In parallel to the increasing emphasis on STEM literacy computational thinking has gained more attention in K-12 education. Scholars have acknowledged abstraction as the keystone of computational thinking. Therefore, to foster K-12 students’ computational thinking and STEM literacy, their abstract thinking skills should be enhanced. However, the existing K-12 curriculum may not adequately prepare learners with the abstract thinking skills needed for the STEM workforce. Furthermore, promoting students’ abstraction requires understanding its core cognitive processes; otherwise, it becomes a burden for K-12 educators who lack the required knowledge to teach abstraction. Therefore, this study hopes to overcome the gap between the need for future STEM workforce with effective abstract thinking skills and the current curriculum.

This study conceptualizes a unified framework to help K-12 educators understand the three fundamental processes of abstraction—filtering information, locating similarities, and mapping structures—and how they function. Then this study provides a set of design guidelines to enhance K-12 students’ abstract thinking skills using a STEM-integrative learning environment. Based on these proposed guidelines, the explicit guidance and practices on abstraction (EGPA) in a STEM-integrative robotics curriculum will be developed to improve K-12 students’ abstraction in computational thinking. Finally, the effectiveness of the EGPA in fostering abstraction in computational thinking in the STEM-integrative robotics curriculum will be further explored. Upon the completion of this study, design guidelines and practices for K-12 educators regarding fostering their students’ abstraction will be offered.