La investigación científica frente a la realidad educativaestudio cienciométrico de la producción científica en Educación primaria, (2000-2020)

Abstract

The evaluation of science is essential to ensure the quality, validity and reliability of scientific results. Science must be subjected to a certain amount of scrutiny to ensure the rigorousness of scientific output. This evaluation provides a solid basis for political and economic decisions on the design and implementation of research projects, the establishment of emerging lines of research or the identification of areas of specialisation, as well as the well-known indicators of scientific impact assessment. This study analyses the scientific production referring to the Primary Education stage indexed in the databases of ÍnDICEs-CSIC, Scopus and Web of Science (WOS), over a period of twenty years, specifically, between 2000 and 2020. This analysis is carried out at a double level: scientometric and conceptual. For the first analysis, scientometric indicators will be used to provide quantitative and objective information on the results of research processes on elements of the scientific production indicated. Specifically, on the productivity of authors or institutions, journals with the most publications, the diachronic evolution of production, language or language of scientific production, etc. In the case of the conceptual analysis, a content analysis of title and summary is carried out which will reveal the main topics on which the scientific production on the Primary Education stage in the established period is based and the underlying thematic networks between the most researched topics. Among the specific objectives, the aim is to: create a database with the scientific production on Primary Education indexed both in the InDICEs-CSIC database and in Scopus and WOS; analyse the Scientometric variables defined in this study; study the Scientometric indicators of this production, detecting patterns and verifying the commonly accepted laws of scientometrics; identify the most researched conceptual categories during the period 200-2020, according to the different databases used and reveal the underlying thematic networks between the thematic categories with the greatest presence in the scientific production analysed. On the basis of the above, the following general hypotheses are conjectured: the Spanish production indexed in the InDICEs-CSIC, Scopus and WOS databases on Primary Education conforms to common indicators and Scientometric laws and the Spanish production indexed in the CSIC, Scopus and WOS databases on Primary Education covers a wide range of conceptual frameworks and fields of action. This is a descriptive and review study with the intention of carrying out a documentary analysis that establishes the real parameters of the object of this study through the systematic description of the characteristics of the articles analysed in an objective and comparable way. According to the nature of the data, this would be a mixed research, using descriptive quantitative statistical data and the interpretations derived from them, and qualitative, through the analysis of the content of the articles. In terms of time, this is a cohort study in which the aim is to describe the characteristics of the development of scientific production in primary education over a period of twenty years. Among the conclusions of the study, we highlight the following: the continuous and exponential growth of scientific production on Primary Education between 2000 and 2020 and indexed in the databases consulted; the verification of the adjustment of scientific production to the commonly accepted laws of Scientometrics and the broad framework of conceptual categories covered.