Science Education Research Trends in Latin America

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to survey and report on the empirical literature at the intersection of science education research in Latin American and previous studies addressing international research trends in this field. Reports on international trends in science education research indicate that authors from English-speaking countries are major contributors of publications. Despite the internationalization of the science education community, as represented by the publication of the work generated in non-English-speaking countries, research trends in science education in Latin America are uncommon in the literature. Therefore, it was deemed important to explore the scholarly productivity of science education researchers from Latin America to learn about the research orientations pursued by scholars from this region. Collective review findings are presented with respect to author’s nationality, publication volume generated in each country, research type and topic, collaborative research, and areas for future research. Of the ten countries represented in this study, Brazilian authors were the most research active scholars followed by their colleagues from Venezuela, Mexico, and Argentina. The History, Philosophy and the Nature of Science (HPNOS) was the topic that most attracted the interest of Latin American science education researchers, and the Empirical Qualitative studies was the most frequent research type combination in the analyzed publications. Findings in this study suggest a relationship between investment power in Research and Development (R&D) and the scholarly productivity not only in science education but also in the scientific field in the countries of the region.