Examining the Use of Emerging Technologies in Schools: a Review of Artificial Intelligence and Immersive Technologies in STEM Education

While justifications have been made for emerging technologies’ transformative potential in STEM education, the roadmap for their eventual implementation in schools is underexplored. To this end, we review research works in artificial intelligence (AI) and immersive technologies which have been applied to facilitate STEM learning. Through a systematic literature search, we identified 82 papers and analyzed them for three aspects—(1) types of emerging technologies used, (2) science education goals, and (3) implementation value. Our findings indicate that augmented reality and natural language processing are common technologies used to enhance students’ learning experiences. These technologies helped students build conceptual understanding as well as epistemic practices in science. On the other hand, mixed reality and computer vision were the least popular technologies, which may be indicative of the low maturity of these technologies. Of all the science education goals, social aspects were the least commonly tackled through emerging technologies. Moreover, 58.9% of technological applications transformed science teaching and learning through automated ways of providing individualized feedback to students involved in argumentation and reasoning activities. Finally, based on our findings, we derive three research agenda that we believe would further the eventual implementation of emerging technologies in schools.