Research and trends in STEM education: a systematic review of journal publications

Abstract

With the rapid increase in the number of scholarly publications on STEM education in recent years, reviews of the status and trends in STEM education research internationally support the development of the field. For this review, we conducted a systematic analysis of 798 articles in STEM education published between 2000 and the end of 2018 in 36 journals to get an overview about developments in STEM education scholarship. We examined those selected journal publications both quantitatively and qualitatively, including the number of articles published, journals in which the articles were published, authorship nationality, and research topic and methods over the years. The results show that research in STEM education is increasing in importance internationally and that the identity of STEM education journals is becoming clearer over time.

Research and trends in STEM education: a systematic analysis of publicly funded projects

“…The majority of projects before 2009 had a single PI, and the trend has been to have multiple PIs for STEM education research projects since 2009. The trend illustrates the increased emphases on collaboration in STEM education research, which is consistent with what we learned from a recent study of journal publications in STEM education (Li et al, 2020).…”

“…Recent reviews of journal publications in STEM education have consistently revealed that scholars in the USA played a leading role in producing and promoting scholarship in STEM education, with about 75% of authorship credits for all publications in STEM education either in the International Journal of STEM Education alone from 2014 to 2018 or in 36 selected journals published from 2000 to 2018 (Li et al, 2020). The strong scholarship development in the USA is likely due to a research environment that is well supported and conducive to high research output.…”

“…Any study of public funding support to STEM education research in the USA would need to limit its scope, given the complexity of various public funding sources available in the system, the ambiguity associated with the meaning of STEM education across different federal agencies (Li et al, 2020), and the number of programs that have funded STEM education research over the years. For the purpose of this review, we have chosen to focus on the projects in STEM education funded by IES.…”

“…Given the diverse perspectives about STEM education across different agencies and researchers (Li et al, 2020), we did not discuss and define the meaning of STEM education. Instead, we used the process described in the following paragraph to identify STEM education research projects funded by IES.…”

“…The rapid development of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and research since the beginning of this century has benefited from strong, ongoing support from many different entities, including government agencies, professional organizations, industries, and education institutions (Li, 2014). Typically, studies that summarized the status of research in STEM education have used publications as the unit of their analyses (e.g., Li et al, 2020;Margot & Kettler, 2019;Minichiello et al, 2018;Otten, Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, & Veldhuis, 2019;Schreffler et al, 2019). Another approach, which has been used less frequently, is to study research funding.…”