Self-Efficacy, Scientific Reasoning, and Learning Achievement in the STEM Project-Based Learning Literature

The main goal of education is to prepare students for future job opportunities and civic responsibilities, and this is one of the biggest challenges in the 21st century. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Project-Based Learning (PjBL) prepare students to master their new role as a global citizen with greater responsibilities. This systematic review analyzed 265 papers that are related to the STEM PjBL. The papers were collected from well-known databases such as Web of Science® and SCOPUS by using the quality assessment and relevant criteria. This study inspected the top 48 distinguished papers by covering three dimensions, Search result, Subject, and Research methodology. STEM and PjBL come together, due to the natural overlap between the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and PjBL. The fully integrated STEM with PjBL can increase the effectiveness of teaching. Nonetheless, this inspection uncovered that previous research has not fully integrated STEM with PjBL. Thus, despite the wealth of existing research, there are still significant opportunities for future research on STEM PjBL in high schools to prepare students for 21st century challenges.