2

STEM EDUCATION THROUGH

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL LENS
Unveiling the Challenge
of STEM Transdisciplinarity

Digna Couso and Cristina Simarro

Introduction
There are several reasons why an integrated vision of STEM education has gained relevance in
recent years (see Chapter 1, this volume). From claims on equipping students to address real-world
problems, to concerns regarding how to prepare them for their future jobs, there is no doubt that
integrated STEM education lies at the heart of multiple discussions among the educational commu-
nity (National Academy of Engineering [NAE] & National Research Council [NRC], 2014). Mul-
tidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary or meta-disciplinary approaches to STEM education
are indistinctly presented by STEM education scholars as a way of improving the STEM educational
field (An, 2013; Barakos, Lujan, & Strang, 2012; Brown, Brown, Reardon, & Merrill, 2011; Ejiwale,
2013; Henriksen, 2014; Jenlink, 2015; Kennedy & Odell, 2014; Merrill & Daugherty, 2009; Vasquez,
2015), with the transdisciplinary approach as the most acclaimed in the literature.
In this context of global interest and recognition for STEM integrative approaches, however,
important challenges to this proposal have also been found. These are mostly related to two factors:
the need to deepen students’ learning and the need to guarantee a balanced impact regarding the
learning of different STEM disciplines (Becker & Park, 2011; English, 2016). According to research,
the learning of in-depth STEM knowledge is an obstacle to many integrated STEM curricula
(Chalmers, Carter, Cooper, & Nason, 2017). Moreover, research points to teachers’ difficulties in
tackling such integration in STEM education due to several different reasons. For example, a lack
of school administration support (Clark & Ernst, 2007), difficulties in the mutual understanding and
collaboration among different STEM teachers (Zubrowski, 2002) and, more importantly, limited
interdisciplinary understandings (Ryu, 2019) are challenges and tensions identified in the literature
of integrative STEM, particularly in secondary and college education. Regarding the latter, research
has highlighted teachers’ limited backgrounds in terms of disciplinary practices, the nature of reason-
ing in disciplines other than their own, as well as relations among STEM disciplines. For example, in
their study following a science teacher trying to integrate engineering into his lessons, Guzey and
Ring-Whalen (2018) found tensions in reconciling his identity as science teacher with the needs
presented by an integrated curriculum. As the authors point out, integrating science and engineer-
ing is challenging since it requires science teachers to have a strong understanding of engineering.
In our opinion, the problems outlined in the previous paragraph are related to STEM integration
based on the idea of a STEM literacy or competence that goes easily beyond each of the scientific,

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 Digna Couso and Cristina Simarro

engineering and mathematical literacies and competences. But the perspective of a sort of global com-
petence area (Surr, Loney, Goldston, Rasmussen, & Anderson, 2016), if not well addressed, could result
in an amalgam of the different well-researched scientific, engineering, or mathematic literacies that
have not yet been developed or tested (Williams, 2011). This is because the conceptualization of STEM
as a meta-discipline (Kennedy & Odell, 2014; Morrison & Raymond Bartlett, 2009), which unites the
normally separated disciplines to create new knowledge, forces us to establish connections to bridge
the gap between disciplines that are closely related but fundamentally different in nature. As such, well-
defined STEM integrative approaches (such as those presented in this handbook) are needed.
While we acknowledge that in real-world contexts STEM problems are tackled in an integrative
way and that, in fact, STEM disciplines share important commonalities that allow this integrative
approach (see Chapter 1), we highlight the fact that STEM disciplinary practices are also epistemo-
logically different, and that there are educational benefits associated with this fact. When propos-
ing rich and high-quality STEM integrative approaches, these commonalities and differences both
should be borne in mind, as there is a lot of educational potential in exploring and embracing them.
This is why, in this chapter, we advocate including an explicit epistemological perspective in STEM
integration, specifically for science and engineering.

Establishing the Need for an Epistemological Perspective in STEM Education

An epistemological lens could guide how we face the challenges of STEM integration. By reflect-
ing on the idiosyncratic epistemic features of the different STEM disciplines, some of the problems
that STEM education research has identified in relation to STEM integration (such as restricted
in-depth knowledge, the unbalanced presence of STEM disciplines or the limited interdisciplinary
understanding of teachers) could be more easily problematized, detected and better equipped for a
quality integrative STEM education.
An even more important argument for including an epistemological lens in STEM education is that
epistemic knowledge and competence are in fact learning objectives of STEM education. The inclu-
sion of epistemic knowledge and competence has been agreed internationally in the new PISA frame-
work (OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment), and it has been explicitly introduced in
most curricula internationally, including the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in the United
States. As such, nowadays there is global recognition that a disciplinary competence refers not only to
the conceptual knowledge and body of practices of that discipline, but also to the epistemic objectives
and values underpinning those practices (Duschl & Grandy, 2012; Osborne, 2014). In other words, one
cannot be considered competent in science or engineering if she or he does not know what science
or engineering is about. Hence, a good STEM education curriculum that encompasses students’ entire
education should ensure students’ competence in each of the STEM fields, which includes having a
mastery of the core ideas and prototypical practices of these fields (National Research Council, 2012),
as well as having the (often neglected) epistemic competence in it. This entails an epistemological
approach that allows clarification of the particularities of each of the STEM disciplines in terms of their
nature and value system and realizes the similarities as well as the differences among them. Such a clari-
fication is useful for designers, adapters, implementers and reviewers of STEM education approaches
in terms of ensuring the provision of a full STEM curriculum where integration of knowledge and
practices of different STEM disciplines benefits from epistemological reflection.

An Epistemological Lens for STEM Education: A Model Inspired

by the Family Resemblance Approach
Epistemology, or the nature of the scientific disciplines in broad terms, encapsulates the range of prac-
tices, methodologies, aims and values, knowledge and social norms that characterize the disciplines,

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 STEM Education Through the Epistemological Lens

and which have to be acknowledged when teaching those disciplines (Erduran & Dagher, 2014).
Epistemology is largely discussed in the literature on the nature of science (NOS) and to a lesser
extent on the nature of engineering/technology (NOE/T). The idea behind including epistemol-
ogy as a learning objective of STEM education is that students should be able to grasp the ways of
thinking and valuing, as well as the social contexts in which science, engineering or mathematics are
developed and used.
In this regard, we find it interesting to epistemologically compare the constituent STEM dis-
ciplines. In particular, we focus on science and engineering, which are often considered together
and share crosscutting concepts (NRC, 2012) but also have significant differences in domains of
knowledge. For years, authors have argued different positions regarding the integration of science
and engineering. From the contested “engineering as an applied science”, to that of engineering and
science sharing certain characteristics (such as methods) but differing strongly in others (such as aims
[Sinclair, 1993]), epistemic underpinnings of science and engineering have largely been discussed in
terms of the philosophy and epistemology of both disciplines. Interestingly, these arguments have not
been fully taken into account when proposing integrative approaches to STEM education.
In order to account for these arguments, we present a model inspired by the well-known frame-
work of the Family Resemblance Approach (FRA) to NOS (Erduran & Dagher, 2014) as a basis
for highlighting the epistemic similarities and differences between science and engineering. FRA
presents the possibility of considering STEM as a cognitive, epistemic, and social-institutional system
whereby each constituent discipline is contrasted relative to aims, values, practices, norms, knowl-
edge, methods, and social context. Erduran and Dagher (2014) represented the system visually and
captured the various categories in a holistic and interactive manner. Their framework allows com-
paring and contrasting of the constituent disciplines of STEM as members of a “family” that share
particular features, but it also highlights domain-specificity where particular knowledge and prac-
tices are specific to the respective discipline. For example, even though all sciences rely on evidence,
the precise nature of this evidence can be very different between different sciences. Astronomy, for
instance, relies on historical data collected from stars that are light years away. Chemistry, on the other
hand, can involve the direct manipulation of data to generate evidence in the laboratory.
We extend this discussion to the contrast of science and engineering (see the next section, “Epis-
temic Features of Science and Engineering”). Since a broad range of new scientific disciplines have
emerged, some of a dual science and engineering nature, the discussion will focus on epistemic
differences that can be found when pursuing scientific or engineering aims. This is despite the fact
that this could be done within “purely” scientific or engineering activities, but also from mixed dis-
ciplines such as nanotechnology or bioengineering. In addition, some of the aspects discussed in the
FRA are truly controversial and polysemic (for instance, there is not an agreed definition regarding
which are engineering practices, with some proposals referring to certain “habits of mind” [Lucas,
Hanson, & Claxton, 2014], and others to particular engineering processes). For the sake of compari-
son, we will refer to each of these aspects (values, practices, etc.) at the abstract level necessary to
illustrate epistemic contrast among disciplinary fields, rather than make a concrete or final definition
of each of them.

Epistemic Features of Science and Engineering

The model inspired by FRA to NOS of Erduran and Dagher (2014) that we propose to use for the
purpose of epistemic characterization of science and engineering in STEM education is shown in
Figure 2.1.
In this model, the aim of science and engineering is at the core of the figure, as the crucial dif-
ferential characteristic of both disciplines in which all the other epistemic aspects rely on. In the
inner circle, closely connected to the aim of each discipline, we found four core characteristics: the

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 Digna Couso and Cristina Simarro

Social, Political and

Financial context

AIM

Figure 2.1 Epistemic features of science and engineering: model inspired by FRA.

spheres or core forms of activity that characterize the activity that takes place in each discipline; the
core forms of knowledge that are both the basis of and the result of this activity; the core meth-
odological rules that apply to the activity that takes place and the way different forms of knowledge
are used and/or produced; and finally, the core values and quality criteria that are used to ethically
value and judge the activity taking place, the way of doing it (methodological rules) and the forms
of knowledge being used and/or produced. All of the four core characteristics mentioned influence
each other in profound ways. Finally, in an outer circle that is more affected by the social, political
and financial context than the previous ones, we find the particular practices, knowledge, methods
and ethos of each of the disciplines. These are the particular or concrete kinds of practices, sets of
knowledge, lists of methods, and professional characteristics (ethos) that scientists or engineers deploy
in particular socio-political and historical contexts, such as the ones they use today. These change
quickly according to societal interests, technical possibilities or funding available, but they always rely
on the deeper, core characteristics that make these practices, knowledge, methods and ethos either
scientific or from engineering.
The justification for a model like the one presented in Figure 2.1 is based on epistemological
grounds that have been summarized in Table 2.1. At the center of our proposal of using an epistemo-
logical lens, the Aims of each discipline are highlighted as the main distinctive characteristic of disci-
plines because we agree with Sinclair (1993) when he states that “the essential difference between science
and engineering lies . . . in the goals of their respective activities” (p. 360; emphasis added). Several authors
argue that science focuses on constructing reliable explanatory frameworks for the natural world in
order to develop a set of theoretical descriptions and interpretations. Engineering, on the contrary,
has as a primary aim the construction of human-made solutions that are optimal. This means that
the engineering objects of knowledge are human-made artifacts, its study in functional terms and its
construction (Boon, 2006; Bunge, 2017; Hansson, 2007, 2015; NRC, 2012; Sharp, 1991). Despite the
fact that both activities are done with the final aim of serving human needs, the nature of both aims
is fundamentally different. Ontologically, for instance, engineering solutions not only are physical but
need to be able to produce something real, either as a program, protocol or tool that can be “put to

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Table 2.1 Epistemic Features of Science and Engineering
AIM Main purpose of the
discipline
Spheres of Main areas of activity or
Activity fields of action of the
discipline carried out to
pursue its aim
Forms of Types of products
Knowledge generated by and used
for the activities of the
discipline to give answer
to the discipline’s aim
Values and Epistemic objectives of the
Quality discipline that ensure its
Criteria value and quality
Methodological Main rules that guide
Rules the way activities are
done and knowledge
is generated and used
within the discipline
Methods Processes and techniques
used within the
discipline that comply
with its methodological
rules
Ethos Norms that guide
professionals’ work and
their interaction with
others according to
the values and quality
criteria of the discipline
Practices Cognitive, social and
discursive practices
carried out within the
activity of the discipline
Knowledge Conceptual products
generated by and used
for the activity of the
discipline
Science
Construct reliable explanations
of natural phenomena
Inquiry, argumentation and
modeling
Theories, laws, models, etc.
Accuracy, objectivity,
universality, theoretical
consistency, coherence,
simplicity, empirical
adequacy, validity and
reliability
Hypothesis should be testable
(theoretically or with real
experiments).
There has to be convergence
of variety of evidences
supporting a claim.
Control of variables,
experimental design,
statistical analysis, etc.
Research integrity, ethical
concerns regarding human
data and applications,
environmental awareness, etc.
Asking scientific questions,
planning and carrying out
investigations, constructing
explanations, etc. (NRC,
2012)
Core scientific ideas, such as
the idea of matter made of
parts or the evolution of life
beings
Engineering
Construct of human-made
optimal solutions
Test, argumentation and
creation
Technologies, processes, etc.
Practical success of a
technical solution:
applicability, effectiveness
and efficiency
Solutions should be
testable (no room for
idealization).
Solutions need to be
comparable in terms of
applicability, efficiency
and efficacy.
Control of variables,
experimental design,
statistical analysis, etc.
Professional integrity,
ethical concerns
regarding user
experience and design
impact, sustainability of
production, etc.
Defining engineering
problems, planning
and carrying out tests,
designing solutions, etc.
(NRC, 2012)
Core engineering ideas,
such as the idea of
machines to reduce
human effort or gears to
transfer movement
 Digna Couso and Cristina Simarro

practice.” In the engineering field, a solution needs to be operational and feasible today. A scientific
explanatory framework such as a theory or model, on the other hand, despite its many possible math-
ematical, argumentative or graphical representations, can only be conceptual. It would never become
physical. In addition, it does not have more operational demands than to describe and explain what
happens, at a certain level, and predict what could happen under certain conditions. Furthermore,
despite the importance of its connection to reality and evidence-based nature (a model or theory has
to be in agreement with the data we obtain from the world), this connection can be delayed in time.
For instance, some theories are proposed based on thought experiments or mathematical possibilities,
with many years between their proposition and the gathering of the required experimental evidence.
Seeking to give answer to these aims, both science and engineering undertake their respective
activities with their own characteristics. Different Spheres of Activity are identified for science and
engineering that follow their respective aims. Scientific activity, for instance, is characterized by three
different and interconnected fields of action that involve the socio-discursive and reasoning processes
of inquiry, modeling and argumentation (Duschl & Grandy, 2012; Osborne, 2014). Engineering
practices take place in the creation (problem scoping and solution generation), the evaluation (assess-
ment and selection) and the realization (making and bringing ideas to life) spaces (Dym, Agogino,
Eris, Frey, & Leifer, 2005).
As a result of these core activities, scientific and engineering Forms of Knowledge are specific. In
science, principles, theories, laws, models and facts are recognized forms of knowledge that work
together in generating and validating scientific explanations (Erduran & Dagher, 2014). In engineer-
ing, less work has been done in NOE in order to establish the forms of knowledge that are important
for this field, but one can find certain curricular references to mechanisms, processes and technolo-
gies that could be understood as the way knowledge is encapsulated in engineering, both as a source
and product of the engineering activity.
Also related to the core aim of each discipline, Values and Quality Criteria are again specific
aspects that characterize science and engineering. For instance, the descriptions and interpretations
constructed by science intend to be accurate, universal, simple, coherent, mutually consistent and,
perhaps the most contested value and quality criterion, based on evidence in an adequate, valid and
reliable way. In science, then, explanatory, descriptive and predictive frameworks are successful as
far as they are adjusted to these values (even theoretically) regardless of their immediate practical
application. In contrast, engineering success is measured by the extent to which a technical solution
provides an answer to a problem addressed in an optimal way, in terms of applicability, reliability,
effectiveness and efficiency (Boon, 2006; Erduran & Dagher, 2014; NRC, 2012). In engineering, the
values to be applied are closely connected to the practical feasibility and success of the engineered
solution.
Influenced by the characteristics of other dimensions, both science and engineering follow spe-
cific Methodological Rules that meet the values and quality criteria just described. In science, there
have been many philosophical discussions regarding what these methodological rules are, particularly
regarding what role is given to evidence, theory and societal/historical factors. Important contribu-
tions studied in any NOS course refer to the well-known Popper claim that scientific hypotheses
should be testable, or the widely recognized post-Kuhnian evolutionary/revolutionary view of sci-
ence where theories can be both gradually and radically displaced by newer ones that comply
better with values and quality characteristics or, more recently, the cognitively based and semanticist-­
oriented views of science, where building meaning drives the scientific activity (Adúriz-Bravo, 2013).
These authors and many others contribute different but essentially compatible methodological rules,
which in science basically refer to the sophisticated ways in which theory, data and evidence should
be coordinated. In engineering, where there is less room for idealization, other methodological rules
apply. Of particular importance is the need for actual testing of the diverse proposed solutions (Hans-
son, 2007; NAE & NRC, 2009).

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 STEM Education Through the Epistemological Lens

All these dimensions—spheres of activity, forms of knowledge, values and quality criteria, and
methodological rules—influence the more visible and recognizable characteristics of science and
engineering which, in turn, are those more easily influenced by the changing contexts in which we
live. While the inner circle dimensions are more dependent on the disciplines, the outer circle ones
are more context-dependent (historically, socially, politically and financially). An example could be
the Practices dimension. While the three spheres of activity (modeling, inquiry and argumentation)
are those essential for science since its origins, the specific scientific practices (NRC, 2012; Osborne,
2014) within these spheres of action vary more over time and in connection with available tech-
nology. For instance, computational modeling was not a scientific practice some years ago, and the
citizens’ participation in scientific development could soon, under the Responsible Research and
Innovation (RRI) paradigm, be a scientific practice that becomes included. The same happens with
methodological rules and methods: the methods are quite up to date (see nowadays CRIS-PR tech-
niques), but the methodological rule that different methods should provide compatible results to be
considered adequate remains unalterable whatever the technology or new techniques used.
The outer circle of Figure 2.1 refers not only to those characteristics of a discipline that are more
influenced by contextual factors, but also to those less idiosyncratic of the discipline. In this sense, the
more we move away from the center of Figure 2.1, the more likely it is that some overlap exists in
the way we define these characteristics in different disciplines. Not surprisingly, in curriculum pro-
posals, particularly for primary school, scientific and engineering Practices are commonly presented
in parallel (NRC, 2012). The same happens with Methods, with both science and engineering basing
them on techniques rooted in experimental design, control of variables or statistical analysis that they
borrow from each other. Each discipline, however, will follow its own methodological rules when
applying these methods. Also, despite important attempts to define the core ideas of each discipline
(see, for example, Harlen [2010], “big ideas of Science”), some of the knowledge produced and used
in both science and engineering commonly overlap, which sometimes makes it difficult to identify
the nuances of the Knowledge of each discipline. For instance, knowledge of parallel electrical circuits
can be used to challenge your understanding of voltage or to build a technological solution for light-
ing a house. Finally, our proposal also includes the Ethos dimension, which refers to the norms that
guide professionals’ work and their interaction with others. Again, today the ethos of both disciplines
are built around agreed pillars, such as sustainability or professional integrity, that affect their profes-
sional identities (Erduran & Dagher, 2014; Panofsky, 2010).
The epistemic analysis of science and engineering in Table 2.1 shows how both disciplines have
idiosyncratic and quite different central epistemic features, particularly aims, which are helpful to
understanding the different roles they play in our human attempts to act upon the world. At the
same time, in terms of outer epistemic characteristics such as concrete techniques or particular con-
cepts, there is some overlap and also commonalities that allow for certain integration. However, if
we explicitly consider an educational aim the mastery of the epistemic competence, there is much
greater learning potential in STEM activities that emphasize the different approaches that science
and engineering can contribute to a problem.

Epistemic Features in STEM Education School Projects

There is more to inclusion of an epistemological lens in STEM education than just increasing our
students’ epistemic knowledge. When we shift an activity from a scientific to an engineering focus,
fundamental aspects change. This is important for both teachers and designers of STEM activities.
As such, we will describe here some real examples of STEM school projects and teaching and learn-
ing sequences we have come across when participating in STEM educational research and teacher
continuing professional development programs. The idea is to share how applying an epistemological
lens to STEM education can help to guide STEM design and classroom practice.

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 Digna Couso and Cristina Simarro

One example is a middle school (sixth grade) STEM project on a boat competition. Introduced as
a school interdisciplinary STEM project, designers of the activity did not find it necessary to closely
guide the activity and provided only its general structure. That is, teachers were asked to define how
to launch the challenge, what sources of information they could use, what restrictions they would
establish (for instance, regarding time, use of materials or how to judge the best boat), how classroom
management would be organized (for instance, using group work), and how they would evaluate the
process and/or outcome.
The openness of this project is, of course, its major attraction, as teachers can decide which ori-
entation to give to it—in other words, which “disciplinary glasses” can be useful for approaching the
boat competition challenge. For instance, one science teacher in a school applied this STEM project
by focusing mostly on the scientific activity of modeling floatation, using the boat competition as a
context to extensively develop explanatory frameworks regarding how and why things float. Other
teachers, however, focused on the engineering practice of building a real solution by designing, con-
structing and testing different boats that float with recycled materials. In these other cases, however,
not all teachers relied on the science of floating and sinking as their primary source of knowledge.
While some based their boat designs on a very simplistic descriptive model of floatation that could
be summarized as “things denser than water need to have air inside to float,” others just analyzed
the materials and shapes of different types of existing boats to inspire their designs. Finally, another
pair of teachers employed a mix of both approaches by focusing on investigating which boat floats
better and having students try to figure out why. Although in this latter approach it seems that the
scientific practice of inquiry guides the activity, the action was actually addressed by testing different
boats and finding engineering problems in them, rather than understanding the relation among the
variables involved in floating.
The approaches outlined in this section of a school STEM project can be considered sound
STEM education depending on how they were implemented and evaluated in the classroom. In
fact, we consider it not a problem that different, either more scientific or engineering approaches,
emerged in the context of this STEM challenge. Furthermore, although none of the teachers thought
so, we believe that students could have actually benefited a lot in their learning about science and
engineering by changing the focus of the project from “addressing the problem as scientists do” (for
instance, trying to understand floatation) to “addressing the problem as engineers do” (for instance,
testing to find engineering problems in the designed boats). However, it is very important that the
teachers behind such projects realize what actual practices, knowledge, methodological rules, quality
criteria and ethos can be learned or not in their classrooms depending on the actual orientation to
the STEM project they are promoting.
For instance, if an integrated STEM education curriculum proposal is based only on engineering
design challenges (designing, building and testing solutions) without explicit promotion of other
STEM practices such as imagining why or investigating how, then one must be aware that in STEM
education proposals, science (and also mathematics) are applied in real contexts, but not constructed
in depth. As such, one could argue that within this engineering-based approach to integrated STEM
education, further scientific teaching and learning are needed for students to master all the scientific
practices at an adequate level. Examples of these include students’ learning to ask scientific questions,
modeling scientific phenomena or differentiating between scientific research and solution testing. In
such a curriculum, the introduction of other challenges where science guides the action would be
important for those students to understand science as something more profound than just offering a
knowledge base for the development of engineering solutions and technological products. The same
would happen regarding learning about the nature of science and how science is done.
In an analogous way, when the focus of an integrated STEM education proposal is mostly sci-
entific, the engineering practice could be reduced to “build” something in a quite amateur manner
to allow the desired research to be conducted. This could happen by building boats as simply as

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 STEM Education Through the Epistemological Lens

possible to investigate the effect of the variables “type of material” and “shape.” In this second case,
for instance, the level of sophistication given to the selection and measurement of variables does not
compare to the one given to the selection of building materials, the materialization of the solution,
or the optimization of the construction process. Again, the epistemic analysis of the teaching and
learning activity posed to students allows us to see the potential but also the limits of our proposal,
and realize what other educational actions are needed in order to develop a more balanced STEM
curriculum that allows development of an epistemically rich STEM competence.
Of course, “doing it all” in every single school STEM project takes a lot of time and is not actu-
ally feasible in real school contexts: there is a limited number of ideas and practices one can build
with an adequate depth in a time-framed school project. In addition, there are “differences in how
scholars conceptualize the role of each discipline” in STEM education, as the authors of Chapter 1
point out (p. XXX, this volume). As a consequence, rather than a transdisciplinary STEM education
approach, what we usually find in real practice is an amalgam of disciplinary STEM project proposals,
where scientific or engineering aims lead the action and in which there are more or less superficial
connections with other disciplines.
These different ways of conceptualizing STEM integration are not problematic per se. In the
aforementioned examples, the disciplinary focus taken by different teachers would become problem-
atic only if this approach is the focus given to every STEM project in a school or curriculum both
horizontally (along each academic year) and vertically (along schooling); and if no other engineering,
scientific or mathematical education is promoted. Our claim in this chapter is that applying an epis-
temological lens to STEM education can help us realize which epistemic features we are promoting
and which we are not in every single project. This is done in order to achieve a longer-term, more
balanced STEM education where all the science and engineering practices, knowledge bases, meth-
ods and quality criteria can be learnt at some point, as well as an environment where students do
learn about science and engineering in addition to their learning of science and engineering.

Conclusions and Implications

Discussions on what counts as STEM integrated education, why to embrace an integrative approach
to STEM education, and how to do so in practice are prevalent in the literature. When discussing
these important issues, however, there is generally a lack of epistemic sensitivity and a certain neglect
of the important body of literature regarding the teaching and learning of epistemic knowledge and
competences.
We agree with other authors that the “appealing but still somewhat intuitive notion [that con-
cepts and practices from different STEM disciplines can be learned in concert] is not yet strongly sup-
ported by findings from research” (NAE & NRC, 2014, p. 136; emphasis added). In fact, we challenge
the assumption that transdisciplinary integration is the intrinsic and most important characteristic
of STEM education by introducing an epistemological lens into these discussions. As we have dis-
cussed, complete integration of STEM disciplines is not often happening in real school projects for
very different reasons. What can often be seen is engineering or scientific aims taking a leading role,
either by centering the activity in the use of technology or by posing design challenges solved using
scientific knowledge, or even by doing scientific practices (inquiring, for instance) with rather poor
mathematical reasoning. In all these approaches, some disciplines are portrayed as tools to solve prob-
lems rather than different, legitimate, and interesting ways of thinking about those problems. The
result is an epistemic malpractice that could communicate a poor view of the nature of each of the
STEM disciplines. More importantly, the result is a limitation of the most important potentiality we
associate with the integrated STEM education approach: to offer a pedagogical context to use, argue,
reflect, and value the different epistemologies that scientific, engineering and also mixed disciplines
contribute. We conceive integrated STEM education not necessarily as a transdisciplinary approach

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 Digna Couso and Cristina Simarro

that goes beyond the disciplines, but as an approach that allows and benefits from the epistemic
comparison, selection and evaluation of different STEM disciplines. These disciplines can be seen
as related but diverse and complementary bodies of knowledge, practices and systems of values that
students need to know about and be able to use in real contexts. Therefore, we do not imply that the
integrated STEM educational approach is not a useful one with clear benefits. On the contrary, we
agree with Honey and colleagues on acknowledging the “exciting potential of leveraging the natu-
ral connections between and among the four STEM subjects for the benefit of students” (NAE &
NRC, 2014, p. viii). However, we believe that the existing integration frameworks where the epis-
temic dimension does not play a role could strongly benefit from including it.
An epistemic emphasis on the curriculum and helping teachers, and therefore students, to be
able to identify and master such epistemic differences may help to guarantee that integrated STEM
education offers a comprehensive and more realistic view of the STEM fields, improving students’
understanding and knowledge both of and about STEM. In terms of a well-used definition by Balka,
“STEM literacy is the ability to identify, apply, and integrate concepts from science, technology, engi-
neering, and mathematics to understand complex problems and to innovate to solve them” (Balka,
2011, p. 11). Despite the limits we find in this concept-focused and value-free definition that we have
tried to overcome in an alternative definition published elsewhere (Couso, 2017), we agree with the
author that being able to differentiate and integrate concepts, but also processes and epistemic prac-
tices of the different STEM disciplines, is the desirable outcome of a sound STEM education, which
would not happen adequately without a clear epistemological approach to it.
These limitations, due to holding poor epistemological grounds in STEM education, also apply
today to the widely acclaimed STEAM education. For instance, the aspects commonly associated
with the “A” in STEAM include creativity, design, aesthetics or even just crafts, and can also be
related to a non-recognition of the epistemic value and contribution of the liberal arts and the arts as
proper epistemic disciplines. To think on what counts as art and what artists actually do will encour-
age teachers in STEAM to go beyond the colorful, beautiful and crafting productions that fill any
online search of STEAM activities. Understanding that there is creativity in all STEM disciplines
without the need to introduce music or drama as a context, and that these creativities take differ-
ent disciplinary forms, would give much greater meaning to creativity by working with students
in terms of what being creative in science versus being creative in engineering or art is. The same
occurs regarding certain approaches to teaching science, such as the STS (Science, Technology and
Society) approach or the SSI (Socio-Scientific Issues) tradition, which could be considered STEAM
approaches where the disciplinary knowledge, practices and epistemic values of the humanities and
social sciences are developed together with scientific ones, by posing ethical, moral, political, eco-
nomic and societal challenges.
Due to space limitations and lack of enough expertise from the authors, in this chapter we have
not referred explicitly to mathematics as the other important discipline in STEM that could benefit
from an epistemological lens to an integrative approach to STEM education. However, we believe
that in the case of mathematics, it is even more important to advocate for this epistemic focus, as most
STEM education projects we have come across use mathematics, in fact only mathematical calculus,
in a completely applied way that does not promote sound mathematical reasoning. It is very rare that
mathematical activity drives the action in a STEM project. This puts mathematics at risk of losing
identity and learning potential: mathematical reasoning goes beyond the mathematics that are useful
in science and engineering, so either extra mathematical reasoning is promoted out of the STEM
curriculum, or within a STEM curriculum we include STEM projects that are led by mathematics,
such as a mathematical challenge.
Finally, we want to share that in this chapter we have not aimed to clarify each of the epistemic
features that help to characterize a discipline. In fact, we find it problematic to identify some of them,
particularly for engineering where less philosophical and educational developments can be found in

26
 STEM Education Through the Epistemological Lens

the literature compared to scientific ones. Examples of these are core engineering ideas. We think,
in fact, that the characterization of the discipline in epistemic features is perhaps one of the impor-
tant tasks that engineering education should undertake in the future. This would otherwise risk a
poor understanding of the discipline with important educational consequences: for instance, that all
engineering education focus only on the engineering process as the only subject-matter knowledge
to be learnt.

Acknowledgements
We want to thank the collaboration of scholars Sibel Erduran and Ebru Kaya in earlier versions of
this paper. Research funded by the Spanish Government (PGC2018-096581-B-C21), within the
ACELEC research group (2017SGR1399).

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