Facebook in educational research: a bibliometric analysis

• Published in: Scientometrics 2017-06, Vol.111 (3), p.1591-1621
• Main Authors: Lopes, Renato Matos, Faria, Daniel José Garcia dos Santos de, Fidalgo-Neto, Antonio Augusto, Mota, Fabio Batista
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bibliometrics; Computer Science; Computers; Construction; Documents; Education; Educational research; Information Storage and Retrieval; Language; Library Science; Linguistics; Networking; Scientific papers; Self concept; Social media; Social networks; Social organization; Social research
• ISSN: 0138-9130; 1588-2861
• DOI: 10.1007/s11192-017-2294-1

Facebook has become the object of research in different areas. The present study presents a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature related to the use of this social network in educational research. To this end, bibliometric techniques were applied in the analysis of scientific articles indexed at the Web of Science Core Collection, from Thomson Reuters, and linked to the research areas of Education/Educational Research. This resulted in the identification of, among others, developments in scientific production, the most important journals that publish papers on the topic, the main authors and the main articles published in the area. The results indicate the growth of scientific production in the area from 2008 onwards, pointing to Computers and Education as the most relevant journal by number of publications (22) and impact factor and indicate that authors from the United States, Australia, Taiwan, United Kingdom and South Africa stand out in the construction of knowledge on educational research applying Facebook. Moreover, the ego-network of the Educational Research area shows that this area coexists with other areas of knowledge in the use of social networking, such as Computer Science, Linguistics and Health Sciences, indicating an interdisciplinary and transversal nature in different areas of research.