Abstract:

This study aims to examine 152 articles in the field of astronomy education between 1972 and 2019 published in the Web of Science Core Collection (WOS) database by bibliometric analysis method. In this context, all the data corresponding to "astronomy education" in the Web of Science Core Collection databases were taken from the WOS database and various analyses were carried utilizing the R-Studio program and all bibliometric data of the studies were obtained. As a result of the analysis, the number of articles on the specified years, the average number of citations per year, the most published journals and the most prominent authors, the citation burst values of the authors, the countries, and the cooperation states of the corresponding authors, the most cited articles, the word cloud, and the word tree structures are also examined in the sub-titles of common citation and cooperation networks. According to the results obtained, it can be said that the interest in the subject area has been increased after 2011. It was determined that the articles were mostly published in the Journal of Astronomy and Earth Sciences Education, and the author who conducted the most studies was David H. McKinnon. The most cited study was found to be an article written by Plummer and Krajcik in 2010. In the written articles, it is shown that the countries most open to cooperation are India and Sweden. In addition, in the summary and keyword analysis of the studies, the most used words are "students" and "knowledge" after "science" and "astronomy". When the common citation network graph is analyzed, it is shown that Vosniadou, Bailey, and Trumper have made many citations for the subject area. In light of the results obtained, it is believed that this study will guide researchers focused on astronomy education.

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