Science Mapping the International Knowledge Base on the 21st Century Skills

Abstract

There have been considerable efforts to define, conceptualize and specify the components of 21st century skills in the field of education since the first years of the new millennium. This article presents the results of a broad bibliometric review of research on 21st century skills by identifying the volume, growth trajectory, and geographical dispersion of studies, as well as bringing out the intellectual structure and topical foci of the existing knowledge production in this area. Bibliometric analysis was conducted to examine a total of 4096 articles published on this topic in Web of Science (WoS) indexed journals between 2000–2021. VOSviewer, WoS analytical tools, and Tableau software were used to analyze the data. The results of this analysis yielded five major Schools of Thought: "New Literacies and Skills", "Teachers in the 21st Century”, "Digitalization of Education”, "Media and Communication", and an "Eclectic" cluster. Furthermore, the co-occurrence keyword map revealed four topical foci: "Media Literacy,” "New Literacies and Digital Technologies in Education,” "Digital Literacy and Competencies," and a "Multidimensional" cluster. This study adds nuanced evidence to the literature by providing a baseline for the patterns and characteristics of the knowledge base on 21st century skills.

Keywords

• 21st century skills
• new literacies and skills
• bibliometrics

Kaynakça

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