The Challenges of STEAM Education ¿What is Expected of a Bibliometric Approach to the Training of Mathematics Teachers?

Abstract

Over the past decades, the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) educational approach was conceived as a strategy aiming at integrating previously isolated disciplines to develop critical thinking and creativity through complex problem-solving processes from an interdisciplinary perspective. Its implementation at different educational systems revealed certain challenges primarily related to teacher training and specifically mathematics teacher training. This article proposes to answer the question, within the challenges of STEAM education: What is expected of a bibliometric approach in mathematics teacher training? ºThis is achieved through a bibliometric analysis of 444 articles from Q1 and Q2 quartile journals, encompassing 1,768 conceptual terms defined by 1,474 authors. The results of the thematic evolution analysis identify fifteen clusters of co-occurring conceptual terms, as well as current and emerging trends in research on mathematics teacher competencies for STEM education. These findings empirically substantiate the identification of priority lines of research that must be accompanied by qualitative studies aimed at formalizing the dynamics of correlation between the identified terms, conceptual constructs lying beneath them, and their evolution from rudiments.