Research themes and trends in the field of teacher educators: A topic modelling study

• Published in: Teaching and teacher education Vol. 148; p. 104696
• Main Authors: Özmantar, Mehmet Fatih, Gökdağ, Kenan, Hangül, Tuğba, Agaç, Gülay
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2024
• Subjects: Educational data science; Research trends; Teacher educators; Text mining; Topic modeling; Text mining; Topic modeling; Teacher educators; Educational data science; Research trends
• ISSN: 0742-051X; 1879-2480
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tate.2024.104696

This study identified research themes in the field of teacher educators using topic modeling analysis and explored their trends over time. A dataset of 754 scientific publications from Scopus was analyzed with Latent Dirichlet Allocation approach. The findings revealed ten distinct research themes, covering pedagogy/knowledge, social justice, collaboration, identity, professional growth, policy, practice, quality standards, English language and technology competency. Thematic research trends exhibited periodic and consecutive patterns since the 2010s. The findings discussed the identified themes relative to existing review studies as well as trends considering the impact of education journals, educational policies and reforms initiatives, and Covid-19 pandemic. •Topic modeling analysis of scientific publications on Teacher Educators (TEs) reveals ten distinct research themes.•Thematic research trends have been observed periodically and consecutively since the 2010s.•The field is primarily shaped by studies on TEs collaboration, identity, and professional growth.•Two research themes, TE professional growth and technology competency/integration, demonstrate an upward trend.