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• Published: 10 March 2020

Research and trends in STEM education: a systematic review of journal publications

• Yeping Li 1 ,
• Ke Wang 2 ,
• Yu Xiao 1 &
• Jeffrey E. Froyd 3  

International Journal of STEM Education volume  7 , Article number:  11 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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With the rapid increase in the number of scholarly publications on STEM education in recent years, reviews of the status and trends in STEM education research internationally support the development of the field. For this review, we conducted a systematic analysis of 798 articles in STEM education published between 2000 and the end of 2018 in 36 journals to get an overview about developments in STEM education scholarship. We examined those selected journal publications both quantitatively and qualitatively, including the number of articles published, journals in which the articles were published, authorship nationality, and research topic and methods over the years. The results show that research in STEM education is increasing in importance internationally and that the identity of STEM education journals is becoming clearer over time.

Introduction

A recent review of 144 publications in the International Journal of STEM Education ( IJ - STEM ) showed how scholarship in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education developed between August 2014 and the end of 2018 through the lens of one journal (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). The review of articles published in only one journal over a short period of time prompted the need to review the status and trends in STEM education research internationally by analyzing articles published in a wider range of journals over a longer period of time.

With global recognition of the growing importance of STEM education, we have witnessed the urgent need to support research and scholarship in STEM education (Li, 2014 , 2018a ). Researchers and educators have responded to this on-going call and published their scholarly work through many different publication outlets including journals, books, and conference proceedings. A simple Google search with the term “STEM,” “STEM education,” or “STEM education research” all returned more than 450,000,000 items. Such voluminous information shows the rapidly evolving and vibrant field of STEM education and sheds light on the volume of STEM education research. In any field, it is important to know and understand the status and trends in scholarship for the field to develop and be appropriately supported. This applies to STEM education.

Conducting systematic reviews to explore the status and trends in specific disciplines is common in educational research. For example, researchers surveyed the historical development of research in mathematics education (Kilpatrick, 1992 ) and studied patterns in technology usage in mathematics education (Bray & Tangney, 2017 ; Sokolowski, Li, & Willson, 2015 ). In science education, Tsai and his colleagues have conducted a sequence of reviews of journal articles to synthesize research trends in every 5 years since 1998 (i.e., 1998–2002, 2003–2007, 2008–2012, and 2013–2017), based on publications in three main science education journals including, Science Education , the International Journal of Science Education , and the Journal of Research in Science Teaching (e.g., Lin, Lin, Potvin, & Tsai, 2019 ; Tsai & Wen, 2005 ). Erduran, Ozdem, and Park ( 2015 ) reviewed argumentation in science education research from 1998 to 2014 and Minner, Levy, and Century ( 2010 ) reviewed inquiry-based science instruction between 1984 and 2002. There are also many literature reviews and syntheses in engineering and technology education (e.g., Borrego, Foster, & Froyd, 2015 ; Xu, Williams, Gu, & Zhang, 2019 ). All of these reviews have been well received in different fields of traditional disciplinary education as they critically appraise and summarize the state-of-art of relevant research in a field in general or with a specific focus. Both types of reviews have been conducted with different methods for identifying, collecting, and analyzing relevant publications, and they differ in terms of review aim and topic scope, time period, and ways of literature selection. In this review, we systematically analyze journal publications in STEM education research to overview STEM education scholarship development broadly and globally.

The complexity and ambiguity of examining the status and trends in STEM education research

A review of research development in a field is relatively straight forward, when the field is mature and its scope can be well defined. Unlike discipline-based education research (DBER, National Research Council, 2012 ), STEM education is not a well-defined field. Conducting a comprehensive literature review of STEM education research require careful thought and clearly specified scope to tackle the complexity naturally associated with STEM education. In the following sub-sections, we provide some further discussion.

Diverse perspectives about STEM and STEM education

STEM education as explicated by the term does not have a long history. The interest in helping students learn across STEM fields can be traced back to the 1990s when the US National Science Foundation (NSF) formally included engineering and technology with science and mathematics in undergraduate and K-12 school education (e.g., National Science Foundation, 1998 ). It coined the acronym SMET (science, mathematics, engineering, and technology) that was subsequently used by other agencies including the US Congress (e.g., United States Congress House Committee on Science, 1998 ). NSF also coined the acronym STEM to replace SMET (e.g., Christenson, 2011 ; Chute, 2009 ) and it has become the acronym of choice. However, a consensus has not been reached on the disciplines included within STEM.

To clarify its intent, NSF published a list of approved fields it considered under the umbrella of STEM (see http://bit.ly/2Bk1Yp5 ). The list not only includes disciplines widely considered under the STEM tent (called “core” disciplines, such as physics, chemistry, and materials research), but also includes disciplines in psychology and social sciences (e.g., political science, economics). However, NSF’s list of STEM fields is inconsistent with other federal agencies. Gonzalez and Kuenzi ( 2012 ) noted that at least two US agencies, the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, use a narrower definition that excludes social sciences. Researchers also view integration across different disciplines of STEM differently using various terms such as, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary (Vasquez, Sneider, & Comer, 2013 ). These are only two examples of the ambiguity and complexity in describing and specifying what constitutes STEM.

Multiple perspectives about the meaning of STEM education adds further complexity to determining the extent to which scholarly activity can be categorized as STEM education. For example, STEM education can be viewed with a broad and inclusive perspective to include education in the individual disciplines of STEM, i.e., science education, technology education, engineering education, and mathematics education, as well as interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary combinations of the individual STEM disciplines (English, 2016 ; Li, 2014 ). On the other hand, STEM education can be viewed by others as referring only to interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary combinations of the individual STEM disciplines (Honey, Pearson, & Schweingruber, 2014 ; Johnson, Peters-Burton, & Moore, 2015 ; Kelley & Knowles, 2016 ; Li, 2018a ). These multiple perspectives allow scholars to publish articles in a vast array and diverse journals, as long as journals are willing to take the position as connected with STEM education. At the same time, however, the situation presents considerable challenges for researchers intending to locate, identify, and classify publications as STEM education research. To tackle such challenges, we tried to find out what we can learn from prior reviews related to STEM education.

Guidance from prior reviews related to STEM education

A search for reviews of STEM education research found multiple reviews that could suggest approaches for identifying publications (e.g., Brown, 2012 ; Henderson, Beach, & Finkelstein, 2011 ; Kim, Sinatra, & Seyranian, 2018 ; Margot & Kettler, 2019 ; Minichiello, Hood, & Harkness, 2018 ; Mizell & Brown, 2016 ; Thibaut et al., 2018 ; Wu & Rau, 2019 ). The review conducted by Brown ( 2012 ) examined the research base of STEM education. He addressed the complexity and ambiguity by confining the review with publications in eight journals, two in each individual discipline, one academic research journal (e.g., the Journal of Research in Science Teaching ) and one practitioner journal (e.g., Science Teacher ). Journals were selected based on suggestions from some faculty members and K-12 teachers. Out of 1100 articles published in these eight journals from January 1, 2007, to October 1, 2010, Brown located 60 articles that authors self-identified as connected to STEM education. He found that the vast majority of these 60 articles focused on issues beyond an individual discipline and there was a research base forming for STEM education. In a follow-up study, Mizell and Brown ( 2016 ) reviewed articles published from January 2013 to October 2015 in the same eight journals plus two additional journals. Mizell and Brown used the same criteria to identify and include articles that authors self-identified as connected to STEM education, i.e., if the authors included STEM in the title or author-supplied keywords. In comparison to Brown’s findings, they found that many more STEM articles were published in a shorter time period and by scholars from many more different academic institutions. Taking together, both Brown ( 2012 ) and Mizell and Brown ( 2016 ) tended to suggest that STEM education mainly consists of interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary combinations of the individual STEM disciplines, but their approach consisted of selecting a limited number of individual discipline-based journals and then selecting articles that authors self-identified as connected to STEM education.

In contrast to reviews on STEM education, in general, other reviews focused on specific issues in STEM education (e.g., Henderson et al., 2011 ; Kim et al., 2018 ; Margot & Kettler, 2019 ; Minichiello et al., 2018 ; Schreffler, Vasquez III, Chini, & James, 2019 ; Thibaut et al., 2018 ; Wu & Rau, 2019 ). For example, the review by Henderson et al. ( 2011 ) focused on instructional change in undergraduate STEM courses based on 191 conceptual and empirical journal articles published between 1995 and 2008. Margot and Kettler ( 2019 ) focused on what is known about teachers’ values, beliefs, perceived barriers, and needed support related to STEM education based on 25 empirical journal articles published between 2000 and 2016. The focus of these reviews allowed the researchers to limit the number of articles considered, and they typically used keyword searches of selected databases to identify articles on STEM education. Some researchers used this approach to identify publications from journals only (e.g., Henderson et al., 2011 ; Margot & Kettler, 2019 ; Schreffler et al., 2019 ), and others selected and reviewed publications beyond journals (e.g., Minichiello et al., 2018 ; Thibaut et al., 2018 ; Wu & Rau, 2019 ).

The discussion in this section suggests possible reasons contributing to the absence of a general literature review of STEM education research and development: (1) diverse perspectives in existence about STEM and STEM education that contribute to the difficulty of specifying a scope of literature review, (2) its short but rapid development history in comparison to other discipline-based education (e.g., science education), and (3) difficulties in deciding how to establish the scope of the literature review. With respect to the third reason, prior reviews have used one of two approaches to identify and select articles: (a) identifying specific journals first and then searching and selecting specific articles from these journals (e.g., Brown, 2012 ; Erduran et al., 2015 ; Mizell & Brown, 2016 ) and (b) conducting selected database searches with keywords based on a specific focus (e.g., Margot & Kettler, 2019 ; Thibaut et al., 2018 ). However, neither the first approach of selecting a limited number of individual discipline-based journals nor the second approach of selecting a specific focus for the review leads to an approach that provides a general overview of STEM education scholarship development based on existing journal publications.

Current review

Two issues were identified in setting the scope for this review.

What time period should be considered?

What publications will be selected for review?

Time period

We start with the easy one first. As discussed above, the acronym STEM did exist until the early 2000s. Although the existence of the acronym does not generate scholarship on student learning in STEM disciplines, it is symbolic and helps focus attention to efforts in STEM education. Since we want to examine the status and trends in STEM education, it is reasonable to start with the year 2000. Then, we can use the acronym of STEM as an identifier in locating specific research articles in a way as done by others (e.g., Brown, 2012 ; Mizell & Brown, 2016 ). We chose the end of 2018 as the end of the time period for our review that began during 2019.

Focusing on publications beyond individual discipline-based journals

As mentioned before, scholars responded to the call for scholarship development in STEM education with publications that appeared in various outlets and diverse languages, including journals, books, and conference proceedings. However, journal publications are typically credited and valued as one of the most important outlets for research exchange (e.g., Erduran et al., 2015 ; Henderson et al., 2011 ; Lin et al., 2019 ; Xu et al., 2019 ). Thus, in this review, we will also focus on articles published in journals in English.

The discourse above on the complexity and ambiguity regarding STEM education suggests that scholars may publish their research in a wide range of journals beyond individual discipline-based journals. To search and select articles from a wide range of journals, we thought about the approach of searching selected databases with keywords as other scholars used in reviewing STEM education with a specific focus. However, existing journals in STEM education do not have a long history. In fact, IJ-STEM is the first journal in STEM education that has just been accepted into the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) (Li, 2019a ). Publications in many STEM education journals are practically not available in several important and popular databases, such as the Web of Science and Scopus. Moreover, some journals in STEM education were not normalized due to a journal’s name change or irregular publication schedule. For example, the Journal of STEM Education was named as Journal of SMET Education when it started in 2000 in a print format, and the journal’s name was not changed until 2003, Vol 4 (3 and 4), and also went fully on-line starting 2004 (Raju & Sankar, 2003 ). A simple Google Scholar search with keywords will not be able to provide accurate information, unless you visit the journal’s website to check all publications over the years. Those added complexities prevented us from taking the database search as a viable approach. Thus, we decided to identify journals first and then search and select articles from these journals. Further details about the approach are provided in the “ Method ” section.

Research questions

Given a broader range of journals and a longer period of time to be covered in this review, we can examine some of the same questions as the IJ-STEM review (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ), but we do not have access to data on readership, articles accessed, or articles cited for the other journals selected for this review. Specifically, we are interested in addressing the following six research questions:

What were the status and trends in STEM education research from 2000 to the end of 2018 based on journal publications?

What were the patterns of publications in STEM education research across different journals?

Which countries or regions, based on the countries or regions in which authors were located, contributed to journal publications in STEM education?

What were the patterns of single-author and multiple-author publications in STEM education?

What main topics had emerged in STEM education research based on the journal publications?

What research methods did authors tend to use in conducting STEM education research?

Based on the above discussion, we developed the methods for this literature review to follow careful sequential steps to identify journals first and then identify and select STEM education research articles published in these journals from January 2000 to the end of 2018. The methods should allow us to obtain a comprehensive overview about the status and trends of STEM education research based on a systematic analysis of related publications from a broad range of journals and over a longer period of time.

Identifying journals

We used the following three steps to search and identify journals for inclusion:

We assumed articles on research in STEM education have been published in journals that involve more than one traditional discipline. Thus, we used Google to search and identify all education journals with their titles containing either two, three, or all four disciplines of STEM. For example, we did Google search of all the different combinations of three areas of science, mathematics, technology Footnote 1 , and engineering as contained in a journal’s title. In addition, we also searched possible journals containing the word STEAM in the title.

Since STEM education may be viewed as encompassing discipline-based education research, articles on STEM education research may have been published in traditional discipline-based education journals, such as the Journal of Research in Science Teaching . However, there are too many such journals. Yale’s Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning has listed 16 journals that publish articles spanning across undergraduate STEM education disciplines (see https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/FacultyResources/STEMjournals ). Thus, we selected from the list some individual discipline-based education research journals, and also added a few more common ones such as the Journal of Engineering Education .

Since articles on research in STEM education have appeared in some general education research journals, especially those well-established ones. Thus, we identified and selected a few of those journals that we noticed some publications in STEM education research.

Following the above three steps, we identified 45 journals (see Table  1 ).

Identifying articles

In this review, we will not discuss or define the meaning of STEM education. We used the acronym STEM (or STEAM, or written as the phrase of “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics”) as a term in our search of publication titles and/or abstracts. To identify and select articles for review, we searched all items published in those 45 journals and selected only those articles that author(s) self-identified with the acronym STEM (or STEAM, or written as the phrase of “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics”) in the title and/or abstract. We excluded publications in the sections of practices, letters to editors, corrections, and (guest) editorials. Our search found 798 publications that authors self-identified as in STEM education, identified from 36 journals. The remaining 9 journals either did not have publications that met our search terms or published in another language other than English (see the two separate lists in Table 1 ).

Data analysis

To address research question 3, we analyzed authorship to examine which countries/regions contributed to STEM education research over the years. Because each publication may have either one or multiple authors, we used two different methods to analyze authorship nationality that have been recognized as valuable from our review of IJ-STEM publications (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). The first method considers only the corresponding author’s (or the first author, if no specific indication is given about the corresponding author) nationality and his/her first institution affiliation, if multiple institution affiliations are listed. Method 2 considers every author of a publication, using the following formula (Howard, Cole, & Maxwell, 1987 ) to quantitatively assign and estimate each author’s contribution to a publication (and thus associated institution’s productivity), when multiple authors are included in a publication. As an example, each publication is given one credit point. For the publication co-authored by two, the first author would be given 0.6 and the second author 0.4 credit point. For an article contributed jointly by three authors, the three authors would be credited with scores of 0.47, 0.32, and 0.21, respectively.

After calculating all the scores for each author of each paper, we added all the credit scores together in terms of each author’s country/region. For brevity, we present only the top 10 countries/regions in terms of their total credit scores calculated using these two different methods, respectively.

To address research question 5, we used the same seven topic categories identified and used in our review of IJ-STEM publications (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). We tested coding 100 articles first to ensure the feasibility. Through test-coding and discussions, we found seven topic categories could be used to examine and classify all 798 items.

K-12 teaching, teacher, and teacher education in STEM (including both pre-service and in-service teacher education)

Post-secondary teacher and teaching in STEM (including faculty development, etc.)

K-12 STEM learner, learning, and learning environment

Post-secondary STEM learner, learning, and learning environments (excluding pre-service teacher education)

Policy, curriculum, evaluation, and assessment in STEM (including literature review about a field in general)

Culture and social and gender issues in STEM education

History, epistemology, and perspectives about STEM and STEM education

To address research question 6, we coded all 798 publications in terms of (1) qualitative methods, (2) quantitative methods, (3) mixed methods, and (4) non-empirical studies (including theoretical or conceptual papers, and literature reviews). We assigned each publication to only one research topic and one method, following the process used in the IJ-STEM review (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). When there was more than one topic or method that could have been used for a publication, a decision was made in choosing and assigning a topic or a method. The agreement between two coders for all 798 publications was 89.5%. When topic and method coding discrepancies occurred, a final decision was reached after discussion.

Results and discussion

In the following sections, we report findings as corresponding to each of the six research questions.

The status and trends of journal publications in STEM education research from 2000 to 2018

Figure  1 shows the number of publications per year. As Fig.  1 shows, the number of publications increased each year beginning in 2010. There are noticeable jumps from 2015 to 2016 and from 2017 to 2018. The result shows that research in STEM education had grown significantly since 2010, and the most recent large number of STEM education publications also suggests that STEM education research gained its own recognition by many different journals for publication as a hot and important topic area.

The distribution of STEM education publications over the years

Among the 798 articles, there were 549 articles with the word “STEM” (or STEAM, or written with the phrase of “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics”) included in the article’s title or both title and abstract and 249 articles without such identifiers included in the title but abstract only. The results suggest that many scholars tended to include STEM in the publications’ titles to highlight their research in or about STEM education. Figure  2 shows the number of publications per year where publications are distinguished depending on whether they used the term STEM in the title or only in the abstract. The number of publications in both categories had significant increases since 2010. Use of the acronym STEM in the title was growing at a faster rate than using the acronym only in the abstract.

The trends of STEM education publications with vs. without STEM included in the title

Not all the publications that used the acronym STEM in the title and/or abstract reported on a study involving all four STEM areas. For each publication, we further examined the number of the four areas involved in the reported study.

Figure  3 presents the number of publications categorized by the number of the four areas involved in the study, breaking down the distribution of these 798 publications in terms of the content scope being focused on. Studies involving all four STEM areas are the most numerous with 488 (61.2%) publications, followed by involving one area (141, 17.7%), then studies involving both STEM and non-STEM (84, 10.5%), and finally studies involving two or three areas of STEM (72, 9%; 13, 1.6%; respectively). Publications that used the acronym STEAM in either the title or abstract were classified as involving both STEM and non-STEM. For example, both of the following publications were included in this category.

Dika and D’Amico ( 2016 ). “Early experiences and integration in the persistence of first-generation college students in STEM and non-STEM majors.” Journal of Research in Science Teaching , 53 (3), 368–383. (Note: this article focused on early experience in both STEM and Non-STEM majors.)

Sochacka, Guyotte, and Walther ( 2016 ). “Learning together: A collaborative autoethnographic exploration of STEAM (STEM+ the Arts) education.” Journal of Engineering Education , 105 (1), 15–42. (Note: this article focused on STEAM (both STEM and Arts).)

Publication distribution in terms of content scope being focused on. (Note: 1=single subject of STEM, 2=two subjects of STEM, 3=three subjects of STEM, 4=four subjects of STEM, 5=topics related to both STEM and non-STEM)

Figure  4 presents the number of publications per year in each of the five categories described earlier (category 1, one area of STEM; category 2, two areas of STEM; category 3, three areas of STEM; category 4, four areas of STEM; category 5, STEM and non-STEM). The category that had grown most rapidly since 2010 is the one involving all four areas. Recent growth in the number of publications in category 1 likely reflected growing interest of traditional individual disciplinary based educators in developing and sharing multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary scholarship in STEM education, as what was noted recently by Li and Schoenfeld ( 2019 ) with publications in IJ-STEM.

Publication distribution in terms of content scope being focused on over the years

Patterns of publications across different journals

Among the 36 journals that published STEM education articles, two are general education research journals (referred to as “subject-0”), 12 with their titles containing one discipline of STEM (“subject-1”), eight with journal’s titles covering two disciplines of STEM (“subject-2”), six covering three disciplines of STEM (“subject-3”), seven containing the word STEM (“subject-4”), and one in STEAM education (“subject-5”).

Table  2 shows that both subject-0 and subject-1 journals were usually mature journals with a long history, and they were all traditional subscription-based journals, except the Journal of Pre - College Engineering Education Research , a subject-1 journal established in 2011 that provided open access (OA). In comparison to subject-0 and subject-1 journals, subject-2 and subject-3 journals were relatively newer but still had quite many years of history on average. There are also some more journals in these two categories that provided OA. Subject-4 and subject-5 journals had a short history, and most provided OA. The results show that well-established journals had tended to focus on individual disciplines or education research in general. Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary education journals were started some years later, followed by the recent establishment of several STEM or STEAM journals.

Table 2 also shows that subject-1, subject-2, and subject-4 journals published approximately a quarter each of the publications. The number of publications in subject-1 journals is interested, because we selected a relatively limited number of journals in this category. There are many other journals in the subject-1 category (as well as subject-0 journals) that we did not select, and thus it is very likely that we did not include some STEM education articles published in subject-0 or subject-1 journals that we did not include in our study.

Figure  5 shows the number of publications per year in each of the five categories described earlier (subject-0 through subject-5). The number of publications per year in subject-5 and subject-0 journals did not change much over the time period of the study. On the other hand, the number of publications per year in subject-4 (all 4 areas), subject-1 (single area), and subject-2 journals were all over 40 by the end of the study period. The number of publications per year in subject-3 journals increased but remained less than 30. At first sight, it may be a bit surprising that the number of publications in STEM education per year in subject-1 journals increased much faster than those in subject-2 journals over the past few years. However, as Table 2 indicates these journals had long been established with great reputations, and scholars would like to publish their research in such journals. In contrast to the trend in subject-1 journals, the trend in subject-4 journals suggests that STEM education journals collectively started to gain its own identity for publishing and sharing STEM education research.

STEM education publication distribution across different journal categories over the years. (Note: 0=subject-0; 1=subject-1; 2=subject-2; 3=subject-3; 4=subject-4; 5=subject-5)

Figure  6 shows the number of STEM education publications in each journal where the bars are color-coded (yellow, subject-0; light blue, subject-1; green, subject-2; purple, subject-3; dark blue, subject-4; and black, subject-5). There is no clear pattern shown in terms of the overall number of STEM education publications across categories or journals, but very much individual journal-based performance. The result indicates that the number of STEM education publications might heavily rely on the individual journal’s willingness and capability of attracting STEM education research work and thus suggests the potential value of examining individual journal’s performance.

Publication distribution across all 36 individual journals across different categories with the same color-coded for journals in the same subject category

The top five journals in terms of the number of STEM education publications are Journal of Science Education and Technology (80 publications, journal number 25 in Fig.  6 ), Journal of STEM Education (65 publications, journal number 26), International Journal of STEM Education (64 publications, journal number 17), International Journal of Engineering Education (54 publications, journal number 12), and School Science and Mathematics (41 publications, journal number 31). Among these five journals, two journals are specifically on STEM education (J26, J17), two on two subjects of STEM (J25, J31), and one on one subject of STEM (J12).

Figure  7 shows the number of STEM education publications per year in each of these top five journals. As expected, based on earlier trends, the number of publications per year increased over the study period. The largest increase was in the International Journal of STEM Education (J17) that was established in 2014. As the other four journals were all established in or before 2000, J17’s short history further suggests its outstanding performance in attracting and publishing STEM education articles since 2014 (Li, 2018b ; Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). The increase was consistent with the journal’s recognition as the first STEM education journal for inclusion in SSCI starting in 2019 (Li, 2019a ).

Publication distribution of selected five journals over the years. (Note: J12: International Journal of Engineering Education; J17: International Journal of STEM Education; J25: Journal of Science Education and Technology; J26: Journal of STEM Education; J31: School Science and Mathematics)

Top 10 countries/regions where scholars contributed journal publications in STEM education

Table  3 shows top countries/regions in terms of the number of publications, where the country/region was established by the authorship using the two different methods presented above. About 75% (depending on the method) of contributions were made by authors from the USA, followed by Australia, Canada, Taiwan, and UK. Only Africa as a continent was not represented among the top 10 countries/regions. The results are relatively consistent with patterns reported in the IJ-STEM study (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 )

Further examination of Table 3 reveals that the two methods provide not only fairly consistent results but also yield some differences. For example, Israel and Germany had more publication credit if only the corresponding author was considered, but South Korea and Turkey had more publication credit when co-authors were considered. The results in Table 3 show that each method has value when analyzing and comparing publications by country/region or institution based on authorship.

Recognizing that, as shown in Fig. 1 , the number of publications per year increased rapidly since 2010, Table  4 shows the number of publications by country/region over a 10-year period (2009–2018) and Table 5 shows the number of publications by country/region over a 5-year period (2014–2018). The ranks in Tables  3 , 4 , and 5 are fairly consistent, but that would be expected since the larger numbers of publications in STEM education had occurred in recent years. At the same time, it is interesting to note in Table 5 some changes over the recent several years with Malaysia, but not Israel, entering the top 10 list when either method was used to calculate author's credit.

Patterns of single-author and multiple-author publications in STEM education

Since STEM education differs from traditional individual disciplinary education, we are interested in determining how common joint co-authorship with collaborations was in STEM education articles. Figure  8 shows that joint co-authorship was very common among these 798 STEM education publications, with 83.7% publications with two or more co-authors. Publications with two, three, or at least five co-authors were highest, with 204, 181, and 157 publications, respectively.

Number of publications with single or different joint authorship. (Note: 1=single author; 2=two co-authors; 3=three co-authors; 4=four co-authors; 5=five or more co-authors)

Figure  9 shows the number of publications per year using the joint authorship categories in Fig.  8 . Each category shows an increase consistent with the increase shown in Fig. 1 for all 798 publications. By the end of the time period, the number of publications with two, three, or at least five co-authors was the largest, which might suggest an increase in collaborations in STEM education research.

Publication distribution with single or different joint authorship over the years. (Note: 1=single author; 2=two co-authors; 3=three co-authors; 4=four co-authors; 5=five or more co-authors)

Co-authors can be from the same or different countries/regions. Figure  10 shows the number of publications per year by single authors (no collaboration), co-authors from the same country (collaboration in a country/region), and co-authors from different countries (collaboration across countries/regions). Each year the largest number of publications was by co-authors from the same country, and the number increased dramatically during the period of the study. Although the number of publications in the other two categories increased, the numbers of publications were noticeably fewer than the number of publications by co-authors from the same country.

Publication distribution in authorship across different categories in terms of collaboration over the years

Published articles by research topics

Figure  11 shows the number of publications in each of the seven topic categories. The topic category of goals, policy, curriculum, evaluation, and assessment had almost half of publications (375, 47%). Literature reviews were included in this topic category, as providing an overview assessment of education and research development in a topic area or a field. Sample publications included in this category are listed as follows:

DeCoito ( 2016 ). “STEM education in Canada: A knowledge synthesis.” Canadian Journal of Science , Mathematics and Technology Education , 16 (2), 114–128. (Note: this article provides a national overview of STEM initiatives and programs, including success, criteria for effective programs and current research in STEM education.)

Ring-Whalen, Dare, Roehrig, Titu, and Crotty ( 2018 ). “From conception to curricula: The role of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in integrated STEM units.” International Journal of Education in Mathematics Science and Technology , 6 (4), 343–362. (Note: this article investigates the conceptions of integrated STEM education held by in-service science teachers through the use of photo-elicitation interviews and examines how those conceptions were reflected in teacher-created integrated STEM curricula.)

Schwab et al. ( 2018 ). “A summer STEM outreach program run by graduate students: Successes, challenges, and recommendations for implementation.” Journal of Research in STEM Education , 4 (2), 117–129. (Note: the article details the organization and scope of the Foundation in Science and Mathematics Program and evaluates this program.)

Frequencies of publications’ research topic distributions. (Note: 1=K-12 teaching, teacher and teacher education; 2=Post-secondary teacher and teaching; 3=K-12 STEM learner, learning, and learning environment; 4=Post-secondary STEM learner, learning, and learning environments; 5=Goals and policy, curriculum, evaluation, and assessment (including literature review); 6=Culture, social, and gender issues; 7=History, philosophy, Epistemology, and nature of STEM and STEM education)

The topic with the second most publications was “K-12 teaching, teacher and teacher education” (103, 12.9%), followed closely by “K-12 learner, learning, and learning environment” (97, 12.2%). The results likely suggest the research community had a broad interest in both teaching and learning in K-12 STEM education. The top three topics were the same in the IJ-STEM review (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ).

Figure  11 also shows there was a virtual tie between two topics with the fourth most cumulative publications, “post-secondary STEM learner & learning” (76, 9.5%) and “culture, social, and gender issues in STEM” (78, 9.8%), such as STEM identity, students’ career choices in STEM, and inclusion. This result is different from the IJ-STEM review (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ), where “post-secondary STEM teacher & teaching” and “post-secondary STEM learner & learning” were tied as the fourth most common topics. This difference is likely due to the scope of journals and the length of the time period being reviewed.

Figure  12 shows the number of publications per year in each topic category. As expected from the results in Fig.  11 the number of publications in topic category 5 (goals, policy, curriculum, evaluation, and assessment) was the largest each year. The numbers of publications in topic category 3 (K-12 learner, learning, and learning environment), 1 (K-12 teaching, teacher, and teacher education), 6 (culture, social, and gender issues in STEM), and 4 (post-secondary STEM learner and learning) were also increasing. Although Fig.  11 shows the number of publications in topic category 1 was slightly more than the number of publications in topic category 3 (see Fig.  11 ), the number of publications in topic category 3 was increasing more rapidly in recent years than its counterpart in topic category 1. This may suggest a more rapidly growing interest in K-12 STEM learner, learning, and learning environment. The numbers of publications in topic categories 2 and 7 were not increasing, but the number of publications in IJ-STEM in topic category 2 was notable (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). It will be interesting to follow trends in the seven topic categories in the future.

Publication distributions in terms of research topics over the years

Published articles by research methods

Figure  13 shows the number of publications per year by research methods in empirical studies. Publications with non-empirical studies are shown in a separate category. Although the number of publications in each of the four categories increased during the study period, there were many more publications presenting empirical studies than those without. For those with empirical studies, the number of publications using quantitative methods increased most rapidly in recent years, followed by qualitative and then mixed methods. Although there were quite many publications with non-empirical studies (e.g., theoretical or conceptual papers, literature reviews) during the study period, the increase of the number of publications in this category was noticeably less than empirical studies.

Publication distributions in terms of research methods over the years. (Note: 1=qualitative, 2=quantitative, 3=mixed, 4=Non-empirical)

Concluding remarks

The systematic analysis of publications that were considered to be in STEM education in 36 selected journals shows tremendous growth in scholarship in this field from 2000 to 2018, especially over the past 10 years. Our analysis indicates that STEM education research has been increasingly recognized as an important topic area and studies were being published across many different journals. Scholars still hold diverse perspectives about how research is designated as STEM education; however, authors have been increasingly distinguishing their articles with STEM, STEAM, or related words in the titles, abstracts, and lists of keywords during the past 10 years. Moreover, our systematic analysis shows a dramatic increase in the number of publications in STEM education journals in recent years, which indicates that these journals have been collectively developing their own professional identity. In addition, the International Journal of STEM Education has become the first STEM education journal to be accepted in SSCI in 2019 (Li, 2019a ). The achievement may mark an important milestone as STEM education journals develop their own identity for publishing and sharing STEM education research.

Consistent with our previous reviews (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ; Li, Wang, & Xiao, 2019 ), the vast majority of publications in STEM education research were contributed by authors from the USA, where STEM and STEAM education originated, followed by Australia, Canada, and Taiwan. At the same time, authors in some countries/regions in Asia were becoming very active in the field over the past several years. This trend is consistent with findings from the IJ-STEM review (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). We certainly hope that STEM education scholarship continues its development across all five continents to support educational initiatives and programs in STEM worldwide.

Our analysis has shown that collaboration, as indicated by publications with multiple authors, has been very common among STEM education scholars, as that is often how STEM education distinguishes itself from the traditional individual disciplinary based education. Currently, most collaborations occurred among authors from the same country/region, although collaborations across cross-countries/regions were slowly increasing.

With the rapid changes in STEM education internationally (Li, 2019b ), it is often difficult for researchers to get an overall sense about possible hot topics in STEM education especially when STEM education publications appeared in a vast array of journals across different fields. Our systematic analysis of publications has shown that studies in the topic category of goals, policy, curriculum, evaluation, and assessment have been the most prevalent, by far. Our analysis also suggests that the research community had a broad interest in both teaching and learning in K-12 STEM education. These top three topic categories are the same as in the IJ-STEM review (Li, Froyd, & Wang, 2019 ). Work in STEM education will continue to evolve and it will be interesting to review the trends in another 5 years.

Encouraged by our recent IJ-STEM review, we began this review with an ambitious goal to provide an overview of the status and trends of STEM education research. In a way, this systematic review allowed us to achieve our initial goal with a larger scope of journal selection over a much longer period of publication time. At the same time, there are still limitations, such as the decision to limit the number of journals from which we would identify publications for analysis. We understand that there are many publications on STEM education research that were not included in our review. Also, we only identified publications in journals. Although this is one of the most important outlets for scholars to share their research work, future reviews could examine publications on STEM education research in other venues such as books, conference proceedings, and grant proposals.

Availability of data and materials

The data and materials used and analyzed for the report are publicly available at the various journal websites.

Journals containing the word "computers" or "ICT" appeared automatically when searching with the word "technology". Thus, the word of "computers" or "ICT" was taken as equivalent to "technology" if appeared in a journal's name.

Abbreviations

Information and Communications Technology

International Journal of STEM Education

Kindergarten–Grade 12

Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology

Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

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The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2020

We reviewed hundreds of educational studies in 2020 and then highlighted 10 of the most significant—covering topics from virtual learning to the reading wars and the decline of standardized tests.

In the month of March of 2020, the year suddenly became a whirlwind. With a pandemic disrupting life across the entire globe, teachers scrambled to transform their physical classrooms into virtual—or even hybrid—ones, and researchers slowly began to collect insights into what works, and what doesn’t, in online learning environments around the world.

Meanwhile, neuroscientists made a convincing case for keeping handwriting in schools, and after the closure of several coal-fired power plants in Chicago, researchers reported a drop in pediatric emergency room visits and fewer absences in schools, reminding us that questions of educational equity do not begin and end at the schoolhouse door.

1. To Teach Vocabulary, Let Kids Be Thespians

When students are learning a new language, ask them to act out vocabulary words. It’s fun to unleash a child’s inner thespian, of course, but a 2020 study concluded that it also nearly doubles their ability to remember the words months later.

Researchers asked 8-year-old students to listen to words in another language and then use their hands and bodies to mimic the words—spreading their arms and pretending to fly, for example, when learning the German word flugzeug , which means “airplane.” After two months, these young actors were a remarkable 73 percent more likely to remember the new words than students who had listened without accompanying gestures. Researchers discovered similar, if slightly less dramatic, results when students looked at pictures while listening to the corresponding vocabulary. 

It’s a simple reminder that if you want students to remember something, encourage them to learn it in a variety of ways—by drawing it , acting it out, or pairing it with relevant images , for example.

2. Neuroscientists Defend the Value of Teaching Handwriting—Again

For most kids, typing just doesn’t cut it. In 2012, brain scans of preliterate children revealed crucial reading circuitry flickering to life when kids hand-printed letters and then tried to read them. The effect largely disappeared when the letters were typed or traced.

More recently, in 2020, a team of researchers studied older children—seventh graders—while they handwrote, drew, and typed words, and concluded that handwriting and drawing produced telltale neural tracings indicative of deeper learning.

“Whenever self-generated movements are included as a learning strategy, more of the brain gets stimulated,” the researchers explain, before echoing the 2012 study: “It also appears that the movements related to keyboard typing do not activate these networks the same way that drawing and handwriting do.”

It would be a mistake to replace typing with handwriting, though. All kids need to develop digital skills, and there’s evidence that technology helps children with dyslexia to overcome obstacles like note taking or illegible handwriting, ultimately freeing them to “use their time for all the things in which they are gifted,” says the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity.

3. The ACT Test Just Got a Negative Score (Face Palm)

A 2020 study found that ACT test scores, which are often a key factor in college admissions, showed a weak—or even negative —relationship when it came to predicting how successful students would be in college. “There is little evidence that students will have more college success if they work to improve their ACT score,” the researchers explain, and students with very high ACT scores—but indifferent high school grades—often flamed out in college, overmatched by the rigors of a university’s academic schedule.

Just last year, the SAT—cousin to the ACT—had a similarly dubious public showing. In a major 2019 study of nearly 50,000 students led by researcher Brian Galla, and including Angela Duckworth, researchers found that high school grades were stronger predictors of four-year-college graduation than SAT scores.

The reason? Four-year high school grades, the researchers asserted, are a better indicator of crucial skills like perseverance, time management, and the ability to avoid distractions. It’s most likely those skills, in the end, that keep kids in college.

4. A Rubric Reduces Racial Grading Bias

A simple step might help undercut the pernicious effect of grading bias, a new study found: Articulate your standards clearly before you begin grading, and refer to the standards regularly during the assessment process.

In 2020, more than 1,500 teachers were recruited and asked to grade a writing sample from a fictional second-grade student. All of the sample stories were identical—but in one set, the student mentions a family member named Dashawn, while the other set references a sibling named Connor.

Teachers were 13 percent more likely to give the Connor papers a passing grade, revealing the invisible advantages that many students unknowingly benefit from. When grading criteria are vague, implicit stereotypes can insidiously “fill in the blanks,” explains the study’s author. But when teachers have an explicit set of criteria to evaluate the writing—asking whether the student “provides a well-elaborated recount of an event,” for example—the difference in grades is nearly eliminated.

5. What Do Coal-Fired Power Plants Have to Do With Learning? Plenty

When three coal-fired plants closed in the Chicago area, student absences in nearby schools dropped by 7 percent, a change largely driven by fewer emergency room visits for asthma-related problems. The stunning finding, published in a 2020 study from Duke and Penn State, underscores the role that often-overlooked environmental factors—like air quality, neighborhood crime, and noise pollution—have in keeping our children healthy and ready to learn.

At scale, the opportunity cost is staggering: About 2.3 million children in the United States still attend a public elementary or middle school located within 10 kilometers of a coal-fired plant.

The study builds on a growing body of research that reminds us that questions of educational equity do not begin and end at the schoolhouse door. What we call an achievement gap is often an equity gap, one that “takes root in the earliest years of children’s lives,” according to a 2017 study . We won’t have equal opportunity in our schools, the researchers admonish, until we are diligent about confronting inequality in our cities, our neighborhoods—and ultimately our own backyards.

6. Students Who Generate Good Questions Are Better Learners

Some of the most popular study strategies—highlighting passages, rereading notes, and underlining key sentences—are also among the least effective. A 2020 study highlighted a powerful alternative: Get students to generate questions about their learning, and gradually press them to ask more probing questions.

In the study, students who studied a topic and then generated their own questions scored an average of 14 percentage points higher on a test than students who used passive strategies like studying their notes and rereading classroom material. Creating questions, the researchers found, not only encouraged students to think more deeply about the topic but also strengthened their ability to remember what they were studying.

There are many engaging ways to have students create highly productive questions : When creating a test, you can ask students to submit their own questions, or you can use the Jeopardy! game as a platform for student-created questions.

7. Did a 2020 Study Just End the ‘Reading Wars’?

One of the most widely used reading programs was dealt a severe blow when a panel of reading experts concluded that it “would be unlikely to lead to literacy success for all of America’s public schoolchildren.”

In the 2020 study , the experts found that the controversial program—called “Units of Study” and developed over the course of four decades by Lucy Calkins at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project—failed to explicitly and systematically teach young readers how to decode and encode written words, and was thus “in direct opposition to an enormous body of settled research.”

The study sounded the death knell for practices that de-emphasize phonics in favor of having children use multiple sources of information—like story events or illustrations—to predict the meaning of unfamiliar words, an approach often associated with “balanced literacy.” In an internal memo obtained by publisher APM, Calkins seemed to concede the point, writing that “aspects of balanced literacy need some ‘rebalancing.’”

8. A Secret to High-Performing Virtual Classrooms

In 2020, a team at Georgia State University compiled a report on virtual learning best practices. While evidence in the field is "sparse" and "inconsistent," the report noted that logistical issues like accessing materials—and not content-specific problems like failures of comprehension—were often among the most significant obstacles to online learning. It wasn’t that students didn’t understand photosynthesis in a virtual setting, in other words—it was that they didn’t find (or simply didn't access) the lesson on photosynthesis at all.

That basic insight echoed a 2019 study that highlighted the crucial need to organize virtual classrooms even more intentionally than physical ones. Remote teachers should use a single, dedicated hub for important documents like assignments; simplify communications and reminders by using one channel like email or text; and reduce visual clutter like hard-to-read fonts and unnecessary decorations throughout their virtual spaces.

Because the tools are new to everyone, regular feedback on topics like accessibility and ease of use is crucial. Teachers should post simple surveys asking questions like “Have you encountered any technical issues?” and “Can you easily locate your assignments?” to ensure that students experience a smooth-running virtual learning space.

9. Love to Learn Languages? Surprisingly, Coding May Be Right for You

Learning how to code more closely resembles learning a language such as Chinese or Spanish than learning math, a 2020 study found—upending the conventional wisdom about what makes a good programmer.

In the study, young adults with no programming experience were asked to learn Python, a popular programming language; they then took a series of tests assessing their problem-solving, math, and language skills. The researchers discovered that mathematical skill accounted for only 2 percent of a person’s ability to learn how to code, while language skills were almost nine times more predictive, accounting for 17 percent of learning ability.

That’s an important insight because all too often, programming classes require that students pass advanced math courses—a hurdle that needlessly excludes students with untapped promise, the researchers claim.

10. Researchers Cast Doubt on Reading Tasks Like ‘Finding the Main Idea’

“Content is comprehension,” declared a 2020 Fordham Institute study , sounding a note of defiance as it staked out a position in the ongoing debate over the teaching of intrinsic reading skills versus the teaching of content knowledge.

While elementary students spend an enormous amount of time working on skills like “finding the main idea” and “summarizing”—tasks born of the belief that reading is a discrete and trainable ability that transfers seamlessly across content areas—these young readers aren’t experiencing “the additional reading gains that well-intentioned educators hoped for,” the study concluded.

So what works? The researchers looked at data from more than 18,000 K–5 students, focusing on the time spent in subject areas like math, social studies, and ELA, and found that “social studies is the only subject with a clear, positive, and statistically significant effect on reading improvement.” In effect, exposing kids to rich content in civics, history, and law appeared to teach reading more effectively than our current methods of teaching reading. Perhaps defiance is no longer needed: Fordham’s conclusions are rapidly becoming conventional wisdom—and they extend beyond the limited claim of reading social studies texts. According to Natalie Wexler, the author of the well-received 2019 book  The Knowledge Gap , content knowledge and reading are intertwined. “Students with more [background] knowledge have a better chance of understanding whatever text they encounter. They’re able to retrieve more information about the topic from long-term memory, leaving more space in working memory for comprehension,” she recently told Edutopia .

Research Topics & Ideas: Education

170+ Research Ideas To Fast-Track Your Project

If you’re just starting out exploring education-related topics for your dissertation, thesis or research project, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we’ll help kickstart your research topic ideation process by providing a hearty list of research topics and ideas , including examples from actual dissertations and theses..

PS – This is just the start…

We know it’s exciting to run through a list of research topics, but please keep in mind that this list is just a starting point . To develop a suitable education-related research topic, you’ll need to identify a clear and convincing research gap , and a viable plan of action to fill that gap.

If this sounds foreign to you, check out our free research topic webinar that explores how to find and refine a high-quality research topic, from scratch. Alternatively, if you’d like hands-on help, consider our 1-on-1 coaching service .

Overview: Education Research Topics

• How to find a research topic (video)
• List of 50+ education-related research topics/ideas
• List of 120+ level-specific research topics 
• Examples of actual dissertation topics in education
• Tips to fast-track your topic ideation (video)
• Free Webinar : Topic Ideation 101
• Where to get extra help

Education-Related Research Topics & Ideas

Below you’ll find a list of education-related research topics and idea kickstarters. These are fairly broad and flexible to various contexts, so keep in mind that you will need to refine them a little. Nevertheless, they should inspire some ideas for your project.

• The impact of school funding on student achievement
• The effects of social and emotional learning on student well-being
• The effects of parental involvement on student behaviour
• The impact of teacher training on student learning
• The impact of classroom design on student learning
• The impact of poverty on education
• The use of student data to inform instruction
• The role of parental involvement in education
• The effects of mindfulness practices in the classroom
• The use of technology in the classroom
• The role of critical thinking in education
• The use of formative and summative assessments in the classroom
• The use of differentiated instruction in the classroom
• The use of gamification in education
• The effects of teacher burnout on student learning
• The impact of school leadership on student achievement
• The effects of teacher diversity on student outcomes
• The role of teacher collaboration in improving student outcomes
• The implementation of blended and online learning
• The effects of teacher accountability on student achievement
• The effects of standardized testing on student learning
• The effects of classroom management on student behaviour
• The effects of school culture on student achievement
• The use of student-centred learning in the classroom
• The impact of teacher-student relationships on student outcomes
• The achievement gap in minority and low-income students
• The use of culturally responsive teaching in the classroom
• The impact of teacher professional development on student learning
• The use of project-based learning in the classroom
• The effects of teacher expectations on student achievement
• The use of adaptive learning technology in the classroom
• The impact of teacher turnover on student learning
• The effects of teacher recruitment and retention on student learning
• The impact of early childhood education on later academic success
• The impact of parental involvement on student engagement
• The use of positive reinforcement in education
• The impact of school climate on student engagement
• The role of STEM education in preparing students for the workforce
• The effects of school choice on student achievement
• The use of technology in the form of online tutoring

Level-Specific Research Topics

Looking for research topics for a specific level of education? We’ve got you covered. Below you can find research topic ideas for primary, secondary and tertiary-level education contexts. Click the relevant level to view the respective list.

Research Topics: Pick An Education Level

Primary education.

• Investigating the effects of peer tutoring on academic achievement in primary school
• Exploring the benefits of mindfulness practices in primary school classrooms
• Examining the effects of different teaching strategies on primary school students’ problem-solving skills
• The use of storytelling as a teaching strategy in primary school literacy instruction
• The role of cultural diversity in promoting tolerance and understanding in primary schools
• The impact of character education programs on moral development in primary school students
• Investigating the use of technology in enhancing primary school mathematics education
• The impact of inclusive curriculum on promoting equity and diversity in primary schools
• The impact of outdoor education programs on environmental awareness in primary school students
• The influence of school climate on student motivation and engagement in primary schools
• Investigating the effects of early literacy interventions on reading comprehension in primary school students
• The impact of parental involvement in school decision-making processes on student achievement in primary schools
• Exploring the benefits of inclusive education for students with special needs in primary schools
• Investigating the effects of teacher-student feedback on academic motivation in primary schools
• The role of technology in developing digital literacy skills in primary school students
• Effective strategies for fostering a growth mindset in primary school students
• Investigating the role of parental support in reducing academic stress in primary school children
• The role of arts education in fostering creativity and self-expression in primary school students
• Examining the effects of early childhood education programs on primary school readiness
• Examining the effects of homework on primary school students’ academic performance
• The role of formative assessment in improving learning outcomes in primary school classrooms
• The impact of teacher-student relationships on academic outcomes in primary school
• Investigating the effects of classroom environment on student behavior and learning outcomes in primary schools
• Investigating the role of creativity and imagination in primary school curriculum
• The impact of nutrition and healthy eating programs on academic performance in primary schools
• The impact of social-emotional learning programs on primary school students’ well-being and academic performance
• The role of parental involvement in academic achievement of primary school children
• Examining the effects of classroom management strategies on student behavior in primary school
• The role of school leadership in creating a positive school climate Exploring the benefits of bilingual education in primary schools
• The effectiveness of project-based learning in developing critical thinking skills in primary school students
• The role of inquiry-based learning in fostering curiosity and critical thinking in primary school students
• The effects of class size on student engagement and achievement in primary schools
• Investigating the effects of recess and physical activity breaks on attention and learning in primary school
• Exploring the benefits of outdoor play in developing gross motor skills in primary school children
• The effects of educational field trips on knowledge retention in primary school students
• Examining the effects of inclusive classroom practices on students’ attitudes towards diversity in primary schools
• The impact of parental involvement in homework on primary school students’ academic achievement
• Investigating the effectiveness of different assessment methods in primary school classrooms
• The influence of physical activity and exercise on cognitive development in primary school children
• Exploring the benefits of cooperative learning in promoting social skills in primary school students

Secondary Education

• Investigating the effects of school discipline policies on student behavior and academic success in secondary education
• The role of social media in enhancing communication and collaboration among secondary school students
• The impact of school leadership on teacher effectiveness and student outcomes in secondary schools
• Investigating the effects of technology integration on teaching and learning in secondary education
• Exploring the benefits of interdisciplinary instruction in promoting critical thinking skills in secondary schools
• The impact of arts education on creativity and self-expression in secondary school students
• The effectiveness of flipped classrooms in promoting student learning in secondary education
• The role of career guidance programs in preparing secondary school students for future employment
• Investigating the effects of student-centered learning approaches on student autonomy and academic success in secondary schools
• The impact of socio-economic factors on educational attainment in secondary education
• Investigating the impact of project-based learning on student engagement and academic achievement in secondary schools
• Investigating the effects of multicultural education on cultural understanding and tolerance in secondary schools
• The influence of standardized testing on teaching practices and student learning in secondary education
• Investigating the effects of classroom management strategies on student behavior and academic engagement in secondary education
• The influence of teacher professional development on instructional practices and student outcomes in secondary schools
• The role of extracurricular activities in promoting holistic development and well-roundedness in secondary school students
• Investigating the effects of blended learning models on student engagement and achievement in secondary education
• The role of physical education in promoting physical health and well-being among secondary school students
• Investigating the effects of gender on academic achievement and career aspirations in secondary education
• Exploring the benefits of multicultural literature in promoting cultural awareness and empathy among secondary school students
• The impact of school counseling services on student mental health and well-being in secondary schools
• Exploring the benefits of vocational education and training in preparing secondary school students for the workforce
• The role of digital literacy in preparing secondary school students for the digital age
• The influence of parental involvement on academic success and well-being of secondary school students
• The impact of social-emotional learning programs on secondary school students’ well-being and academic success
• The role of character education in fostering ethical and responsible behavior in secondary school students
• Examining the effects of digital citizenship education on responsible and ethical technology use among secondary school students
• The impact of parental involvement in school decision-making processes on student outcomes in secondary schools
• The role of educational technology in promoting personalized learning experiences in secondary schools
• The impact of inclusive education on the social and academic outcomes of students with disabilities in secondary schools
• The influence of parental support on academic motivation and achievement in secondary education
• The role of school climate in promoting positive behavior and well-being among secondary school students
• Examining the effects of peer mentoring programs on academic achievement and social-emotional development in secondary schools
• Examining the effects of teacher-student relationships on student motivation and achievement in secondary schools
• Exploring the benefits of service-learning programs in promoting civic engagement among secondary school students
• The impact of educational policies on educational equity and access in secondary education
• Examining the effects of homework on academic achievement and student well-being in secondary education
• Investigating the effects of different assessment methods on student performance in secondary schools
• Examining the effects of single-sex education on academic performance and gender stereotypes in secondary schools
• The role of mentoring programs in supporting the transition from secondary to post-secondary education

Tertiary Education

• The role of student support services in promoting academic success and well-being in higher education
• The impact of internationalization initiatives on students’ intercultural competence and global perspectives in tertiary education
• Investigating the effects of active learning classrooms and learning spaces on student engagement and learning outcomes in tertiary education
• Exploring the benefits of service-learning experiences in fostering civic engagement and social responsibility in higher education
• The influence of learning communities and collaborative learning environments on student academic and social integration in higher education
• Exploring the benefits of undergraduate research experiences in fostering critical thinking and scientific inquiry skills
• Investigating the effects of academic advising and mentoring on student retention and degree completion in higher education
• The role of student engagement and involvement in co-curricular activities on holistic student development in higher education
• The impact of multicultural education on fostering cultural competence and diversity appreciation in higher education
• The role of internships and work-integrated learning experiences in enhancing students’ employability and career outcomes
• Examining the effects of assessment and feedback practices on student learning and academic achievement in tertiary education
• The influence of faculty professional development on instructional practices and student outcomes in tertiary education
• The influence of faculty-student relationships on student success and well-being in tertiary education
• The impact of college transition programs on students’ academic and social adjustment to higher education
• The impact of online learning platforms on student learning outcomes in higher education
• The impact of financial aid and scholarships on access and persistence in higher education
• The influence of student leadership and involvement in extracurricular activities on personal development and campus engagement
• Exploring the benefits of competency-based education in developing job-specific skills in tertiary students
• Examining the effects of flipped classroom models on student learning and retention in higher education
• Exploring the benefits of online collaboration and virtual team projects in developing teamwork skills in tertiary students
• Investigating the effects of diversity and inclusion initiatives on campus climate and student experiences in tertiary education
• The influence of study abroad programs on intercultural competence and global perspectives of college students
• Investigating the effects of peer mentoring and tutoring programs on student retention and academic performance in tertiary education
• Investigating the effectiveness of active learning strategies in promoting student engagement and achievement in tertiary education
• Investigating the effects of blended learning models and hybrid courses on student learning and satisfaction in higher education
• The role of digital literacy and information literacy skills in supporting student success in the digital age
• Investigating the effects of experiential learning opportunities on career readiness and employability of college students
• The impact of e-portfolios on student reflection, self-assessment, and showcasing of learning in higher education
• The role of technology in enhancing collaborative learning experiences in tertiary classrooms
• The impact of research opportunities on undergraduate student engagement and pursuit of advanced degrees
• Examining the effects of competency-based assessment on measuring student learning and achievement in tertiary education
• Examining the effects of interdisciplinary programs and courses on critical thinking and problem-solving skills in college students
• The role of inclusive education and accessibility in promoting equitable learning experiences for diverse student populations
• The role of career counseling and guidance in supporting students’ career decision-making in tertiary education
• The influence of faculty diversity and representation on student success and inclusive learning environments in higher education

Education-Related Dissertations & Theses

While the ideas we’ve presented above are a decent starting point for finding a research topic in education, they are fairly generic and non-specific. So, it helps to look at actual dissertations and theses in the education space to see how this all comes together in practice.

Below, we’ve included a selection of education-related research projects to help refine your thinking. These are actual dissertations and theses, written as part of Master’s and PhD-level programs, so they can provide some useful insight as to what a research topic looks like in practice.

• From Rural to Urban: Education Conditions of Migrant Children in China (Wang, 2019)
• Energy Renovation While Learning English: A Guidebook for Elementary ESL Teachers (Yang, 2019)
• A Reanalyses of Intercorrelational Matrices of Visual and Verbal Learners’ Abilities, Cognitive Styles, and Learning Preferences (Fox, 2020)
• A study of the elementary math program utilized by a mid-Missouri school district (Barabas, 2020)
• Instructor formative assessment practices in virtual learning environments : a posthumanist sociomaterial perspective (Burcks, 2019)
• Higher education students services: a qualitative study of two mid-size universities’ direct exchange programs (Kinde, 2020)
• Exploring editorial leadership : a qualitative study of scholastic journalism advisers teaching leadership in Missouri secondary schools (Lewis, 2020)
• Selling the virtual university: a multimodal discourse analysis of marketing for online learning (Ludwig, 2020)
• Advocacy and accountability in school counselling: assessing the use of data as related to professional self-efficacy (Matthews, 2020)
• The use of an application screening assessment as a predictor of teaching retention at a midwestern, K-12, public school district (Scarbrough, 2020)
• Core values driving sustained elite performance cultures (Beiner, 2020)
• Educative features of upper elementary Eureka math curriculum (Dwiggins, 2020)
• How female principals nurture adult learning opportunities in successful high schools with challenging student demographics (Woodward, 2020)
• The disproportionality of Black Males in Special Education: A Case Study Analysis of Educator Perceptions in a Southeastern Urban High School (McCrae, 2021)

As you can see, these research topics are a lot more focused than the generic topic ideas we presented earlier. So, in order for you to develop a high-quality research topic, you’ll need to get specific and laser-focused on a specific context with specific variables of interest.  In the video below, we explore some other important things you’ll need to consider when crafting your research topic.

Get 1-On-1 Help

If you’re still unsure about how to find a quality research topic within education, check out our Research Topic Kickstarter service, which is the perfect starting point for developing a unique, well-justified research topic.

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• Systematic review
• Open access
• Published: 17 July 2024

Adaptability, Scalability and Sustainability (ASaS) of complex health interventions: a systematic review of theories, models and frameworks

• Lixin Sun   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0004-8328-5845 1 ,
• Andrew Booth 1 &
• Katie Sworn 1  

Implementation Science volume  19 , Article number:  52 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

1082 Accesses

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Complex health interventions (CHIs) are increasingly used in public health, clinical research and education to reduce the burden of disease worldwide. Numerous theories, models and frameworks (TMFs) have been developed to support implementation of CHIs.

This systematic review aims to identify and critique theoretical frameworks concerned with three features of implementation; adaptability, scalability and sustainability (ASaS). By dismantling the constituent theories, analysing their component concepts and then exploring factors that influence each theory the review team hopes to offer an enhanced understanding of considerations when implementing CHIs.

This review searched PubMed MEDLINE, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Google Scholar for research investigating the TMFs of complex health interventions. Narrative synthesis was employed to examine factors that may influence the adaptability, scalability and sustainability of complex health interventions.

A total of 9763 studies were retrieved from the five databases (PubMed, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Google Scholar). Following removal of duplicates and application of the eligibility criteria, 35 papers were eligible for inclusion. Influencing factors can be grouped within outer context (socio-political context; leadership funding, inter-organisational networks), inner context; (client advocacy; organisational characteristics), intervention characteristics (supervision, monitoring and evaluation), and bridging factors (individual adopter or provider characteristics).

This review confirms that identified TMFS do not typically include the three components of adaptability, scalability, and sustainability. Current approaches focus on high income countries or generic “whole world” approaches with few frameworks specific to low- and middle-income countries. The review offers a starting point for further exploration of adaptability, scalability and sustainability, within a low- and middle-income context.

Trial registration

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Peer Review reports

Contributions to the literature

This study identified that current existing theories, models and frameworks (TMFs) focus on high income countries or generic “whole world” approaches with few frameworks specific to low- and middle-income countries.

This study explored the factors influencing the adaptability, scalability and sustainability of complex health interventions within current TMFs.

This study evaluated the applicability and feasibility of current TMF in low- and middle-income countries.

Introduction

This systematic review examines the adaptability, scalability, and sustainability (ASaS) of complex health interventions (CHIs), which are increasingly used in public health, clinical research, and education to alleviate global disease burdens [ 1 ]. The effectiveness of CHIs depends on various factors, including health resources, education levels, and economic status [ 2 , 3 ].

CHIs are interventions with multiple interacting components, posing unique evaluation challenges beyond the usual practical and methodological difficulties [ 4 ].

Adaptability, scalability, and sustainability are crucial concepts in implementing CHIs, addressed through stages of evidence efficacy, scaling-up, and long-term sustainability [ 5 ]. Initial research phases focus on adapting interventions to local contexts and needs [ 6 ]. Once effectiveness is proven, the goal shifts to broader implementation, aiming for sustainability in real-world settings [ 5 ].The definitions of the ASaS is shown in the Table 1 .

Theories, models and frameworks are used extensively to advance implementation science [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ], to guide the design and implementation of complex interventions, and to help in assessing their quality. The resultant models can also be used to elucidate causal mechanisms between influencing factors and to identify contextual factors associated with changes in outcomes [ 10 , 11 , 14 ]. In turn, TMFs offer a lens for the exploration of the complex fields of public health, health policy and social care [ 10 , 13 ].

Generally, a theory is:

“a set of inter‐related concepts, definitions and propositions that present a systematic view of events or situations by specifying relations among variables, to explain and predict the events or situations [ 15 , 16 ].

Simply put, theories, are closely related to models. Specially, theories are characterized as combining the explanatory alongside the descriptive, and models are defined as theories with a narrowly defined scope of explanation [ 16 ]. A framework is:

“a structure, overview, outline, system or plan consisting of various descriptive categories including concepts, constructs or variables, and the relations between them that are presumed to account for a phenomenon” [ 16 , 17 ].

Compared with theories and models, frameworks do not seek to be explanatory; rather than describe the internal relationships of concepts, they simply present the concepts [ 16 ]. However, despite some diverse characteristics, the terms “theory”, “model” and “framework” (TMF) are often used interchangeably.

However, most existing frameworks and measures for determining implementation factors and outcomes have originated in high-income nations [ 18 ]. A study indicated that although the number of frameworks related to program sustainability is increasing, these frameworks are rarely applied and evaluated in low- and middle-income countries or vulnerable communities within high-income countries. The primary reason for this phenomenon is the unique challenges faced by these countries and regions in terms of community and workplace capacities [ 19 ]. Therefore, it cannot be assumed that current TMFs are suitable for resource-limited settings [ 20 ].

Consequently, the aim of this review is to conduct a systematic review of theoretical frameworks concerned with at least one of the three ASaS concepts, to deconstruct the constituent theories, and to analyze the influencing factors within these frameworks. Another aim of this study is to assess the applicability and feasibility of these TMFs in diverse settings.

Specifically, the objectives of this review are:

To explore definitions of scalability, adaptability, and sustainability.

To identify published theoretical studies concerned with at least one of the concepts of sustainability, scalability and adaptability of complex health intervention-related frameworks and to assemble and explore relevant models and frameworks;

To explore inter-relationships between factors influencing scalability, adaptability, and sustainability of the complex health interventions;

To analyse the applicability and feasibility of these TMFs;

To appraise the methodological quality and reporting quality of the included literature.

Search strategy

Systematic review methods were employed to identify and select TMFs. Specifically, the BeHEMoTh procedure was used as a systematic approach by which to collect theoretical frameworks [ 10 ]. The BeHEMoTh procedure offers auditability and transparency when identifying published TMFs [ 21 ]. Specific features of the BeHEMoTh search process are outlined in Additional file 1. The search begins with a structured BeHEMoTh question. First, the researcher reviewed TMFs identified from a scoping review in order to construct a systematic search procedure for retrieving ASaS related TMFs via Google Scholar [Step 1a]. PubMed MEDLINE, CINAHL and Web of Science, were systematically searched using the same search strategy, in a process similar to a conventional systematic review search [step 1b]. Titles and abstracts were screened for TMFs using a spreadsheet with each additional instance being added to the list of TMFs previously identified via step 1 [step 2]. Named models retrieved from step 2, together with models found from scoping via Google Scholar, were then searched to retrieve additional related reports [step 3]. Searching of source references for these TMFs was used to reveal cited studies [step 4a and step 4b].

Search terms

Search terms across all sources were organized within five search term groups including the three ASaS concepts (See Additional file 1). By searching for the three ASaS concepts individually rather than for their intersect, the search strategy recognises that few models involve all three factors of ASaS with many involving one or two factors.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Identified publications were imported to Endnote 9 software and duplicates were deleted. Specific inclusion criteria for factors that influence ASaS of CHIs are shown in Table 2 .

Data extraction and appraisal

The titles and abstracts were screened, and the full papers of potentially relevant studies were obtained. Two authors independently assessed 10% of all titles and abstracts with a single reviewer then selecting full text papers for eligibility. An initial data extraction form was modified and adopted after revision. A single researcher independently extracted: (1) Study identification: year of publication, authors, name of study and name of the theories, models and frameworks; (2) Methods: study design, and study context; (3) any TMFs used; (4) Purpose of the theories, models, and framework; (5) Theories, models, and frameworks: definition, conceptual model, framework; (6) factors influencing ASaS of CHIs and inter-relationships between these concepts. These tables are shown in Additional file 3.

Quality assessment

Quality assessment criteria for assessing reports of TMFs are not common. Three papers were identified that either develop or utilize criteria for assessing theories [ 22 , 23 , 24 ] and these papers were used to compile the following quality assessment criteria:

Is the methodology identified and justified?

Was a theoretical lens or perspective used to guide the study, with a reference provided?

Is the theoretical framework described?

Is the theoretical framework easily linked with the problem?

If a conceptual framework is used, are the concepts adequately defined?

Are the relationships among concepts clearly identified?

Are the influencing factors of concepts clearly identified?

Are the relationships among influencing factors clearly described?

Quality assessments were undertaken by a single reviewer, quality assessment judgements are reported in Additional file 4.

Given that the literature relating to TMFs derives from multiple disciplines, the researcher decided to use a narrative synthesis approach, which allows for synthesis of diverse types, designs and contexts for studies [ 25 , 26 , 27 ].

First, collected TMFs were categorized against a pre-existing classification: (1) Process models; (2) Determinant frameworks; (3) Classic theories; (4) Implementation theories; (5) Evaluation frameworks [ 16 ] (Table 3 ).

To effectively analyze the factors influencing the adaptability, scalability, and sustainability (ASaS) of complex health interventions (CHIs), this review integrates insights from multiple frameworks. Initially, the EPIS (Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, Sustainment) model was utilized, categorizing influencing factors into four key dimensions: Outer Context, Inner Context, Intervention Characteristics, and Bridging Factors. However, a more comprehensive understanding was needed, as the EPIS model alone did not fully capture the complexity of these factors.

To address this, features from the CFIR (Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research) and insights from the NASSS (Non-adoption, Abandonment, Scale-up, Spread, and Sustainability) framework and the Dynamic Sustainability Framework (DSF) were integrated. This meta-model enhancement involves expanding the descriptions within each EPIS dimension to cover additional critical elements found in these other frameworks.

Specifically, within the Inner Context, the organizational characteristics were elaborated to reflect deeper organizational dynamics affecting CHIs. In the Outer Context, the Sociopolitical Context was added, acknowledging its crucial influence on intervention outcomes. Further, the Intervention Characteristics were detailed more extensively to capture the nuanced nature of the interventions themselves.

This enriched model aims to provide a robust analytical framework that better reflects the complex interplay of factors influencing the ASaS of CHIs. By adopting this meta-model, the study offers a comprehensive theoretical foundation that underpins the examination of these complex interventions, paving the way for more targeted and effective implementation strategies in diverse settings.

Finally, the Theoretical Quality Tool, adapted from Hean et al. [ 31 ], was employed to rigorously assess the applicability of the collected (TMFs) in the context of Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs).

Characteristics of included studies

The flowchart of the search results (Fig. 1 ) shows that the search identified 9763 studies. Following removal of duplicates and application of eligibility criteria, 37 studies remained for inclusion in the review. 25 studies provide macroscopic TMFs for CHIs [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 30 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 ] worldwide. A further seven included TMFs [ 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 ] that were developed in high-income countries and only five studies [ 21 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 ] targeted LMICs.

PRIMA diagram of article selection

Types of TMF

Overall, 28 [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 21 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 55 , 57 , 58 , 61 ] of the 37 studies describe macroscopic TMFs and nine studies [ 30 , 47 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 56 , 59 , 60 ] describe TMFs for specific relevant interventions. Categorising these according to the five categories of Per Nilsen's schema (Table 3 ) reveals that 14 of the 37 TMFs are process models, 14 are determinant frameworks, one is classic theory, one is implementation theory, and seven are evaluation frameworks (See Additional file 5). One classic theory and one implementation theory are included. The Detailed classification for collected TMFs is described in Table 4 .

Adaptability, scalability and sustainability definitions

All 37 included studies reported at least two out of the three concepts of ASaS, and the specific concepts involved in each study. (See Table 5 ). Definitions of ASaS found in the included studies are shown in the Additional file 2.

The process of implementation and relationships of adaptability, scalability and sustainability

Diverse TMFs support a strong correlation between the three ASaS concepts and the implementation process. Twenty-five of the TMFs explicitly mentioned implementation of CHIs; while the remaining ten did not [ 6 , 8 , 21 , 39 , 40 , 44 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 62 ].

This review confirms the interconnectedness of adaptability, scalability, and sustainability in the implementation of complex health interventions (CHIs). The findings suggest that adaptability is crucial during the initial stages of CHI deployment, determining the potential for effective and cost-efficient implementation. As the intervention progresses, scalability becomes critical, ensuring that strategies effective on a smaller scale can be expanded to broader populations and regions. Ultimately, sustainability is achieved in the final stages, focusing on maintaining the benefits of the intervention over time and making necessary adjustments based on ongoing feedback and changing conditions.

In essence, the successful scaling and long-term sustainability of CHIs fundamentally depend on their initial adaptability. This streamlined approach highlights the critical progression from adaptability through scalability to sustainability, without delving into the specifics of various models and frameworks.

Influencing factors of adaptability, scalability and sustainability of complex interventions

This study collected and analyzed factors affecting the adaptability, scalability, and sustainability (ASaS) of complex health interventions (CHIs), systematically categorizing them into four distinct categories: outer context, inner context, intervention characteristics, and bridging factors. This classification helps clarify the various factors that influence the implementation of health interventions.

While all these factors impact the three concepts of ASaS, some have particularly close relationships with specific ASaS concepts. Subsequent sections will explore these factors in detail, emphasizing those closely linked to individual ASaS concepts. This approach highlights the multidimensionality of these factors and their varying impacts on the adaptability, scalability, and sustainability of CHIs. The overview of the factors influencing the ASaS is shown in the Table 6 .

Outer context

Name of influencing factors, suggested definition, frequency of influencing factors of Outer context is shown in Table 7 .

Sociopolitical context

This study has identified multiple studies highlighting how sociopolitical factors deeply influence the adaptability, scalability, and sustainability (ASaS) of complex health interventions (CHIs) [ 8 , 30 , 35 , 37 , 39 , 42 , 44 , 47 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 64 ]. These factors, including religion [ 58 ], ethics [ 39 , 56 ], legislation [ 30 , 35 , 39 , 44 , 54 , 58 , 59 , 64 ], norms or regulations [ 7 , 21 , 35 , 38 , 49 , 54 , 56 , 58 ], and policies [ 6 , 7 , 9 , 21 , 35 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 44 , 50 , 51 , 54 , 56 , 57 , 59 ], play a critical role in shaping health outcomes and addressing healthcare disparities. The influence of sociocultural factors such as common traditions, habits, patterns, and beliefs was also evident across different populations [ 35 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 44 , 50 , 52 , 54 , 57 , 58 , 62 ].

Interorganizational networks

Interorganizational networks bridge full-scale relationships across organizations [ 65 ], and it was found to significantly enhance the implementation of CHIs, enabling better adaptation to local contexts and sustainability at lower costs through effective resource sharing and communication.

Also, the role of funding was another major factor discussed, highlighting its critical importance for providing necessary resources such as training, materials, and health services [ 66 ]. Nineteen of the identified models or frameworks emphasize fiscal support prioritized in implementation [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 21 , 30 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 38 , 39 , 44 , 45 , 50 , 54 , 55 , 58 , 59 , 64 ].

Client advocacy

Three of the 37 studies identify client advocacy as an important influencing factor [ 9 , 45 , 50 ]. During implementation client advocacy assists healthcare workers, participants and their families in navigating the healthcare system [ 67 ].

Finally, 16 of the 37 studies emphasize leadership [ 6 , 21 , 30 , 35 , 36 , 40 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 50 , 51 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 ]. Specific subgroups may offer either approval or conflict. Strong leadership can promote effective use of resources while encouraging personnel to work towards a common goal.

Inner context

Name of influencing factors, suggested definition, frequency of influencing factors of Outer context is shown in the Table 8 .

Organizational characteristics

Organizational characteristics influence the process of implementing complex health interventions (CHIs) through structures and processes within organizations. These characteristics encompass ten influencing factors including absorptive capacity [ 6 , 8 , 9 , 21 , 36 , 37 , 40 , 44 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 56 , 57 , 59 , 64 ], organizational readiness [ 8 , 30 , 50 , 51 , 52 ], structure [ 6 , 7 , 35 , 38 , 40 , 44 , 49 , 51 , 52 , 59 , 64 ], values or visions [ 35 , 37 , 40 , 43 , 44 , 51 , 59 ], working environment [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 41 , 45 , 50 , 51 , 54 , 56 ], tension for change [ 6 , 49 , 51 , 53 ], organization culture [ 6 , 35 , 40 , 43 , 50 , 58 ], leadership [ 6 , 21 , 35 , 36 , 40 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 50 , 51 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 ], credibility and reputation [ 43 ]. The adaptability, scalability, and sustainability (ASaS) of CHIs are significantly dependent on these organizational elements.

Organisations with strong organisational power may be likely to implement CHIs because they have stronger leadership and more frequent communication than those with weak or decentralised organisational structures [ 68 ].

Readiness for change

In addition, strong organisations are prepared and aware of possible encountered changes and can adjust their strategies and approaches of working in time to enable CHIs to be carried out well. Readiness for change is related to other factors including organisational culture, and individual attitudes [ 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 ].

Absorptive capacity

During the exploration and preparation phases of a CHI, an organisation's absorptive capacity (the ability to identify, assimilate, transform, and use external knowledge, research and practice [ 73 ]), readiness for change and receptive environment exert a significant impact on the adaptability of CHIs.

Individual adopter or provider characteristics

Individual adopter or provider characteristics include participants’ personal characteristics, age, race/ethnicity, education, training, foundation subjects, professional experience, adaptability, personal values and goals, and personal character creative ability.

Fourteen included studies emphasise how the CHI is accepted and scaled-up by participants and health care workers [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 41 , 45 , 47 , 51 , 53 , 54 , 56 , 58 ]. In parallel to the organisational level, individual ability or capacity [ 6 , 35 , 44 , 51 , 53 , 56 , 57 , 64 ], training or education [ 7 , 8 , 35 , 36 , 40 , 51 , 52 , 56 ], and tenacity for change [ 6 , 51 , 53 ] constitute important factors. CHIs are more easily adapted and diffused when led by experienced and leaders [ 6 , 21 , 35 , 36 , 40 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 50 , 51 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 ] with common visions or views [ 6 , 35 , 51 , 53 , 56 , 60 , 64 ]. In addition, race [ 35 , 50 ], spoken language [ 35 , 50 , 52 ] and individual culture [ 35 , 53 , 56 , 59 ] are considered to be vital influencing factors. Specifically, when there is a high degree of fit between the norms and values of the individual, organisation and CHIs, individuals may find that they achieve higher efficacy when implementing CHIs [ 64 ].

As mentioned above, 16 of the 37 included studies emphasize leadership [ 6 , 21 , 30 , 35 , 36 , 40 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 48 , 50 , 51 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 ].

CHIs require sufficient, well-trained healthcare workers. Fourteen of the 37 studies list staffing as an important factor in their TMFs [ 7 , 30 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 56 , 64 ]. Job candidates may be selected so that their knowledge, skills, competencies, and attitudes [ 74 ] match the requirements of the CHI.

Supervision, monitoring and evaluation

Supervision, monitoring and evaluation refers to the collection, storage, analysis and use of data to assess whether complex interventions are achieving their intended objectives, and further influences improvement, policy development and advocacy of complex intervention [ 75 ]. Nine of the 35 studies argue for the vital role of monitoring and evaluation in providing an effective approach by which to assess the effectiveness of complex interventions [ 21 , 30 , 40 , 43 , 44 , 50 , 51 , 58 , 64 ].

Intervention characteristics

The characteristics of the intervention itself is also an important factor. Specifically, the physical and community environment, the cost of the intervention and access to resources (8 studies) [ 6 , 21 , 30 , 34 , 38 , 51 , 52 , 56 ] and the source of funding all exert a direct impact. Project champions are committed to supporting and promoting the implementation of CHI, along with a strong belief in the value of carrying out CHIs [ 76 ]. The factors within intervention characteristics is shown in the Table 9 .

The included frameworks attest to how the characteristics of the CHI decide whether an intervention can be adapted, scaled-up and sustained [ 6 , 8 , 33 , 36 , 47 , 51 , 53 ]. Although researchers hope that CHIs can be adapted and conducted as quickly as possible, it takes time for both healthcare providers and participants to adapt to new interventions [ 77 ]. Also, when interventions change significantly within a short period of time, the lack of sufficient time to adapt to the intervention and adjust to relevant cultural factors prevent staff and participants from adopting a new CHI [ 78 ].

Bridging factors

Factors influencing the inter-relationship of outer and inner context are described as “bridging factors” in the EPIS framework. Bridging factors include community engagement and Purveyors/Intermediaries.

Twelve studies stress the importance of the community. Development of complex interventions within a community may be facilitated when they utilise existing community resources, available structures and staff, reducing dependence on external funding [ 21 ]. For example, community members were proud to participate in a project to improve malaria prevention through insecticide-treated mosquito nets and thereby contribute to disease control within their community. Consequently, the project was speedily adapted, replicated and scaled-up locally [ 79 ]. The community function is also affected by socio-political factors [ 80 ]. If the visions and beliefs of the policy are inconsistent with community objectives, the policy hinders spread and sustainability even where the community possesses powerful leadership, project champions and sufficient resources [ 80 , 81 ].

Purveyors/Intermediaries take on a critical bridging role for key processes in the implementation of CHIs [ 45 ]. Purveyors, who may be individuals, groups or communities, aim to facilitate the effective and sustainable implementation of CHIs [ 82 ]. Intermediaries provide consultancy and training services to governments, organisations, etc., and also develop and implement different health-services and projects for them [ 82 ]. They also provide monitoring, support, quality improvement and evaluation services at the end of the project [ 82 ]. The factors within bridging factors is shown in the Table 10 .

Applicability and feasibility of the collected TMFs

This study employs the Theoretical Quality Tool, adapted from Hean et al. [ 31 ], to rigorously assess the applicability of various Theoretical Models and Frameworks (TMFs) in the context of Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). The detailed outcomes of this assessment are presented in the Additional file 6. The summary table highlights the applicability and feasibility of TMFs in LMICs.

Of the 37 TMFs reviewed (two studies identify EPIS), seven demonstrate high applicability and feasibility, readily integrating into LMIC healthcare environments without necessitating significant overhauls. For example, models like the AIDED and NPT are readily implementable in LMICs due to their practicality and context-sensitive design. They integrate seamlessly into existing healthcare systems, offering solutions without the need for extensive system overhauls, crucial in resource-limited environments. Twenty-five TMFs require adaptations to align with the local conditions of LMICs, entailing modifications to fit cultural, economic, and healthcare infrastructure nuances. For example, the EPIS framework, CFIR framework, PRISM Model and Chronic Care Model, though broadly applicable, need customization to fit the unique cultural, economic, and healthcare infrastructures of LMICs.

For the remaining five TMFs, their inherent theoretical complexity and the fact that some were specifically designed for High-Income Countries (HICs) pose significant barriers to adoption in in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). This finding highlights an important disconnect between their foundational assumptions and the practical realities of healthcare systems in LMICs. The evaluation outcomes of the applicability and feasibility of the collected 37 TMFs are shown in the Table 11 .

This theoretical systematic review identified common features and differences across 37 TMFs associated with ASaS.

Similarities and differences between the TMFs

All identified TMFs emphasize the importance of one or more of the three ASaS concepts. These frameworks aim to enable CHIs to adapt to new contexts and populations, scale up interventions, and ensure long-term effectiveness. The components of different TMFs share broadly similar descriptions, even if the terminology varies. For example, the EPIS framework divides the implementation process into four phases: exploration, preparation, implementation, and sustainment whereas Sarma’s framework [ 5 ] describes three domains: i: evidence – efficacy to effectiveness; ii: Scaling-up; and iii: sustainability. A further study [ 36 ] describes four stages 1. Training (dissemination); 2. adoption (planning); 3. implementation; 4. practical improvement and two key points (preparation and maintenance).

In the EPIS framework, during exploration and preparation, adaptability is considered to determine whether the complex intervention can be conducted effectively with affordable cost. Domain I of Sarma’s framework [ 5 ] includes the four vital components of intervention sources, evidence strength and quality, relative advantages, adaptability and complexity. The Framework - oral health [ 36 ] emphasizes adoption within the second stage. Hence, these three stages have the similar key components. The EPIS framework describes how a pilot study is further implemented across diverse participants and areas, which is similar to Domain ii: Scaling-up in Sarma’s framework [ 5 ] and the implementation stage in Framework - oral health [ 36 ]. Finally, the sustainment stage in EPIS framework, Domain iii: sustainability in Sarma’s framework [ 5 ] and the maintenance point in Framework - oral health [ 36 ] all convey a shared understanding of sustainability.

Similar stages may be presented in a different order within various models, reflecting the inherently multi-stage and non-linear nature of CHI implementation. Significant differences across different TMFs primarily relate to influences on ASaS. Furthermore, even when different TMFs use the same terminology to describe influencing factors, the meanings may differ due to the inherent complexity and dynamics of these factors.

The complexity of influencing factors of adaptability, scalability and sustainability

The TMFs reflect how CHIs and associated influencing factors do not operate in isolation, but are non-linear, interacting and interdependent. Some influencing factors appear across multiple studies. For example, researchers share a consensus about the importance of funding [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 21 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 38 , 39 , 44 , 45 , 50 , 54 , 55 , 58 , 64 ]. Some studies emphasise adequate and sustained financial support from governments and foundations as prerequisite to the sustainability and spread [ 5 , 44 , 50 , 61 ], while Sarma [ 5 ] recognizes the need to sustain interventions in the absence of adequate funding [ 21 ]. In addition, the sociopolitical context, leadership and organizational characteristics are repeatedly mentioned as essential components for implementation. Furthermore, all the factors mentioned in the literature are bi-directional; the same influencing factor may act differently under diverse conditions, either as a facilitator or as a hindrance.

To be specific, first, in terms of the outer context, strong leadership can facilitate effective use of resources while encouraging personnel to work towards a common goal. Also, sociopolitical factors covers ethical considerations [ 39 , 56 ], legislation [ 35 , 39 , 44 , 54 , 58 , 64 ], norms or regulations [ 7 , 21 , 35 , 38 , 54 , 56 , 58 ], policies [ 6 , 7 , 9 , 21 , 35 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 44 , 50 , 51 , 54 , 56 , 57 ], and religion [ 58 ]. Legislation and policies not only guide, and often guarantee, complex interventions at the macro level, but also, at the empirical level, provide a basis for adapting CHIs to the local environment thereby making interventions suitable for scale up and long term sustainment [ 35 , 39 , 44 , 54 , 58 , 64 ]. High quality interorganizational communication contributes to the implementation and sustainability of CHIs [ 83 ]. Additionally, weak leadership exerts a negative impact on the management of the organisation, funding applications and the recruitment of staff.

Leadership remains an important factor in relation to the inner context. Given that complex interventions are often run by the state, an organisation or a group, strong leadership can facilitate complex interventions. Also, the organisational culture, the vision/belief and the structure of the organisation interact with each factor and are influenced by funding, leadership and staffing.

Strong leadership needs to be accompanied by a structured organisation with a common vision in order to achieve the objectives of complex interventions. People as the carriers of culture, organisation, professional and personal attitudes, norms, interests and affiliations [ 84 ] also fulfil an important role. Individual adopter or provider characteristics are important influencing factors. When people within the organisation are aligned with the organisation's philosophy and culture, along with sufficient financial support, strong leadership and effective supervision, adaptation, scale up and long-term sustainment become possible for CHIs. Finally, intervention factors are influenced by both the outer context and the inner context, and bridging factors serve to unite the outer context, the inner context, and the intervention factors.

The dynamics of influencing factors of adaptability, scalability and sustainability

Factors that influence complex interventions are dynamic in both temporal and geographical terms. The role of these factors may change over time [ 85 ]; anticipated barriers may become facilitators [ 85 ]. For example, in the early stages of an intervention, individual adopters may exhibit skepticism and distrust, presenting a barrier to CHI delivery. However, in later stages, if the intervention proves effective, participant attitudes may shift, motivating them to cooperate and thus becoming facilitators. Similarly, in the early stages, newly recruited or local staff may be unfamiliar with the intervention, posing a hindrance. Conversely, as staff become familiar with the intervention, they are better equipped to implement it, thereby becoming facilitators.

Identical influencing factors may have different effects in various geographical and national contexts. For example, women are generally considered a vulnerable group worldwide, particularly in LMICs, where they tend to have lower income and social status compared to men, making it difficult for them to access better health care resources [ 86 ]. However, in the matrilineal community in Indonesia, women occupy similar or even higher social status than men, with a cultural tradition of controlling family finances [ 87 ]. Therefore, in this context, gender and culture may facilitate interventions, especially maternal and child health related interventions. In relation to funding, reliable sources of funding help to sustain interventions [ 5 ], and one of the challenges to sustainability is the lack of long-term available funding [ 21 ]. In summary, this systematic review offers a comprehensive understanding of factors influencing ASaS and provides a theoretical framework for effective CHIs in the future.

Have gaps in knowledge been addressed?

This is the first systematic review of ASaS related TMFs of CHIs. By focusing on the three factors of adaptability, sustainability and spread the review has been able to explore complex interactions of each with each other and with other important factors.

How have authors defined scalability, adaptability, and sustainability?

Additional file 2 consolidates definitions of scalability, adaptability and sustainability as identified across the included studies. It is noticeable that “sustainability has evolved from being considered as the endgame of a translational research process to a suggested 'adaptation phase’ that integrates and institutionalizes interventions within local organizational and cultural contexts.” [ 7 ]

This literature argues that sustainability is, in fact, a manifestation of adaptability, and that the two concepts are closely related.

Which theoretical studies explore at least one of the concepts of scalability, adaptability and sustainability of complex health intervention within a relevant model/frameworks;?

This review reveals the scarcity of theoretical models for LMICs. The review identified four main categories of theoretical models, (i) the generic TMFs (e.g. RE-AIM and CFIR), with no obvious geographical target (26/37); (ii) tailored TMFs developed by some high-income countries (e,g. [ 52 , 53 , 56 ]. for local needs (6/37); (iii) adapted TMFs (e.g. EPIS and Framework of Dissemination in Health Services Intervention Research), originally designed for high-income countries but now adapted to CHIs worldwide; (iv) TMFs specific to low and middle income countries (5/37) (e.g. [ 21 , 57 ]). 85.7% of the included theories are either generic or specific to high-income countries, with a lack of TMFs specifically targeted at LMICs. As a result of this literature review the team have proceeded to develop a framework for Adaptability, Scalability and Sustainability that is suited for a low- and middle-income country context.

Thirty seven studies explore at least one of the concepts of sustainability, scalability and adaptability. However, no previous studies have explored all three ASaS concepts within a single TMF. Although some studies invoke the need to explore influencing factors and correlation among ASaS, no studies have actually conducted this research.

What inter-relationships have been demonstrated between factors influencing scalability, adaptability, and sustainability of the complex health interventions?

The meta-framework provides a comprehensive structure to explore the complexities of CHI implementation, emphasizing the interplay among four critical domains: outer context, inner context, intervention characteristics, and bridging factors.

In the outer context, the interplay between strong leadership, sociopolitical factors, and interorganizational networks is crucial. Strong leadership promotes resource optimization and strategic alignment toward CHI goals, essential for ASaS [ 35 , 39 , 44 , 54 , 58 , 64 ]. Sociopolitical factors, including legislation, policies, and norms, provide a regulatory framework that guides the adaptation of CHIs to local settings, enhancing their feasibility and long-term integration [ 83 ]. Additionally, robust interorganizational communication facilitates effective adaptation of CHIs to local contexts, potentially lowering costs and enhancing sustainability.

Within the inner context, organizational culture, structure, and leadership significantly interact, affecting CHI outcomes. Strong, visionary leadership is crucial for fostering an organizational culture that supports CHIs and aligns with broader intervention goals [ 84 ]. The organization's structure further influences the implementation of these interventions, with well-structured organizations likely to achieve better scalability and sustainability. Additionally, the characteristics of individual providers and adopters play a critical role, impacting their ability to effectively implement and sustain CHIs.

The characteristics of the intervention itself directly impact its implementation. Factors such as the intervention's complexity, cost, resource requirements, and specific design elements determine the ASaS especially for the stages of adaptability and scalability [ 6 , 21 , 30 , 34 , 38 , 51 , 52 , 56 , 59 ]. Support from project champions and stakeholder involvement are crucial in facilitating the implementation process, ensuring that the interventions are well-supported and aligned with stakeholder expectations [ 8 , 21 , 34 , 36 , 37 , 40 , 44 , 49 , 50 , 56 , 60 ].

Bridging factors like community engagement and the role of purveyors/intermediaries are vital for linking the outer and inner contexts of CHIs. Community engagement leverages local resources and capacities, which is essential for the localized adaptation and sustainability of interventions [ 8 , 9 , 21 , 30 , 34 , 38 , 42 , 44 , 45 , 54 , 56 , 58 ]. Purveyors and intermediaries facilitate the transfer of knowledge and best practices, enhancing the overall effectiveness and reach of CHIs [ 45 ]. These bridging roles ensure that interventions are not only well-integrated within communities but also maintain fidelity to their objectives and outcomes over time.

Lack of TMFs designed for LMICs

The lack of specifically designed TMFs for LMICs presents significant challenges in effectively implementing complex health interventions (CHIs) in these settings. Evaluating existing TMFs reveals a gap in their suitability and feasibility for application within the unique healthcare environments of LMICs.

Of the 37 TMFs assessed, many were found to require adaptations to align with the local conditions of LMICs, necessitating modifications to fit cultural, economic, and healthcare infrastructure nuances. For instance, frameworks such as EPIS, CFIR, PRISM Model, and Chronic Care Model, though broadly applicable, need customization to fit the unique contexts of LMICs.

Five of the TMFs reviewed were identified as inherently complex and primarily designed for high-income settings, posing substantial barriers to their adoption in LMICs. This highlights a critical disconnect between the foundational assumptions of these models and the practical realities of healthcare systems in LMICs, which face challenges such as limited resources, differing disease burdens, and varied healthcare delivery systems.

Despite these challenges, some models demonstrate higher applicability and feasibility. For example, the Dynamic Sustainability Framework (DSF) and the AIDED model are noted for their practicality and context-sensitive design, aligning with the continuous adaptation and learning required in LMICs. These models integrate seamlessly into existing healthcare systems, offering solutions without the need for extensive system overhauls, which is crucial in resource-limited environments.

The findings underscore the need to develop or adapt existing TMFs specifically tailored to the conditions of LMICs. This involves considering local healthcare practices, resource limitations, and cultural factors to ensure that the frameworks are both applicable and feasible in supporting the effective implementation and sustainability of CHIs in these settings.

Strengths and limitations

This systematic review retrieved relevant literature through a comprehensive search across four databases. Only studies published in English were included, potentially missing those from the grey literature. Identifying relevant implementation TMFs proved challenging due to the complex and diffuse terminologies used in this field. Exhaustive lists of synonyms would have been prohibitive, resulting in lack of specificity and numerous false positives. The authors sought an optimal balance between sensitivity and workload. Although the included studies were evaluated using a quality assessment tool, the risk of bias remains, particularly since only one author was responsible for data extraction.

Furthermore, although this review has identified how influencing factors interact, no clear theoretical model charts the specific TMFs, routes, and pathways from the influencing factors to the ASaS of CHIs. Finally, concepts such as acceptability, fidelity, and feasibility, are recognized as important features of CHIs [ 88 ] but fell outside the remit of this review.

Only one classic theory and one implementation theory are included. There are two possible reasons. Classical theories are borrowed from such disciplines as psychology, sociology and organisational development (e.g. the Diffusion of Innovation theory [ 89 ]. Similarly. the Health Belief Model was published in 1950 [ 90 ] and the Theory of Planned Behavior in the late 1980s [ 91 ]. Given that inclusion requires publication after 2000, many classic theories predate the study period. On the other hand, other theories, such as the implementation climate theory [ 92 ], may not be conceptually related to ASaS, resulting in their exclusion. The Detailed classification for collected TMFs is described in Table 4 .

This review synthesizes 37 TMFs that document factors influencing the ASaS of CHIs. It confirms the wide variety of definitions used for adaptability, scalability, and sustainability within current TMFs, which typically do not include all three components. Current approaches focus on high-income countries or generic “whole world” approaches, with few frameworks specific to low- and middle-income countries. Numerous attempts have been made to describe and explore the interrelationships between implementation components. Of these, the EPIS and CFIR frameworks seem to possess the greatest inherent value, particularly within a model consisting of outer context, inner context, intervention characteristics, and bridging factors. This review offers a starting point for further exploration of adaptability, scalability, and sustainability, particularly within a low- and middle-income context.

Availability of data and materials

All data cited in this review derives from published papers and therefore already available.

Abbreviations

Adaptability, scalability and sustainability

Capability, Opportunity, Motivation and Behaviour

• Complex health interventions

Evidence-based practice

Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, Sustainment (EPIS) framework

Low- and middle- income countries

Medical Research Council

Theory, model and framework

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge Prof. Andrew Booth and Dr. Katie Sworn their review of the manuscript and guidance on the systematic review process.

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Sun, L., Booth, A. & Sworn, K. Adaptability, Scalability and Sustainability (ASaS) of complex health interventions: a systematic review of theories, models and frameworks. Implementation Sci 19 , 52 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-024-01375-7

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Rick Hess Straight Up

Education policy maven Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute think tank offers straight talk on matters of policy, politics, research, and reform. Read more from this blog.

A Brief History of Grading—and What That Means for Schools Today

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Over the past several months, Joe Feldman, veteran educator and author of Grading for Equity , and I have been discussing equitable grading. We’ve touched on everything from grade inflation to whether this approach can ever really yield higher standards to what it takes for schools to responsibly pursue equitable grading. Today, we talk about what the research says about equitable grading, and Joe delivers a brief history of grading practices.

Rick: You’ve mentioned to me that there’s a mismatch between what the research on equitable grading says and the way the practice is regarded by its critics. Can you explain what you mean?

Joe: I get that “equity” has become a polarizing term of late, and I also recognize that there are probably bad or ineffective things happening under the banner of “equitable grading” that have little resemblance to the way that I’ve defined—and many others implement—those practices. But the work of more accurate and fair grading, whether you want to call it “equitable grading,” “standards-based grading,” or even “common-sense grading,” is about creating the conditions for deeper, more rigorous teaching and learning through clearer and more truthful reporting of student progress that doesn’t reward or punish students based on teacher biases or circumstances outside a student’s control.

Taking a critical view of how we traditionally grade can lead to profound and positive changes. The most convincing evidence is from teachers who share their experiences. Here’s one quote from Nick, a high school physics teacher, who told me, “I’ve told students that the homework, rather than being included in your grade, is your opportunity to practice and to see how well you understand things. Homework completion at first took a dip when I stopped counting it for points.”

But that’s not the end of the story. Before too long, Nick related, “They realized, ‘Oh, I want to get a good grade in this class. I need to understand the material,’ and then homework completion has shot up. It’s the opposite of what I feared would happen. Now they see that the purpose of homework is actually to learn the material.”

Rick: You’ve suggested that common grading practices should be regarded as the product of inertia more than evidence. Can you say more about what you mean?

Joe: Entrenched practices can persist despite compelling evidence for change. When it comes to grading, our long-held beliefs often diverge from the most recent evidence and real experiences of practitioners. This isn’t unique to education: Physicians are famously resistant when long-standing practices are upended by emerging research or new data, even by fellow physicians. One example is the adoption of handwashing in health-care settings. Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician in the mid-19th century, discovered the importance of hand hygiene in preventing the spread of infectious diseases. Yet, despite Semmelweis’ findings and evidence, his ideas were initially met with skepticism and resistance from the medical community. It took several decades for handwashing to become widely accepted as a standard practice in health-care settings. I’m not going to claim that equitable grading is the same as handwashing, but I do think that equitable grading practices make grades less likely to be “infected” by teachers’ biases.

I have always approached this work as a dialogue—where you and I approach this work with mutual curiosity and openness. I’ve had many disagreements with skeptics that ended in our realizing that we are interested in the same goals for students—particularly those who have been historically underserved—and we agree more than we disagree about the benefits of equitable grading once we are clear about what it is and what it isn’t. I recall a Fox News interview where I was paired with a teacher who spoke about her adamant disagreement with “equitable grading.” When she shared her concerns, and I responded with clarifications, rationale, and evidence, she shifted to arguing that the biggest problem is that districts aren’t training all teachers to implement improved grading!

Rick: OK, let’s switch gears. We’ve had a number of conversations about grading as practiced today. Given all that, I’m always curious how we got here. You’ve noted in passing that the contemporary grading system grew out of the Industrial Revolution. Can you spell out what you mean by that?

Joe: Our current grading practices were developed over a century ago and shaped by that era’s beliefs about teaching, learning, and human potential—many of which have since been debunked. In the early 20th century, academics and educators believed intelligence was fixed and distributed across the population along a bell curve, with a few people at the high and low ends and most in the middle. Following the lead of universities, K–12 schools used norm-referenced grading, in which a student’s grade signified their achievement relative to others’ in the course.

Our traditional approach to grading largely stems from the century-old beliefs that too many A’s constitutes a weak, easy course and that fewer successful students indicates a rigorous course. That thinking flies in the face of what we now know about academic potential. Grades of A don’t have less value if more students achieve them. Equitable grading reinforces that the size of the bullseye doesn’t get smaller if more people hit the target. Rather, these practices reinforce the goal of great teachers, which is to get the largest number of students to hit the mark as possible.

A second example is that during the Industrial Revolution, animal trials by John Watson and B.F. Skinner supported the belief that humans were most effectively motivated by extrinsic rewards and punishments. This belief underlies the traditional grading practice of using points to incentivize—or some might say control—student behaviors, such as coming on time to class or completing homework.

But, over the past few decades, research from Edward L. Deci and colleagues and from Tony Docan-Morgan has demonstrated that this belief has severe limitations, one of which is that extrinsic rewards and punishments often undermine creative thinking and effective problem-solving. And while some might argue that using points to change behavior prepares students for the professional world, there’s no evidence I’m aware of that supports this. For example, there’s no evidence that employees who come on time to meetings do so because their teachers subtracted points for lateness or that employees who are habitually tardy had teachers with more lenient grading policies.

I believe a primary reason Industrial Revolution-era grading persists is that a critical understanding of grading research and practice hasn’t been included in teacher education or certification. For generations, teachers have had little choice but to replicate how they were graded, and many teachers were successful in school and ostensibly weren’t harmed by traditional grading—the reasoning goes something like, “I did fine, so why change anything?” We find that when teachers think critically about this underdeveloped aspect of their practice, they see the urgency to shift their grading to match modern, research-based understandings of student motivation.

Rick: You’ve previously raised the issue of grade deflation , arguing we focus too much on grade inflation and not enough on deflation. I’m not sure what to make of the argument but would love to hear you explain a little more. Can you expand on what you have in mind?

Joe: Let’s start by clarifying what we mean by grade inflation. Grade inflation occurs when a student’s grade is higher than their actual understanding. When grades are inflated, that student, their parents, college-admissions officers, and others are told that the student is prepared for a certain level of academic challenge when they actually aren’t. This inaccurate grade can have significant consequences, such as requiring unanticipated remediation, which, in college, can make students less likely to graduate on time, if at all.

Grade inflation has received particular attention since the pandemic. Interestingly, research by Seth Gershenson of the Fordham Institute published in 2018—before the pandemic—found that grade inflation was worse in schools attended by higher-income students, while research after the pandemic suggests that, more recently, there has been a disproportionate increase in the grade inflation of students of color and those from low-income families.

Grade deflation—and I have come to believe a more useful term might be “grade depression”—occurs when a teacher-assigned grade is lower than a student’s understanding of course content. Grade depression can be even more harmful than grade inflation. Rather than grade inflation, which opens doors for an opportunity a student is not prepared for, grade depression prevents students from pursuing opportunities—like advanced coursework or postsecondary opportunities—that they are fully prepared for.

We know that traditional grading practices can cause grade inflation and grade depression due to their reliance on the common practice of combining a student’s academic with nonacademic performance in their final grades. This practice renders grades inaccurate and unreliable. The student who doesn’t know the content particularly well but compensates for that weakness by following all class rules earns an inflated grade. On the other hand, the student who has an excellent understanding of the content but doesn’t adhere to all class rules receives a depressed grade. The student with an inflated grade is able to conceal the truth of their deficient academic understanding by pleasing the teacher, and the student with a depressed grade has their excellence hidden.

In a forthcoming paper by the Equitable Grading Project, my co-authors and I compare the teacher-assigned grades of secondary students from multiple states and districts with their corresponding standardized-test scores. The findings revealed a striking mismatch between grades and test scores. Of course, this could be caused by a host of reasons related to the weaknesses of standardized testing. However, we found that when teachers deviated from traditional methods of grading and used improved, more equitable grading practices, grade-test score consistency—i.e., the similarity between grades that teachers assign and test scores—increased, meaning that the use of those practices reduced both grade inflation and grade depression. These results match what we found in 2018.

There’s a lot to excavate about the forces influencing grade inflation and grade depression, but we know we can be confident that equitable grading practices dampen these forces and make grades more accurate and fairer.

The opinions expressed in Rick Hess Straight Up are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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• Prestigious $1.3M Keck grant boosts research on alcohol detection, aiding alcohol use disorder treatment

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Jul 24, 2024, 4:10 PM

The burning sensation you feel in your mouth when you sip alcohol has a name: oral chemesthesis. Understanding this sensation better could lead to new treatments for alcohol use disorders, but research in this area is scarce.

Vanderbilt Assistant Professor of Pharmacology Cody Siciliano aims to change that with his project, “Neural Mechanisms of Oral Chemesthesis,” which has been awarded a $1.3 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation.

“Cody Siciliano’s research on the neural mechanisms of chemical sensation in the mouth has the potential to revolutionize our understanding and treatment of alcohol use disorders,” said John Kuriyan, dean of the School of Medicine Basic Sciences. “This prestigious Keck Foundation grant is a well-deserved recognition of his innovative work in this critically important and underexplored area.

“We are proud to support Cody and his team as they conduct this transformative research that could offer new hope to millions affected by this devastating condition.”

Oral chemesthesis is caused by the chemical activation of nerve fibers in the mouth. “It’s not a taste; it’s a separate sensation that includes things like the burning from chili peppers or the cooling from menthol,” Siciliano said. The sensation can influence a wide range of behaviors, including the preference for spicy foods, avoidance of chemically contaminated food sources, and, most importantly for Siciliano’s research, attraction to alcoholic beverages.

Despite its significant behavioral impact, the brain mechanisms underlying oral chemesthesis remain largely unexplored—a PubMed search for “chemesthesis” returns less than 150 hits, nearly half of which are review articles, highlighting the scarcity of research in this area.

Not surprisingly, the concept for Siciliano’s project began over a drink. “Honestly, it was pretty organic,” he said. “I was having a mixed drink and just wondering, ‘How can you accurately detect alcohol in something that has several other ingredients in it?’ With alcohol, even the smallest amount in a drink, you can typically sense it right away.”

Siciliano’s research aims to uncover the sensory mechanisms that detect monohydroxy alcohols in the mouth and how these signals are interpreted by the brain to produce either attraction or avoidance of various alcohols based on their chemical structures.

“One thing that we’re going to try is to see if we can harness the chemesthetic system to control alcohol intake,” he said. “We’re making designer alcohol receptors to see if we can make a 5 percent (alcohol by volume) drink feel like a 50 percent one, with the aim to reduce alcohol consumption to more reasonable levels.”

With minimal existing research to guide him, Siciliano is pioneering new methods and exploring unfamiliar terrain in the human skull. “Getting the preliminary data for the application took quite a bit of time because the things we’re trying simply have not been tried before. Every step has involved adapting methods and mapping out unexplored areas, like the trigeminal ganglion,” which rests in the base of the skull and transmits sensory information from the mouth to the brain.

“We are hopeful that this will start a new field at the intersection of sensory and addiction sciences. Our work now can ultimately provide foundational research for future studies, whether by us or others,” Siciliano said.

Siciliano’s award marks the third Keck Foundation grant to Vanderbilt researchers since 2020. These accolades underscore Vanderbilt’s commitment to fostering transformative research that addresses critical scientific and medical challenges.

Research Development and Support, based in the Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Innovation, played a crucial role in the development of Siciliano’s proposal and interview preparation. RDS manages the Keck limited submission process throughout the year, which includes consultation calls with the Keck Foundation before submissions can be made.

“RDS was extremely helpful throughout the application process,” Siciliano said. “They have worked with the Keck Foundation successfully in the past and guided us every step of the way, from putting the application together to the virtual site visit.”

The W.M. Keck Foundation, established by Superior Oil Company founder William Myron Keck in 1954, is one of the nation’s largest philanthropic organizations. It supports outstanding science, engineering and medical research, along with undergraduate education and programs within Southern California that support arts and culture, education, health and community service projects.

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Khonsari Honored by ASME, Enjoying Summer of Accolades

BATON ROUGE, LA – It has been quite a summer for LSU Mechanical Engineering Professor Michael Khonsari, as he has garnered one honor after another over the last few months, including his most recent, being named an Honorary Member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The distinction recognizes individuals for “lifetime service to mechanical engineering research and education, particularly through technical books, and trendsetting research papers.”

“I am deepy humbled and honored to receive this award,” said Khonsari, who has also been previously named an ASME Fellow. “The statement about ‘trendsetting research papers’ highlights the significant impact of our work, which is immensely important to my research team and me.”

Reflective of the career he’s enjoyed to this point, Khonsari was also recently named a Highly Ranked Scholar by ScholarGPS, a “scholarly analytics site built by scholars for scholars.” In its inaugural Lifetime rankings, he is ranked third in the field of tribology (the science and engineering of interacting surfaces in relative motion), 10th in the field of lubrication (the control of friction and wear by the introduction of a friction-reducing film between moving surfaces in contact), and 175th in the field of mechanical engineering.

“The single most satisfying feature of these rankings is the impact of our research in the field and the utility of our findings in pushing the envelope of science and engineering to new heights,” Khonsari said. “I have been fortunate to collaborate with many scientists and engineers around the globe. I have personally mentored nearly 100 [postdoctoral students], Ph.D. and [master’s] graduates, and visiting scholars who have culminated in many impactful innovations and scholarly activities, including more than 460 archival publications, three technical books, 15 articles in encyclopedias, and 13 U.S. patents, with four additional pending applications.

“Our recent research on the truly interdisciplinary field of degradation science has led to the discovery of a new material property for assessing metal and composite fatigue life. I am happy that this methodology, which also uses irreversible thermodynamics principles, is being applied by many researchers globally. Our research has revealed that we can apply our methodologies to assess how materials degrade in nearly all scenarios, from mechanical fatigue, to wear, to electrical components, to battery life. The impact of this science is truly awe-inspiring.”

Last but not least, Khonsari also recently received the 2024 Ralph Beard Award from the National Lubricating Grease Institute (NGLI) for “significant and continuing work in research or development and acceptance of new tests within the grease industry.” The award is presented to an academic professional with five or more years of significant contributions to the grease industry through research, publication, educational work, etc.

These are the latest in a long list of honors Khonsari has been presented with over the course of his career. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, American Association for Advancement of Science, and American Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers; and he is a member of Sigma Xi. His work and that of his research group, according to Google Scholar, has been cited more than 20,000 times, with nearly half of that coming in the last five years alone.

In addition to his role as professor at LSU, Khonsari is the director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Innovations in Structural Integrity Assurance, the first NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center established at LSU. He is also currently serving as associate commissioner for research for the Louisiana Board of Regents.

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Fungal proteins: sources, production and purification methods, industrial applications, and future perspectives.

Featured Application

1. introduction, 2. characteristics of the most important scp producers, 2.1. saccharomyces cerevisiae, 2.2. kluyveromyces marxianus, 2.3. candida utilis, 2.4. yarrowia lipolytica, 2.5. fusarium venenatum, 2.6. aspergillus oryzae, 2.7. monascus purpureus.

3. Bio-Utilization of Waste from the Agri-Food Industry during SCP Production

4. preparation of single-cell protein (scp) for use in food, 4.1. cell disruption, 4.2. protein secretion, 4.3. protein purification, 4.4. reducing the nucleic acid content, 4.5. drying of microbial protein, 5. products containing single-cell protein (scp) on the global market, 6. opportunities and challenges for the single-cell protein (scp) market, 7. conclusions, author contributions, conflicts of interest.

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Pobiega, K.; Sękul, J.; Pakulska, A.; Latoszewska, M.; Michońska, A.; Korzeniowska, Z.; Macherzyńska, Z.; Pląder, M.; Duda, W.; Szafraniuk, J.; et al. Fungal Proteins: Sources, Production and Purification Methods, Industrial Applications, and Future Perspectives. Appl. Sci. 2024 , 14 , 6259. https://doi.org/10.3390/app14146259

Pobiega K, Sękul J, Pakulska A, Latoszewska M, Michońska A, Korzeniowska Z, Macherzyńska Z, Pląder M, Duda W, Szafraniuk J, et al. Fungal Proteins: Sources, Production and Purification Methods, Industrial Applications, and Future Perspectives. Applied Sciences . 2024; 14(14):6259. https://doi.org/10.3390/app14146259

Pobiega, Katarzyna, Joanna Sękul, Anna Pakulska, Małgorzata Latoszewska, Aleksandra Michońska, Zuzanna Korzeniowska, Zuzanna Macherzyńska, Michał Pląder, Wiktoria Duda, Jakub Szafraniuk, and et al. 2024. "Fungal Proteins: Sources, Production and Purification Methods, Industrial Applications, and Future Perspectives" Applied Sciences 14, no. 14: 6259. https://doi.org/10.3390/app14146259

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