A bibliometric mapping of the structure of STEM education using co‐word analysis

Abstract

STEM, a set of fields that includes science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; allied disciplines ranging from environmental, agricultural, and earth sciences to life science and computer science; and education and training in these fields, is clearly at the top of the list of priority funding areas for governments, including the United States government. The U.S. has 11 federal agencies dedicated to supporting programs and providing funding for research and curriculum development. The domain of STEM education has significant implications in preparing the desired workforce with the requisite knowledge, developing appropriate curricula, providing teachers the necessary professional development, focusing research dollars on areas that have maximum impact, and developing national educational policy and standards. A complex undertaking such as STEM education, which attracts interest and valuable resources from a number of stakeholders needs to be well understood. In light of this, we attempt to describe the underlying structure of STEM education, its core areas, and their relationships through co-word analyses of the titles, keywords, and abstracts of the relevant literature using visualization and bibliometric mapping tools. Implications are drawn with respect to the nature of STEM education as well as curriculum and policy development.

Cognitive Language and Content Standards: Language Inventory of the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics and the Next Generation Science Standards

“…In addition to the inventory work by Assefa and Rorissa (2013) and Adualrob and Daniel (2013), the current study contributes to the field as it presents a typology for term analysis and subsequent findings within a terminology inventory. The findings indicate that there are numerous places where common terminology is aligned and used similarly both across grade bands and between the sets of standards.…”

“…Thus the amalgamation of the STEM fields under a singular umbrella poses a threat of failing to honor each discipline's distinctness. Assefa and Rorissa (2013) suggest that " [u]nderstanding the complex web of relationships surrounding the field of STEM education is the first step to better planning of curricular activities, programs, and research" (p. 2514). Chiu et al (2015), in their literature review of the support for STEM in younger grades, reported that little research in general exists on elementary and middle school STEM education and pedagogy.…”

“…Within the body of work on taking inventory, Assefa and Rorissa (2013) analyzed articles in STEM education using a bibliometric mapping approach and found that engineering data is not readily found in elementary contexts, but other, predictable terminology was frequently found along with subjects such as policy, curriculum, and professional development. Their research findings reveal a potential challenge that educators will face as the NGSS includes a strong engineering component.…”

“…The attention to the STEM fields continues to increase since its emergence in the late 1980s (Assefa & Rorissa, 2013;Breiner, Harkness, Johnson, & Koehler, 2012) and STEM is actively promoted in the education policy arena where recent endorsements are found within the competitive Race to the Top education grant of 2009 (Johnson, 2013) and the dedication of billions of dollars by the U.S. federal government to this field (Breiner et al, 2013).…”

Identificación de áreas temáticas científicas mediante el análisis de co-palabras. El caso de la Universidad de La Frontera, Chile

“…Técnicamente son objetos multi-semióticos caracterizados por el hecho de que las relaciones entre los signos y los símbolos están ordenados por medidas que redireccionan a códigos específicos (Lancia, 2012), por lo que posibilitan realizar inferencias sobre las relaciones que organizan las formas del contenido, debido a que las relaciones de las formas de expresión no son casuales, sino que están constituidas por las medidas y algoritmos que determinan la organización de los espacios semánticos multidimensionales (Lancia, 2007). Su uso se extiende desde el análisis de la literatura científica y técnica para representar los conocimientos sobre áreas temáticas determinadas (Balzano et al, 2009;Capone y Petrillo, 2011;Kirkels, 2012), incluyendo estudios de co-palabras sobre educación (Assefa y Rorissa, 2013), hasta las formas que adquieren el discurso, las representaciones sociales y prácticas reflexivas en diversos grupos humanos (Benavente y Cortini, 2010;Bruno, Galuppo y Gilardi, 2011; De Rosa y Holman, 2011) y en la web social (Veltri, 2013).…”