Exploring the use of 3D printing in mathematics education: A scoping review

Thanks to the fourth industrial revolution, 3D printing has become a fast-emerging technology that is widely applied across industries. In mathematics education, 3D printing is an innovative way to visualize mathematics concepts (e.g., geometry, calculus) that enables students to develop mathematical and design thinking, as well as digital skills and mindsets. Through digital maker education, students can apply multidisciplinary knowledge to build prototypes and create 3D objects that bring many new opportunities in mathematics formal/informal learning. However, to our knowledge, there is no existing review summarizing the existing evidence of how 3D printing has been applied in mathematics education. As such, this review aims to give a synthesis of the up-to-date literature in the burgeoning topic of using 3D printing in mathematics education. A systematic review was conducted to examine the thematic and content analysis of 30 empirical papers from 2015 to 2022. The review aims to evaluate and analyze different types of participants, methodological approaches, challenges, pedagogies, and technologies used in the selected studies. Although 3D printing has a bright prospect to revolutionize mathematics education, there are still many challenges such as hardware and software optimization, processing, formatting, printing, and maintenance issues. After all, a set of recommendations were listed to guide future researchers and educators to use 3D printing effectively in mathematics education.