Review articles in educational research: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

The rapid advancement of scientific knowledge creates the need to synthesize existing knowledge and review articles play an important role in this regard. This study aims to provide a comprehensive review of review articles in educational research. To this end, 12163 review articles published between the years 1956 and 2022 in the "Education & Educational Research" category in the Web of Science Core Collection were analyzed by bibliometric method. It has been found that the number of review articles showed a high rate of increase between 1996 and 2012. The number of review articles published since 2013 is higher than the number of such articles in the previous 57-year period and accounts for 57% of the literature. The most influential publication in the literature has been found to be Hattie and Timperley's study on feedback.The most productive and influential journal has been found to be Review of Educational Research. The most prolific author has been found to be Hwang G.J., while the most influential author has been found to be Dochy F. While the University of Wisconsin contributed to the literature the most, the University of Michigan has been found to have the highest publication impact. With 131 countries contributing to the review literature, the USA is the most productive country with the highest publication impact. The systematic review and meta-analysis methods have been found to be more prominent. Five main themes have been identified in the Review literature. It was found that the East and the West collaboration more with each other, with the USA, England Australia, and Canada playing a unifying role between these two blocs. The USA provided the most collaboration.

Keywords: education, research, review, bibliometric.