Science & Education, cilt.30, sa.4, ss.1-34, 2021 (SCI-Expanded)
The purpose of this study was to analyze the K-12 science standards of seven countries that
have improved their engineering practices noticeably by integrating engineering and its
elements into their science documents, namely, Australia, England, Estonia, Hong Kong,
South Africa, Turkey, and the United States. For this purpose, K-12 science standard documents
were examined vis-à-vis their inclusion and distribution of engineering and its elements
across grade bands. Standards were analyzed through content analysis by employing
the Framework for Quality K-12 Engineering Education. The results showed that the
United States and to some extent Turkish standard documents had placed a particular
emphasis on engineering. The number of standards relating to engineering is the highest
in the United States and the lowest in Estonia. These standards across grade bands were
distributed evenly in the documents of England and the United States. Science standard
documents in early grades included few such standards. In light of the results, we discussed
the extent and comprehensiveness of engineering integrated into the K-12 science standard
documents and provided implications for integrating engineering elements into science
standard documents.