Fifty-three years of the Journal of Engineering Education: A bibliometric overview

Abstract

Background: The Journal of Engineering Education (JEE) is a leading academic journal that serves to cultivate, disseminate, and archive scholarly research in engineering education. Bibliometric analysis has been gaining considerable interest from the scientific community in recent years. However, to the best of our knowledge, bibliometric analysis was not employed to analyze the publications of JEE. Purpose: In recognition of JEE's 111 years of publication, this paper uses bibliometric analysis to provide a retrospective journal overview. This study analyzes the publication characteristics, influence, and collaborative relationship of JEE. It also provides data for the development of future research. Method: A total of 1251 articles of JEE were retrieved from Scopus database for our bibliographic analysis using VOSviewer (Van Eck and Waltman, Scientometrics 2010; 84(2):523–538). The search was performed in mid-November 2021 using the term “Journal of Engineering Education” in the “Publication Titles” field, yielding 1379 documents between 1969 and 2021. We excluded editorials and notes and only included articles, reviews, and conference papers. Results: JEE has increasing contribution and influence within empirical engineering research publications regarding the quantity and the quality/citations of its published articles. The top contributing institutions are mainly from the United States. Major themes identified include knowledge acquisition and skill development, diversity and inclusion, engineering research and assessment, engineering learning mechanisms, and instrument and measurement. Conclusions: Emerging technologies and challenges provide new research topics and directions for JEE. Additionally, this study uncovers certain research gaps that JEE—to increase contributions and influence—can identify as growth areas.