25 Years Later: A Systematic Review of Mathematics and Science Integration in Primary and Secondary Education

Abstract Mathematics and science integration (MSI), the core of STEM education, is widely supported as a means of improving student achievement and interest. However, research has consistently reported a lack of empirical evidence to support these benefits and a lack of a consensus definition of MSI. To examine whether these gaps have been filled since the last review of MSI by Hurley in 1998, we conducted a systematic review of the MSI literature in primary and secondary education. The corpus comprises 140 peer-reviewed articles published between 1998 and 2022. A total of 15 terms related to MSI, 48 definitions, 19 models, and 34 arguments for implementing MSI were extracted and analysed. Content analyses and metasummaries revealed that there is still no consensus definition of MSI. Only six out of the 140 articles presented sufficient data to calculate gains and effect sizes of MSI interventions. These few and mixed results clearly indicate that there is still insufficient empirical data to support claims about the benefits of MSI. Furthermore, we found that authors most often justify MSI by citing education reform documents that endorse these unsupported claims. We discuss ways to overcome these impasses that hinder the progress of MSI and STEM education.