Mapping Research Trends in Physics Education: A Systematic Mapping Review of Three Leading Journals 2015–2025
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58230/wj5q3v94Keywords:
physics education research, bibliometric analysis, systematic mapping review, ScopusAbstract
This study maps research trends in physics education research (PER) from 2015 to 2025 using a Systematic Mapping Review (SMR) approach, with Scopus as the primary data source. The corpus was built by searching, per journal, three leading discipline-specific journals Physical Review Physics Education Research, European Journal of Physics, and Physics Education restricted to document type (article or review) and publication language (English). This process identified 644 records; after screening for the 2015–2025 publication window (78 records outside this range were excluded) and checking for duplicates (none found), 566 articles were retained for analysis (Physical Review Physics Education Research, n = 206; Physics Education, n = 190; European Journal of Physics, n = 170). Data were analyzed using bibliometric methods in RStudio and Python to examine publication trends, authorship, most-cited documents and authors, and international collaboration. Annual output rose unevenly but substantially over the period, from 21 articles in 2015 to a peak of 117 in 2025, with a first surge to 58 articles in 2020. Output was fairly evenly distributed across the three journals rather than dominated by any single outlet. The single most-cited article in the corpus was a tool paper on smartphone-based physics experiments (Staacks et al., 2018, 263 citations), and Singh, C. was both the most prolific (28 papers) and most-cited (883 total citations) author. Overall, the review contributes to the discourse on PER by mapping publication patterns, citation impact, and collaboration structure in the field, and by pointing to directions for further, more geographically complete research.
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