Teaching strategies and pedagogy in chemistry education and their neuro-pedagogical frontier: a scopus-based bibliometric mapping (2019–2023)

Abstract

Research on chemistry teaching has expanded rapidly, yet its intellectual structure remains difficult to understand through narrative reading alone. This study maps the development, thematic structure, research networks, and emerging directions of chemistry education research focusing on teaching strategies, methods, approaches, and pedagogy. A corpus of 241 journal articles was retrieved from Scopus using a topic query combining chemistry, education, and pedagogy-related terms, limited to English-language articles at the final publication stage. Descriptive bibliometric indicators and four VOSviewer networks were analysed, covering author co-authorship, keyword co-occurrence, temporal keyword evolution, and document citation patterns. The corpus received 3,334 citations, averaging 13.83 citations per document, with 92.9% of articles cited at least once. The literature is concentrated in specialist journals, particularly the Journal of Chemical Education and Chemistry Education Research and Practice. Keyword analysis identified clusters involving teaching and students, undergraduate chemical education research, distance and computer-based learning, biomedical and instrument-oriented themes, and pedagogical content knowledge. Temporal patterns indicate a shift toward chemical education research, web-based learning, professional development, engagement, and pedagogical content knowledge, particularly following COVID-19. Co-authorship remains fragmented around small hubs. A focused analysis of 21 documents (2012–2026) further reveals an emerging neuro-pedagogical strand connecting neuroscience, learning science, cognitive load, emotion, stress, curiosity, and molecular representation. This underdeveloped intersection represents a promising frontier for future chemistry education research.