This paper conducts a bibliometric science-mapping analysis of international research on Socio-Scientific Issues (SSI) in Science Education. Although SSI research has expanded considerably, limited attention has been given to how the field is organized thematically, intellectually, socially, and epistemologically. To address this gap, the study analyzes 738 articles indexed in the Web of Science and published between 2010 and 2026. The bibliometric analysis was performed using VOSviewer and included keyword co-occurrence, document bibliographic coupling, author co-citation, and country co-authorship networks. The results indicate that SSI research is thematically polycentric, organized around pedagogical-curricular mediations, cognitive and argumentative processes, normative and civic orientations, and institutional anchoring in educational levels and disciplinary contexts. Temporal keyword analysis identified emerging topics such as systems thinking, STEAM, professional development, media literacy, inquiry-based learning, COVID-19, engagement, and epistemic beliefs, while argumentation, scientific literacy, decision-making, Nature of Science, reasoning, and environmental education remain stabilized thematic cores. Bibliographic coupling revealed contemporary intellectual cores marked by both continuity and renewal, while author co-citation analysis identified a differentiated intellectual canon around authors such as Sadler, Zeidler, Osborne, Kolstø, Hodson, Lederman, and others. Country co-authorship analysis showed that SSI research circulates internationally through uneven but interconnected collaboration routes. Interpreted through Ludwik Fleck’s epistemology, these patterns indicate processes of thought-style stabilization, thought-collective formation, and thought traffic within the WoS-indexed international SSI literature. The study contributes to Science Education by providing a relational and epistemologically informed diagnosis of the field, with implications for curriculum development, teacher education, and future research agendas.
Reciprocal teaching is a cooperative learning strategy designed to enhance students’ comprehension through predicting, questioning, clarifying, summarising, visualising, calculating, connecting, and giving feedback. This study examines its impact on students’ attitudes toward learning physics in Palestinian secondary schools, addressing a critical gap in the literature. Given the challenges of teaching physics, the research explores how reciprocal teaching fosters student engagement. A quasi-experimental design was employed with 120 10th-grade students (60 males, 60 females) from gender-segregated Palestinian schools. The experimental group received instruction using reciprocal teaching, while the control group followed traditional methods. Pre- and post-questionnaires, based on an adapted “Attitude towards Learning Physics” scale, were used for data collection. A one-way MANCOVA analyzed group differences. Findings indicate that students taught with reciprocal teaching developed significantly more positive attitudes toward physics than those in traditional instruction. While both male and female students benefited, a significant interaction between teaching method and gender was observed. These results highlight reciprocal teaching as an effective approach to enhancing engagement and motivation in physics education. The study provides valuable insights for educators seeking innovative strategies to improve student attitudes toward physics, particularly in contexts where engagement with the subject is challenging.
This conceptual paper draws on decolonial perspectives and a critical interpretive review of education reform discourses and secondary literature to examine contradictions in contemporary decolonisation agendas across purposively selected Sub-Saharan African contexts. It advances two central arguments. First, many initiatives labelled as decolonisation remain confined to surface-level reforms that leave intact colonial architectures of power, knowledge and being. Second, the decolonisation agenda is increasingly co-opted by neoliberal imperatives that narrow educational purpose to economic instrumentalism and constrain possibilities for genuine epistemic and structural transformation. The review identifies how these contradictions operate through curriculum, language, pedagogy, vocationalisation, employability and future-of-work narratives, while recognising that competency-based, learner-centred, vocational and digital reforms may also carry emancipatory possibilities. To reclaim the emancipatory potential of decolonisation, the paper calls for (a) radically re-centring educational values and purposes beyond market logics and (b) deconstructing the neoliberal ideological foundations embedded in contemporary reform narratives. The foundational values to be reclaimed are neither uniform nor timeless but encompass contextually varied commitments to relational personhood, communal responsibility, self-reliance, civic agency, environmental stewardship, linguistic and epistemic plurality, cultural continuity and epistemic freedom. The paper advances a context-sensitive decolonisation agenda that repositions African education towards expansive, humanistic and socially transformative purposes.
The purpose of this an exploratory and descriptive study was to identify the features of the modernisation of traditional teaching methods in the context of the development of information and communication technologies (ICT), as well as to explore the integration of digital educational tools into school practice and participants’ perceptions of ICT-supported learning. The methodology involved a pedagogical experiment conducted within selected lower secondary educational settings in Ukraine and Albania, alongside a questionnaire (n = 160), focus group discussions with teachers (n = 26), and analysis of statistical data on the level of digitalisation of the educational process. The experiment utilised digital platforms including Kahoot, Padlet, Wordwall, and LearningApps. The results indicate generally positive participant responses to the integration of digital technologies into teaching practices. Specifically, students in the experimental group demonstrated a higher proportion of correct responses to ICT-related learning tasks compared to the control group following participation in ICT-supported lessons. Moreover, 91
Within the realm of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) pedagogy, the cultivation of pragmatic competence is a fundamental prerequisite for successful interpersonal exchange. Students frequently encounter difficulties in mastering this domain, particularly regarding multifaceted speech acts such as requests, which often results in communicative failure. This research investigated the impact of explicit pedagogical interventions on the development of request-related pragmatic abilities among Algerian Master’s students at Sétif 2 University. Adopting an explanatory sequential mixed-methods framework, the study involved 45 participants selected via convenience sampling from a broader cohort of 225 students. These learners, characterised by comparable upper-intermediate proficiency, were split into an experimental group (EG, n = 24), which underwent a five-stage structured explicit instruction program on requests, and a control group (CG, n = 21), which received conventional instruction. Pragmatic growth was measured through identical pre- and post-intervention written discourse completion tasks (WDCTs), while qualitative data were derived from the EG’s self-reflection logs. Statistical evaluations (t-tests) demonstrated that while both cohorts showed post-test gains, the EG exhibited a statistically superior level of improvement compared to the CG (t(43) = 3.739, p < 0.001). These quantitative results were supported by qualitative evidence indicating heightened sociopragmatic awareness, increased learner confidence, and a positive reception of the explicit teaching model. The findings suggest that targeted explicit instruction is more efficacious than traditional methods in refining the pragmatic performance of Algerian EFL learners. Consequently, this study advocates for the integration of consciousness-raising activities and authentic resources into EFL curricula to better prepare students for professional success and effective intercultural communication.
