Analysis of the Last 40 Years of Science Education Research via Bibliometric Methods

The present study aimed to reveal science education research (SER) general trends via VOSviewer version 1.6.17 software program. For this purpose, a bibliometric analysis of 13,242 articles in the Education and Educational Research (E&ER) category of Web of Science (WoS) was performed. It was found that there was a significant increase in article counts since 2007, and that the most articles were published in 2020. The first conclusion of the current research was that funding support is an important factor in SER article counts published in WoS. The bibliometric analysis results showed that the most frequently used keywords in SER articles were science education, STEM/STEM education, nature of science, assessment, professional development, science, scientific literacy, argumentation, gender, and conceptual change. Another conclusion of this study was that science education researchers’ interest varied according to certain year intervals. The study revealed that the most preferred topics were nature of science and professional development during 2007–2021. Additionally, research interest in the topics of conceptual change, scientific literacy, chemistry education, and attitudes during 2007–2016 declined during 2017–2021. The top four research topics in recent years were STEM, argumentation, self-efficacy, and motivation. The countries where most publications came from were the USA, UK, Australia, Turkey, and Canada. The results of this study showed that science education researchers’ interest varied according to countries. The results of the study revealed that STEM/STEM education is mostly referred to in articles from the USA, Australia, UK, Taiwan, and Canada. Additionally, while there was more interest in the nature of science in the USA, Turkey, UK, and Canada there was more interest in argumentation in the USA, Turkey, UK, and Taiwan. Additionally, this study revealed the most cited SER articles’ distinctive features and strength collaborations between countries and between authors. The results provided a comprehensive review to understand the recent developments in the SER.