Frontier Development and Insights of International Educational Science Research in the journals Nature and Science: a Systematic Literature Review over 40 Years

The purpose of this study was to investigate the frontier, science, and public engagement of educational science research. This paper conducted a systematic literature review of 101 educational science research articles published in Nature and Science in 1982–2021 based on the Web of Science database and analyzed the current status of research in terms of basic publication characteristics, research themes, and research processes. Five research topics were recognized, namely, education policy evaluation and reform, learning mechanisms and learning interventions, science education, educational technology, and education equity. Content of each topic had a distinctive emphasis. Findings revealed that most studies were dominated by empirical research, involving causal relationships between various educational phenomena, diverse range of research subjects, rigorous scientific randomized experiments, and quantitative analysis. We encourage more research on educational science in the future from four feasible directions, namely, developing active learning approaches to promoting effective learning, extending the research subjects and objectives of science education, conducting long-term, large-scale and practice-oriented research, and introducing new research methods into educational research.