Research Trends and Issues of Engineering Design Process for STEM Education in K-12: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

The study performed a bibliometric analysis on research literature related to ‘engineering design process’ (EDP) that has emerged as a popular approach for STEM education in K-12. The literature comprised 142 journal articles published from 2011 to 2021. There are three objectives of the study. Firstly, to identify the leading research trends of EDP for STEM education that have developed since the release of A Framework for K-12 Science Education in 2011. This framework is pivotal as it paved the way for the establishment of the Next Generation Science Standards in the United States. Secondly, to discern possible research issues on the aforesaid topic by analyzing the research trends. Lastly, to identify publications and authors that have generated prominent citation impact. Since EDP is an emergent approach for STEM education, fulfilling these three objectives can be conducive in facilitating future researchers to build upon the past foundation of research. In this study, the bibliometric data was identified and exported from Web of Science Core Collection: a database with rich scientific literature. The results identified major research trends and issues on EDP pertaining to professional development, design thinking and computational thinking, STEM competencies, scientific inquiry, and gender gaps in STEM education.