17th International Computer and Instructional Technologies Symposium
Comparing Global and Local Scientific Trends in Educational Technology: A Bibliometric Mapping of Theses from YÖKTEZ and ProQuest
Yayıncı:
Kastamonu Üniversitesi
Bibliometric methods, which aim to analyze the production and impact levels of scientific publications with quantitative data, offer a powerful tool to map research trends, important authors and influential studies in a given field. Bibliometric mapping has been widely used in educational technology research using a visualization technique to reveal the current status, development and trends of the research area. However, there is a limited number of bibliometric studies that examine the current status, challenges and potential applications in the field of educational technology through dissertations. In order to fill this knowledge gap, this study examines theses published in the field of educational technology with bibliometric mapping using a different technique. For this purpose, theses published in the field of educational technologies from the national thesis center (YÖKTEZ), where graduate theses are published in Turkey, and the proquest database, which is the database where theses are published internationally, were examined. The databases were scanned using the keywords educational technology, instructional design, instructional technology. A total of 3817 theses were analyzed, 1853 from YÖKTEZ database and 1964 from Proquest database. In the study, research questions such as the distribution of theses by years, frequently used keywords, cooccurrence network of keywords, terms used in thesis title-summary-keywords, trend topic words, thematic map were answered. The data were analyzed through the R Studio bibliometrix package. When the studies were examined, it was seen that the most publications in the YÖKTEZ database were made in 2019 with 243 publications, while in the prouest database, 71 publications were made in 1999, 2016 and 2017. In the co-occurrence analysis conducted with keywords in both databases, it is seen that terms such as educational technologies, distance education, instructional design form nodes. When the frequently used keywords were examined, it was seen that computer education (358), educational technologies (282) and distance education (212) were frequently used in YÖKTEZ database, while education (1345), instructional design (453), online learning (234) were frequently used in Proquest database. In Turkey, the fact that instructional technologies are highly related to “computer education” makes its use as a keyword widespread. On the other hand, this concept is referred to as “instructional technologies” in foreign literature. When the frequently used words in the titles and abstracts of the theses were compared, it was seen that the findings of both databases were similar. When the trending topics are analyzed, although the concepts related to distance education come to the forefront in both databases, keywords related to teaching approaches in the Proquest database are intense, while keywords related to learning outcomes in the YÖKTEZ database stand out. At this point, it can be interpreted that while the Turkish literature focuses on the results of the study, the foreign literature focuses on methodological elements. In conclusion, this bibliometric study confirms that educational systems and local factors have an impact on trends and approaches, as well as revealing that approaches are scientifically different.
