STEM teacher professional development (STEM‐TPD) has become a hot topic of educational research. To evaluate the main characteristics, status and trends of this educational field and to provide new insights for future studies, this review applies a bibliometric analysis of relevant publications. The Web of Science (WoS) core collection database was used as the source of bibliographic data for the period 2011–2021; specifically, 776 articles published in 232 journals were selected for this review. The bibliometric analysis was then carried out using Bibliometrix and VOSviewer to explore trends and patterns in the STEM‐TDP literature. It is essential to note that the analysis does not account for the quality of the selected studies. However, it presents the results using various perspectives such as citation, co‐citation, spatial and lexical networks based on frequencies, network analysis and descriptive patterns. The findings show that the number of relevant publications has grown significantly in recent years, in particular from 2015 to 2021. The findings, based on citation metrics, highlight the most influential authors, institutions and journals in the area. Authors from different countries have contributed to this research area, but there is a low volume of international collaboration among them. The analysis also reveals the dynamic changes in trends, keywords and themes in this research area. The review concludes with some recommendations for future research, and the suggested implications may also benefit other stakeholders in STEM education.
This paper is in response to the article entitled "Open educational resources and college textbook choices: a review of research on efficacy and perceptions" (Hilton, 2016). In the article, Hilton synthesized the results of 16 studies, and proposed a statement that the decision to employ and adopt open textbooks in higher education has appeared to have financial benefits to students without decrease in their learning outcomes. This finding would strengthen credibility of open textbooks use and encourage faculty to utilize high-quality open textbooks in a post-pandemic world. However, only if teachers are willing to develop and use open textbooks can millions be saved for students and higher performance be achieved by students. Furthermore, from integrative model of behavior prediction, future research needs to probe a variety of issues relating to how teachers could be intentionally and effectively use open textbooks to empower the digital learning in the 21st century.
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