Chemical education research in Slovenia after 1991: A systematic review

Abstract

During the last three decades, chemical education in Slovenia has developed mainly in two chemistry education research groups, one located at the University of Ljubljana and the other at the University of Maribor. The present study aims to identify research papers in the field of chemical education published between 1991 and 2019 through a database sur-vey. From a total of 273 identified research papers in the field of chemical education, an analysis of the papers published in respected international and Slovenian journals and monographs revealed four main research fields: (1) Submicrorepresentations, Models and Animations, (2) Chemistry Teacher Education, (3) Experimental Work, and (4) Conceptions of Basic Chemical Concepts. For further analysis, only papers published in English in respected peer-reviewed international journals were used (N = 41). Based on citations in Web of Science or Scopus, it seems that papers published in the first field have the greatest impact on the international research community. Some research monographs published in Slovenian aim specifically at contributing to bridging the gap between chemical education research and classroom practice, but further actions are necessary to achieve this goal in the future.