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The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of scientific knowledge in educational research over the past decade. The analysis aims to identify contributions to the field of education and trends in the literature.

Bibliometric analysis was conducted on 117,870 publications from 335 education journals in the Scopus database between 2013 and 2022.

This study shows educational research has increased consistently over the past decade. The USA showed high productivity, while the Netherlands produced the most impactful publications. The USA, UK and Australia have the highest research collaboration. Country collaboration network is divided into two blocks, comprising Western and Eastern countries, with the USA and the UK acting as bridges between these country groups. The bibliographic coupling analysis revealed that educational research is categorized into 11 clusters. Recent educational research aims to address the challenges in education, adapt to the changing technological, economic and social landscape and capitalize on emerging opportunities.

This study analysed over 100 thousand publications to identify the latest trends in educational research and highlight current developments in the field.

With the advancement of novel forms of text mining techniques, new possibilities have opened up to conduct large-scale content analysis of educational research from an international and comparative perspective. Since educational research tends to convey great variation based on country-specific circumstances it constitutes a good testbed for context-rich depictions of the knowledge formation within a given research field.

In this article, the authors compare the educational research that has been produced by scholars in Singapore and Sweden. The article begins by providing a rich overview of what has characterised the formation and institutionalization of educational research in public policy. After this background they map the knowledge formation of education by means of a comparative bibliometric approach using words from abstracts, titles and keywords published in 9017 peer-reviewed articles between 2000 and 2020. First, the authors describe the dominant topics in each country using topic modelling techniques. Secondly, the authors identify the most distinguishing discourses when comparing the two countries.

The findings illustrate two ideal-types for conducting educational research: Singapore being more centralised, practically-oriented, quantitative and uncritical, whereas Sweden is decentralised, pluralistic, qualitative and critical in orientation. After having mapped out the prevailing topics among researchers working in these locations, the authors connect these findings to larger debates on rivalling knowledge traditions in educational scholarship, the role of the state and the degree of autonomy within higher education.

Through large scale text mining techniques, researchers have begun to explore the semantic composition of various research fields such as higher education research, research on lifelong learning, or social science studies. However, the bibliometric method has also been criticised for creating “mega-national comparisons” that suffer from a lack of understanding of the national ramifications of various research pursuits. The authors’ study addresses these shortcomings and provides a rich depiction of educational research in Singapore and Sweden. It zooms in on the relationship between each country's institutional histories, research priorities and semantic output.

This study aims to investigate the preferences of 96 educational researchers on the use of digital technologies in scientific research.

The study was designed as a quantitative-dominant sequential explanatory mixed-method research.

Despite the spreading use of advanced technologies of big data and data mining, the most preferred digital technologies were found to be data analysis programs, databases and questionnaires. The primary reasons of using digital technology in scientific research were to collect data easily and quickly, to reduce research costs and to reach a higher number of participants.

The use of digital technologies in scientific research is considered a revolutionary action, which creates innovative opportunities. Through digitalized life, probably for the first time in history, the educational researchers have analytical information, which we can benefit from more than the individual's own statements in research involving human factor. However, there are a few studies that investigated the preferences of educational researchers who use digital technologies in their scientific research.

Defining and describing research methodologies is difficult. Methodologies have similarities and resonances, and overlapping characteristics. Familiar labels of case study, action research and ethnography may not be adequate to describe new and creative approaches to qualitative research. If we simply transfer old ways to new contexts, we risk limiting our understanding of the complexities of real life settings. The call to set aside old dualisms and devise new methodological approaches has been sounded. Accordingly, this article sets out to describe a fledgling new methodological approach, and how it was operationalized in a small‐scale study of digitally‐mediated classroom learning.

The methodology combines elements of action research and case study with an ethnographic approach. It was devised for a study of the use of Facebook as an educational resource by five dyslexic students at a sixth form college in north‐west England. Its flexibility and attention to detail enabled multiple data collection methods. This range of methods enabled meticulous analysis of many of the group's online and offline interactions with each other and with Facebook as they co‐constructed their group Facebook page.

Reflexively combining elements of case study, action research and ethnography thus helped capture the “connected complexities” (Davies) of this contemporary classroom setting. This is necessary if researchers are to obtain any meaningful understanding of how learning happens in such contexts.

The author hopes to contribute to the discourse on qualitative methodology and invites other researchers studying similar contexts to consider a similar approach.

This study aims to consider the complexities of planning and implementation of a reform in the Swedish system of higher vocational education and training (VET). The study object of this article is the Swedish reform with advanced vocational education (AVE). The two main questions the study aims to address are: “What are the main driving forces behind the formulation of AVE?” and “How is AVE implemented into the system of continuing vocational training?”.

This study is designed as a multiple case study, exploring different issues in the reform of AVE. These issues comprise organisation and structure, workplace learning and transition from AVE into working life. From a theoretical perspective, this study uses the analytical model of educational reform development by Lindensjö and Lundgren where reforms are perceived to take place at two different contexts in society.

The findings of this study suggest that with AVE a number of educational innovative features were introduced which generally had a positive impact. From the context of formulation, findings suggest that consensus among the central level stakeholders for how AVE should be designed was reached through the joint work of organising programmes during the three‐year pilot project, in combination with the concurrent restructuring of working life. From the context of realisation both educationalists and employers perceived the possibility of designing AVE programmes in co‐operation based on local level requirements as positive.

To achieve demands for validity and trustworthiness, this study uses multiple sources of data gathering, applying data‐triangulation. Nonetheless, this study has some methodological limitations that need to be addressed. In terms of theoretical perspective, the analytical model could appear as simplifying the complex social processes that take place when reforms are being implemented in educational institutions and within working life.

This study provides evidence that developments in Swedish society and working life have together created conflicting demands among the stakeholders about how VET should be organised, the mode of delivery and relations towards the labour market.