5 Reasons why STEAM as Pedagogy is Flawed

Esp for Novice Learners

STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) is the latest hot cake. As an educational idea, it has a strong appeal in the current policy and education discourse. Among educators and even parents.

The appeal of STEAM as pedagogy is easy to understand.

In our complex world, integrating science, technology, engineering, art, and math *feels* like the right step forward.

BUT here’s the problem. And it's a big one.

We are confusing how experts can *understand* the complexity of the world with how (novice) students *learn* about the world.

Experts Do:

Experts can integrate multiple disciplines because they’ve already mastered at least a few of them in isolation. Most experts have deep domain knowledge, along with contextual knowledge of other fields.

As a result, they can analyze a single problem from multiple lenses because they possess those lenses.

(I’ve written about how experts see the world differently compared to novices here and here and here.)

But Novices Learn:

Let’s imagine a teacher asking a group of 12-year-olds to "design a sustainable bridge using STEAM."

They might draw something imaginative, colorful, even inspiring. But without the disciplinary depth to calculate load-bearing forces, understand soil erosion, or evaluate material costs, their bridge will just be a fancy project work.

Your intention as a teacher might be to promote interdisciplinary learning, but their thinking and performance will severely limited by the lack of interdisciplinary understanding.

Novices, especially young students, are still constructing those lenses, one detail after another, one theory after another, one domain after another.

To ask a novice to engage in a fully integrated STEAM task is like asking someone to cook a gourmet meal before they’ve even learned to boil water.

It’s seductive to “teach through real world problems,” but the real world is complex, messy, and unpredictable, even for most adults and experts.

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5 Reasons why STEAM as a pedagogy is flawed:

Based on multiple lines of cognitive psychology, science of learning, and educational research, we can point out that STEAM as a pedagogy is a terrible idea, especially for young and novice learners.

Here are some of the reasons.

1. Cognitive Load Theory¹

Core idea: Novice learners have limited working memory. When asked to integrate multiple domains without enough prior knowledge and mastery, they experience cognitive overload. Which negatively affects novice students’ learning.

Implication: STEAM approach requires simultaneous processing of multiple unfamiliar domains and concepts. For novices, this overloads working memory and impairs learning.

2. The Expertise Reversal Effect²

Core idea: Instructional methods that benefit near-expert learners often harm novice learners.

Implication: STEAM is more suitable for experts or advanced learners who already have solid domain-specific knowledge. For novices, it bypasses the step-by-step domain learning required for acquisition and understanding of knowledge and mastery of skills.

3. Constructivist Misapplication³

Core idea: Minimal guidance approaches (like inquiry-based, problem-based, discovery learning, and STEAM based learning) are ineffective for novice learners.

Implication: STEAM is often implemented as exploratory or project-based learning. But novice learners learn better with explicit instruction and well-structured lessons.

4. Schema Theory⁴

Core idea: Schema theory reinforces the importance of prior knowledge to learning and the use of tools such as advance organizers and memory aids to bridge new knowledge to older knowledge stored in schema. Experts, who have enough relevant prior knowledge, can think in schemas developed over time. Meaning, they can “connect the dots” efficiently. Novices cannot do that yet because they don’t have enough dots (knowledge) to build connections.

Implication: STEAM pedagogy assumes learners can make interdisciplinary connections easily and efficiently. But without domain-specific schemas, these connections are shallow or even nonexistent.

5. The Matthew Effect in Education⁵

Core idea: Students with stronger prior knowledge can learn more; those with weaker foundations fall further behind.

Implication: STEAM based projects are often beneficial for higher-performing students who already have the disciplinary foundations. These projects however further marginalize those who don’t already have foundational knowledge.

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Because of the reasons above, STEAM as a teaching method just doesn't work the way many people and educators claim or imagine. It sounds exciting on paper, but the truth is this idea of teaching is built from an adult’s or expert’s hindsight bias. Plus a blend of romanticism and curse of knowledge.

We, as adults, are able to see the world with all our experiences, skills, and knowledge. Of course, we can connect science with art or math with design. But kids or novice students? As Kirschner and Hendrick (2020)⁶ have stated: a novice is not a mini-experts. They’re just starting to learn the basics. They don’t have enough relevant background knowledge to even understand one subject deeply, let alone link two or five of them at once.

In conclusion:

An effective pedagogy aligns the cognitive constraints of novice learners and the sequential nature of knowledge/skill acquisition. STEAM as a pedagogy neglects this basic principle of how learning happens.

STEAM surely is a powerful design principle for a group of experts to solve complex, real-world problems. BUT it’s an ineffective pedagogical model for novices (most school students) who have not yet developed adequate domain knowledge and skills.

I hope this hype/fad ends soon.

1. Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive science, 12(2), 257-285.

2. Kalyuga, S. (2009). The expertise reversal effect. In Managing cognitive load in adaptive multimedia learning (pp. 58-80). IGI Global.

3. Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based teaching. Educational psychologist, 41(2), 75-86.

4. Merriam, S. B., & Caffarella, R. S. Baumgartner.(2007). Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide, 3.

5. Stanovich, K. E. (2009). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Journal of education, 189(1-2), 23-55.

6. Kirschner, P. A., & Hendrick, C. (2020). How learning happens: Seminal works in educational psychology and what they mean in practice. Routledge.