Scientist‑School STEM Partnerships in K-12 Education: A Comprehensive Systematic Review
Keywords:
STEM education, partnership, k-12, systematic review, scientist and school, Scientist-Teacher-Student PartnershipAbstract
Scientist-school STEM partnerships have been globally recognised as powerful pedagogical strategies for enhancing STEM education by connecting classroom instruction with real-world scientific practices. Despite growing interest in these collaborations, understanding of their outcomes, challenges, and practices remains limited. This systematic review examines studies published between 2016 and 2025, drawing on Web of Science, Scopus, and ERIC databases and following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework. A total of 45 relevant studies across 12 countries were identified and analysed, generating three key themes: outcomes of scientist-school STEM partnerships, challenges in implementation, and best practices for sustainable partnerships. The findings reveal that these partnerships provide significant benefits for teachers, students, scientists, and institutions. However, key challenges include time constraints, curriculum integration, limited resources, inadequate administrative support, scientific language barriers, insufficient funding, communication and technology issues, and gaps in content knowledge. Best practices include providing authentic science experiences, aligning partnerships with the curriculum, ensuring adequate support and funding, integrating technology and digital tools, establishing clear reform goals, promoting co-teaching and co-design, contextualising learning for students, and expanding STEM partnerships to include humanities and social sciences. This review contributes to global STEM education discourse by synthesising decade-long empirical evidence across 12 countries and establishing an integrative framework for understanding and sustaining scientist-school STEM partnerships. The findings offer valuable insights for policymakers, educators, researchers, and practitioners seeking to develop longitudinal, cross-national, and interdisciplinary partnership models that promote digital innovation, equitable collaboration, contextualised STEM practices, and real-world impact in K-12 science education.
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