as well as in the strategies, units and tools used in the two areas.
Highlights
The importance attached to STEM competence has been growing in recent decades
We identified an interest in reviewing two resources indispensable to teaching–learning, the curriculum and natural science and mathematics textbooks, to determine the content included in those two subjects as background information useful for designing integrated STEM proposals
In this study we explored the systems defined by Picado et al [30]: verbal, the use of written language to refer to ideas, procedures and properties; graphic, the use of pictures or charts; symbolic, the use of numbers and mathematical symbols; tabular, the use of tables; and measuring tools, a specific type of manipulative
Summary
The importance attached to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) competence has been growing in recent decades. The literature, is not unanimous about how such competence should be acquired, with different approaches to STEM education varying in terms of the number of areas addressed and their integration [1]. The first entails teaching those disciplines separately and the second in integrating two STEM disciplines, most often mathematics and science. One of the STEM disciplines, normally engineering or technology, is taught as an integral part of the other three, whilst in the fourth model, known as integrated STEM education, all four disciplines are integrated by merging the knowledge and skills characteristic of each. Castro-Rodríguez and Montoro [3] contended that despite the differences in STEM education models, all share three characteristics: reference to a real-world context; interconnection among the various STEM disciplines; and the development of problem-solving skills
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