Bibliometric analysis of scientific studies on STEM, metacognition, problem-based learning and environmental education in science education

BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES RELATED TO STEM, METACOGNITION, PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION IN SCIENCE EDUCATION Çınar, E. Aydın Adnan Menderes University, Institute of Science and Technology, Science Education Program, Master Thesis, Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Adem Özdemir, Aydın, 2024, Objective: In this study, bibliography analysis of studies indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) database on STEM, metacognition, problem-based learning, and environmental education in science education were conducted. The aim of the study was to determine the frequency of publications, keywords, cited authors, leading countries and publications, language diversity and leading institutions in these topics. These analyses aim to shed light on future studies by providing numerical data to relevant researchers. Materials and Methods: The methodology of this study is focused on bibliometric analyses and is mainly based on the analysis of scientific studies in the Web of Science (WoS) database. The bibliometric methods covered include basic techniques such as bibliography analysis, co-citation analysis, bibliography matching, co-author analysis and common word analysis. These programs enable visualization by creating networks over large data sets and make the findings of the resulting maps searchable. As a result, these methods provide researchers with valuable information about the popularity, relationships and trends of scientific studies and contribute to interdisciplinary knowledge sharing. Results: The distribution of 252 publications related to STEM, 37 publications related to metacognition, 25 publications related to problem-based learning, and 49 publications related to environmental education in the Web of Science database between 2003 and 2023; the distribution by years, keywords, the number of publications by authors, the number of citations of publications, the number of publications by journals, the number of publications by institutions, the number of publications by countries, and the trends of the languages used in publications were visualized and examined by social network analysis method. Conclusion: According to the first sub-problem of the study, there is a general increasing trend in the studies conducted in the fields of STEM, metacognition, problem-based learning and environmental education between 2003 and 2023, and there has been a significant increase especially between 2018 and 2023. According to the results of the second sub-problem, it was determined that the keywords "STEM education", "metacognition", "problem-based learning" and "environmental education" were frequently used in the studies in this field. In the third sub-problem, it was seen that some authors had more than one publication and some had equal number of publications, while there was at least one author from Turkey in each sub-problem. In the fourth sub-problem, the number of citations was examined and it was seen that some authors played a leading role even though they had only one publication. According to the fifth sub-problem, it was determined that journals differ in terms of the number of publications, but journals such as "Education Sciences" are the leading journals. In the sixth sub-problem, the number of publications of the countries was analyzed and it was seen that Spain was the leading country in the field of metacognition and the USA was the leading country in other fields, Turkey was generally in third place. According to the seventh sub-problem, it is seen that different universities come to the forefront in the subject areas and it is seen that institutions such as "Gazi University", "Hacettepe University" and "Aksaray University" from Turkey have the most publications. According to the eighth sub-problem, it was determined that English is the leading language in the studies in this field, Spanish is in second place and Turkish is in third place. Keywords: Science Education, STEM, Metacognition, Problem-Based Learning, Environmental Education, Bibliometrics, Web of Science