Scientific practices in science education, 2013–2023: bibliometric mapping and thematic synthesis

Abstract As a core dimension of science education, scientific practices have shifted the field’s focus from knowledge transmission to engaging students in authentic inquiry and problem-solving, and this shift has been accompanied by a growing body of related scholarship. This review integrates CiteSpace-based bibliometric visualization with manual thematic content analysis to map international research on scientific practices (2013–2023) and characterize its development. Publication output increased over 2013–2023 and was predominantly concentrated at the secondary and undergraduate levels, while early childhood and cross-grade contexts remain underrepresented. Collaboration networks are highly centered on U.S. institutions, suggesting opportunities to foster more geographically and culturally diverse partnerships. Keyword clustering highlights teachers, students, and tasks as focal dimensions of practice-oriented inquiry. Temporal evidence from the timeline view and burst detection suggests shifting emphases from conceptual framing to instructional enactment, then to assessment-oriented refinement and instructional contextualization, with more recent attention to technology-mediated enactment—indicating cumulative layering rather than discrete transitions. At the research-design level, emerging alignments are evident among research questions, methods, and theoretical or analytical frameworks, yet uneven coupling persists in specific pairings (e.g. assessment–learning progressions; instrument development–inquiry-oriented frameworks). These mapped patterns suggest three implications: (a) extend research to underrepresented populations and strengthen cross-regional collaboration to enable contextual comparison; (b) use integrated bibliometric–thematic workflows to triangulate interpreted theme shifts with content-coded evidence and improve interpretive transparency; and (c) tighten design–measurement coherence in weakly coupled areas by aligning constructs, tasks, and validity arguments from the outset.