Artificial intelligence in science education: A bibliometric review

Abstract

A descriptive bibliometric analysis of works on artificial intelligence (AI) in science education is provided in this article to help readers understand the state of the field’s research at the time. This study’s main objective is to give bibliometric data on publications regarding AI in science education printed in periodicals listed in the Scopus database between 2002 and 2023 end of May. The data gathered from publications scanned and published within the study’s parameters was subjected to descriptive bibliometric analysis based on seven categories: number of articles and citations per year, countries with the most publications, most productive author, most significant affiliation, funding institutions, publication source and subject areas. Most of the papers were published between 2016 and 2022. The United States of America, United Kingdom, and China were the top-3 most productive nations, with the United States of America producing the most publications. The number of citations to the publications indexed in Scopus database increased in a progressive way and reached to maximum number in 2022 with 178 citations. Most productive author on this topic was Salles, P. with four publications. Moreover, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Memphis, and University of Southern California have the maximum number of publications as affiliations. The National Science Foundation was the leader funding institution in terms of number of publications produced. In addition, “Proceedings Frontiers in Education Conference Fie” have the highest number of publications by year as a publication source. Distribution of the publications by subject area was analyzed. The subject areas of the publications were computer sciences, social sciences, science education, technology and engineering education respectively. This study presents a vision for future research and provides a global perspective on AI in science education.