Scientometrics: A Concise Introduction and a Detailed Methodology for the Mapping of the Scientific Field of Computing Education

Abstract

Scientometrics has emerged as a research field for the evaluation and mapping of scientific fields, exploring research themes, collaboration clusters and identifying gaps and future trends. While early implementations have focused on quantitative metrics, recent directions emphasize a more nuanced approach that combines qualitative methods with quantitative analysis that triangulates several aspects, e.g., temporal trends, network and semantic analysis. This chapter reviews scientometrics as a research methodology and discusses the strengths and weaknesses and how such weaknesses can be amended. The chapter will also discuss the main methodological approach and its theoretical underpinnings used in some of the book chapters that make use of scientometrics as a means to map the field of CER.

Keywords: scientometrics, computing education research, bibliometrics