The trend of differentiated teaching research: Bibliometric and content analysis

Differentiated teaching is a well-established and effective approach that expresses changes and adjustments made to the content, process, learning environment and products of the curriculum with an understanding that cares about individual differences. Many studies have been conducted from the past to the present on differentiated teaching, which focuses on the interests, readiness and abilities of individuals. With this study, it is aimed to determine the trends related to the subject and to create a general framework by examining the studies conducted about differentiated teaching, which is increasingly important today. For this purpose, a total of 1,222 differentiated teaching topics published in the Web of Science (WoS), YÖK Tez, Sobiad, DergiPark and TR Index databases were used in the reviews of scientific research, bibliometric method and document analysis method. In the research, the data of 1067 international educational articles on differentiated education in the Web of Science database December 1981 and 2021 were analyzed by bibliometric analysis. Between the year 2006 and the year 2021 Dec, the content analysis of 155 dissertations and articles published in the YÖK Dissertation, Sobiad, TR Index and DergiPark databases was conducted. In the analyses conducted in international researches, the most cited words, authors, countries, organizations, institutions and journals have been identified. In national studies, the research objectives, methods, data collection tools, sample number and groups of theses and articles were revealed. The presentation of the findings is presented with bibliometric maps, tables, graphs and figures. According to the findings obtained from the analysis of articles in the Web of Science database, since 1981, the most studies have been published in 2019, the most citations in 2021 were built. It was found that the most cited institution is VRIJE University (Netherlands) and the most cited journal is the Journal of Teaching and Teacher Education (Teaching and Teacher Education). The countries with the most citations are the USA, Belgium and the Netherlands, respectively. It is thought that the fact that the subject is being published on different continents may be due to the fact that it has started to be seen as a subject worth investigating in a universal sense. The oldest national thesis obtained from the data bases included in the research on differentiated teaching was put forward in 2006. According to the findings in the YÖK Thesis, Sobiad, TR Index and Journal Park databases, the number of master's theses on this subject is higher than doctoral theses. In the national literature, it has been determined that the number of publications has increased between 2018-2021 and quantitative research methods have been used Decisively. In addition, while a lot of research was conducted in the secondary school sample group, it was concluded that quite a few studies were conducted before school. In the research, it was concluded that the differentiated teaching subject with high citation values continues to attract the attention of researchers and efforts to ensure the technology integration of differentiated teaching continue. In line with the research results, the findings about dimensions were discussed in the light of the relevant field literature. Finally, some suggestions for further research are presented.