BECE. Newsletter 

Vol.7, No.2, 2021 1014 

 

 

 

 

How to Design Graphical Scaffolds to Support STEM 

Teaching Effectively? 

By Cai, H., Dong, H., & Wang, Q. 
Correspondence to: Huiying Cai, Associate Professor, Research Center of Edu-

cational Informatization, Jiangnan University, China. Email: 

caihy@jiangnana.edu.cn 

META-ANALYSIS study published in e-Education Research was con-

ducted to explore the effectiveness of the graphical scaffolds in the 

teaching of STEM courses by in-depth, analyzing 30 experimental and quasi-

experimental studies. 

The research findings are as follows: 

 Graphical scaffolds have a moderately positive effect on learners’ 

learning in STEM courses. It can not only improve learners’ cogni-

tive perception and academic motivation but also reduce cognitive 

load and improve learners’ abilities of spatial representation and 

problem-solving. However, graphical scaffolds in STEM courses 

have no significant positive effect on learners’ metacognitive ability 

and self-efficacy. 

  Visualize information, knowledge structure, dynamic knowledge, 

thoughts, learning process, and graphical scaffolds have different 

positive effects on improving students’ results in STEM courses. 

The factors above show a moderately positive effect on the shallow 

and deep understanding of learners, and they can reduce the cogni-

tive load of learners. 

  From the perspective of the learning phases, the integration of 

graphical scaffolds in the STEM curriculum has a relatively strong 

impact on students’ learning in elementary and high school, a mod-

erate impact on it in junior high school, and a low impact on college 

students. From the perspective of subjects, the integration of graph-

ical scaffolds in STEM courses has a moderately high impact on the 

learning of mathematics and engineering courses, and a moderate 

impact on the learning of technology and science courses. From the 

perspective of teaching methods, compared with project-based learn-

ing and problem-solving learning, inquiry-based learning, and col-

laborative learning have a positive impact on learners’ learning re-

sults. 

A 



 

Vol.7, No.2, 2021 1015 

 Research implication: First, teachers should consciously design 

graphical scaffolds to improve the cognitive, skill, and emotional as-

pects of learning quality. Second, teachers should design graphical 

scaffolds in a personalized way. On the one hand, teachers should 

design graphical scaffolds by consideration with the emphasis of 

learning goals. Thirdly, teachers can design graphical scaffolds to 

structure collaborative inquiry instruction pertinently by analyzing 

the characteristic of domain-specific knowledge and learners. 

 

Source: e-Education Research, 2020; 41(10): 73-81.