Bibliometric Review Methodology and State of the Science Bibliometric Review of Research on Problem-based Learning, 2017-2021

• Published in: The interdisciplinary journal of problem-based learning Vol. 17; no. 2
• Main Author: Hallinger, Philip
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 31.12.2023
• ISSN: 1541-5015; 1541-5015
• DOI: 10.14434/ijpbl.v17i2.35761

Bibliometric reviews of research have gained increased popularity since the mid-2010s. Yet, many readers may be uncertain as to the purpose and method of bibliometric reviews. This article provides an introduction to bibliometric review methods, clarifying their purpose, as well as methods of data collection, analysis, and interpretation. The latter portion of the article is devoted to a state-of-the-science, bibliometric review of research on problem-based learning. In this review, the author applied descriptive statistics, citation analysis, and co-citation analysis to a database of 5,764 Scopus-indexed documents on problem-based learning published between 2017 and 2021. The analyses found increasing diversity of the PBL knowledge base with respect to both geographical, subject area origins, and focus of the research when compared with findings reported in past reviews. Author co-citation analysis visualized the intellectual structure of this recent PBL literature revealing four dominant schools of thought: Interdisciplinary PBL Theory and Practice, Active Learning, Social and Experiential Learning, PBL Process. This finding highlights the increasing integration of PBL with other methods of experiential and active learning.