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The Use of Literary Elements in Teaching Mathematics: 1

A Bibliometric Analysis from 1951 to 2021 2

3 The aim of this study is to examine the studies in which mathematics 4 teaching and literary elements are discussed together. For this purpose, a 5 literature search was made to cover the years 1951-2021 using keywords 6 such as "children's literature", "story" and "mathematics", which are 7 thought to be related to the subject. The studies obtained as a result of the 8 review of the journals examined in the Scopus index using the PRISMA 9 diagram were also investigated in terms of title, keywords and abstracts 10 before being included in the bibliometric analysis. As a result, 484 articles 11 that met the inclusion criteria of the research were subjected to bibliometric 12 analysis and descriptive analysis. The most influential authors, articles, 13 journals, institutions, the trend of the publications by years, cooperation 14 between institutions and cooperation between authors were determined. 15 Thus, the conceptual, intellectual, and social structure of the subject has 16 been revealed. 17

18 Keywords: bibliometric, literary elements, mathematics education 19

20

21

Introduction 22

23 One of the ways to differentiate and enrich mathematics teaching 24

according to the individual characteristics of students is to benefit from literary 25

elements such as children's picture books and stories in teaching. There are 26

studies showing that this approach, which integrates the fields of mathematics 27

and literature, contributes to both students and teachers in various ways 28

(Edelman et al., 2019; Forbringer et al., 2016). According to studies, the use of 29

literary elements in mathematics teaching supports the presentation of 30

mathematical concepts in a context, making mathematical associations, 31

mathematical language, and cognitive and affective processes related to 32

mathematics (Columba et al., 2005; Green, 2013; Hassinger-Daas et al., 2015; 33

Lemonidis & Kaifa, 2019; Mink & Fraser, 2005). However, there are also 34

studies that draw attention to the need to be cautious in some respects against 35

such an approach (Forbringer et al., 2016; Nurnberger-Haag, 2017; 36

Nurnberger-Haag et al., 2020). Because literary products such as children's 37

picture books to be used for mathematics teaching may not always meet the 38

desired criteria for mathematics teaching due to the fact that they contain 39

misconceptions and do not take into account the developmental processes that 40

must be followed for teaching a mathematical concept such as numbers 41

(Nurnberger-Haag, 2017; Powell & Nurnberger-Haag, 2015; Ward et al., 42

2017; Yılmaz Genç et al., 2017). 43

In this approach, where the two fields are integrated, the characteristics of 44

the practitioners who will make the integration play an important role as well 45

as the selection of literary products/elements to be utilized. For this reason, it 46

is seen that researchers conduct studies on this subject such as pre-service and 47

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in-service teachers’ competencies, beliefs, and classroom practices of them 1

(Author/s, 2020; Author/s, in press; Cooper et al., 2020; Farrugia & 2

Trakulpdetkrai, 2020; Prendergast. et al., 2019; Rogers et al., 2015). 3

According to these studies, although pre-service and in-service teachers have 4

similar beliefs and apply similar practices, they also have some incomplete 5

understandings such an approach is not appropriate for individuals from all age 6

groups and for teaching every mathematics subject (Larkin & 7

Trakulphadetkrai, 2019; Trakulphadetkrai, 2018). Because of such beliefs, 8

practitioners may be more cautious about the use of literary elements in 9

mathematics teaching. The fact that the studies carried out mostly in the 10

context of early childhood students and mathematics subjects may have been 11

effective in the emergence of these beliefs (Edelman et al., 2019). Whatever 12

the reason, it is thought that it is necessary to examine the studies on the 13

subject from a wider perspective, since the practitioners are avoid from this 14

approach, which has the potential to enrich and differentiate mathematics 15

lessons, may be an obstacle to students’ benefits from this approach. Because 16

teachers' classroom practices are affected by their beliefs (Staub & Stern, 17

2002). Based on these reasons, in this study, it is aimed to reveal the 18

intellectual, social, and conceptual structure of the studies on the use of literary 19

elements in mathematics teaching. Thus, by presenting a general framework in 20

terms of studies on the subject, it will contribute to taking steps towards both 21

future research and teachers' classroom practices. 22

23

24

Literature Review 25 26

Wu (2018) examined the research on children's picture books without any 27

distinction. He analyzed a total of 286 articles published between 1993 and 28

2015, which he obtained as a result of his search in WOS, with HistCite 29

software. Wu (2018) used only "picture book" and "picturebook" as keywords 30

in his study focused on bibliometric analysis and presented a more general 31

perspective on the studies on children's picture books. 32

It has been determined that bibliometric studies conducted specifically on 33

mathematics education are carried out on a general topic such as mathematics 34

education or specific issues such as number sense and mathematics anxiety, 35

and no studies related to the research topic have been encountered (Ersözlü & 36

Karakuş, 2019; Gökçe & Güner, 2021; Güner & Gökçe, 2021; Jiménez-Fanjul 37

et al., 2013; Özkaya, 2018; Ramirez & Rodriguez Devesa, 2019). However, it 38

has been observed that some studies, which are used meta-analysis or 39

descriptive analysis, are focused on research related to the subject or children's 40

picture books (Edelman et al., 2019; İnal-Kızıltepe, 2018; Powell & 41

Nurnberger-Haag, 2015; Yılmaz Genç et al., 2017). For example, Edelman et 42

al. (2019) conducted a meta-analysis study in which they examined studies on 43

the use of children's literary products in mathematics teaching, covering the 44

years of 1991-2016. Accordingly, they found that a very small proportion of 45

the articles on this approach were experimental studies. When they analyzed 46

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the few (n=23) experimental studies they obtained, they figured out that the 1

studies were carried out under the titles of student success, motivation and 2

participation, mathematical discourse, and pre-service/in-service teacher 3

education. Finally, Arizpe (2021) conducted a study in which she evaluated the 4

studies on children's picture books between 2010-2020. 5

As can be seen, the studies on the subject were carried out in a way to 6

cover certain years and keywords, while other studies were carried out in the 7

context of meta-analysis and descriptive analysis. For this reason, it is thought 8

that a more holistic perspective on the use of literary elements in mathematics 9

education will be gained with the bibliometric analysis to be made within the 10

scope of this study. Because bibliometric analysis is carried out by selecting 11

the publications and selected keywords by the authors on this subject (Pring, 12

2015). Based on this, the research questions were determined as follows: 13

14

1. How do the articles on the use of literary elements in mathematics 15

teaching change according to the years they were published? 16

2. Which authors, articles, journals, institutions, and countries are the 17

most influential in the studies on the use of literary elements in 18

mathematics teaching? 19

3. Regarding the use of literary elements in mathematics teaching, what 20

kind of intellectual, social, and conceptual structure emerges in terms 21

of cooperation between countries, cooperation between authors and co-22

word network? 23

24

25

Methodology 26 27

Bibliometric analysis was used in this study in order to examine the 28

research carried out on the use of literary elements in mathematics teaching. 29

Because it is possible to carry out quite comprehensive and more transparent 30

studies with systematic review studies such as bibliometric analysis (Andrews, 31

2005). In addition, through the maps obtained because of the analysis, the links 32

of any publication, author or the cited author with other publications and 33

authors related to the subject of interest can be revealed (Zupic & Čater, 2015). 34

35

Data Collection 36

37 The data of this study were obtained through Scopus, among the 38

international citation indexes, Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, 39

Microsoft Academic and Dimensions (Moral-Muñoz et al., 2020). For this, 40

first of all, in the Web of Science and Scopus indexes, which are two indexes 41

where qualified international publications are indexed, initial search was made 42

with the search code written based on the keywords used in the research on 43

this subject. As more documents were reached in Scopus as a result of the 44

search, the study was carried out on the articles in the Scopus index (Mongeon 45

& Paul-Hus, 2016). Because in the first search using the same keywords, it 46

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was seen that there were more publications in Scopus than in WOS. Since 1

Scopus is more comprehensive in terms of the relevant subject, the study was 2

continued with it. A search was made for all times covering the date of 3

21.09.2021. Social Studies and Psychology filters were used because the 4

studies that fit the scope of the study were not directly related to the field of 5

educational sciences in the Scopus database and some studies on this subject 6

were related to the field of psychology. The range of studies using literary 7

products such as children's picture books to many fields such as education, 8

culture, psychology, and literature was effective in taking this decision 9

(Arizpe, 2021). The code used in the scanning process is as follows: 10

TITLE-ABS-KEY ((math* OR geom* OR counting*) AND ("children's 11

literature" OR "children's book" OR "picture book" OR "picturebook" OR 12

"tradebooks" OR "trade book" OR "story book" OR "storybook" OR "stories" 13

OR "storybase" OR "storyline" OR "storytell*" OR "shared book" OR "read-14

aloud" OR reading)) 15

After this search code was applied, a total of 25,179 studies were reached. 16

When the obtained studies were adjusted to be only articles according to the 17

document type, they returned 17,213; 15776 when only in English publications 18

are selected; when journal is selected as the source type, 15,406 articles 19

remain. Finally, when Social Studies and Psychology filters were activated, 20

6885 articles remained. These articles were also re-examined in terms of the 21

title of the publication and the abstracts in order to provide a more accurate 22

result on the subject, so the data were extracted by excluding the articles that 23

are not related to the subject. This was done in order to prevent the inclusion 24

of irrelevant studies as a limitation of the bibliometric analysis (Zupic & Cater, 25

2015). The title and abstract were examined while performing the necessary 26

data cleaning for studies that did not match the scope of the research (Le Thi 27

Thu et al., 2021). Studies in which the keywords used during the data cleaning 28

were used out of the scope of this research (for example, the use of the word 29

story while explaining the research methodology) were not included in the 30

analysis. As a result, a total of 484 articles were included in the bibliometric 31

and descriptive analysis. The approach used in the data collection phase is 32

explained in the context of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic 33

Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) (Pham et al., 2021) diagram (Fig. 1). 34

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Figure 1. PRISMA diagram for the study in Scopus database 1

2 3

Data Analysis 4 5

The data obtained within the scope of the research were analyzed using 6

bibliometric analysis and descriptive statistics. In this context, the distribution 7

of studies on the use of literary elements in mathematics education by years, 8

the 10 most cited articles, the authors who contributed to the field and the 9

number of publications, the active journals in this subject, countries and 10

institutions were analyzed using bibliometric analysis techniques. In addition, 11

collaborative network analysis was used to determine keyword analysis, 12

source co-citation network analysis and author co-citation network analysis. 13

VOSviewer (Version 1.6.9) (Van Eck & Waltman, 2010) package program 14

was preferred as an analytical tool in collaborative network studies. 15

16

17

Results 18 19

First of all, the distribution of 484 articles reached as a result of the review 20

according to years was examined and presented in Figure 2. Accordingly, it is 21

seen that the articles about literary elements in mathematics teaching were first 22

published in 1951. It is seen that the number of studies on this subject has 23

increased. But this increase does not show a regular trend. The highest number 24

of publications (n=64) on the subject were made in 2020, and these 25

publications constitute 13.22% of all publications on the subject. 26

27

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Figure 2. Number of publications about literature elements in mathematics 1

education between 1951 and 2021 (September) 2

3 4

The list of the top 10 authors who have the most publications on the use of 5

literary elements in mathematics teaching is presented in Figure 3. The three 6

most prolific authors are Weber, K. (14%, n=6), Yang, K. L. (14%, n=6) and 7

Powell, S. R. (12%, n=5), respectively. 8

9

Figure 3. Top authors of literature elements in mathematics education 10

11 12

It has been seen that there are a total of 229 journals that include studies 13

on literary elements in mathematics education. Among these journals, the 14

journals that include the most research on the subject are given in Table 2. 15

Accordingly, it was determined that the most publications on the subject were 16

published in Primus (n=17) journal. This journal is followed by the 17

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“International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology” 1

and Reading Teacher with 14 articles each. However, these journals are not the 2

journals with the highest impact factor among the top 10 journals. 3

4

Table 2. Top Journals for literature elements in mathematics education 5

Journal Number Of

Publications

Citescore

(Impact

Factor)

Primus 17 0,7

International Journal Of Mathematical Education In

Science And Technology 14 1,9

Reading Teacher 14 1,6

Early Childhood Research Quarterly 12 4,4

Educational Studies In Mathematics 12 3,4

Journal Of Educational Psychology 11 9,5

Early Education And Development 10 3

International Journal Of Science And Mathematics

Education 10 4

ZDM - International Journal On Mathematics

Education 10 3,6

Journal Of Adolescent And Adult Literacy 9 1,8

6

Co-citation analysis (with at least 20 citations) of journals that include 7

studies on literary elements in mathematics education was also conducted in 8

the study (Figure 4). Accordingly, it was seen that the journals on this subject 9

were collected in 4 different clusters. It was determined that the main clusters, 10

the red cluster, mostly focused on mathematics education and reading, while 11

the green cluster focused more on developmental psychology and special 12

education. 13

14

Figure 4. Co-citation analysis on journals 15

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The distribution of studies on the use of literary elements in mathematics 1

education by institutions and countries is presented in Table 3. It is seen that 2

there are 6 universities that share the first place among 160 institutions in 3

terms of the articles they produce. Universities that share the first place with 8 4

articles each produced are Vanderbilt University, Purdue University, The 5

University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, Michigan State 6

University and University of Wisconsin-Madison. In terms of a total of 49 7

countries, the countries that have the most publications are USA (n=267), 8

United Kingdom (n=28) and Turkey (n=22), respectively. Considering the top 9

ten universities in terms of the number of publications, it is not surprising that 10

the USA ranks first in terms of publications on this subject. 11

12

Table 3. Top Affiliates and Countries 13

Rank Affiliates Record

Articles Rank

Countries/

regions

Record

Articles

1 Vanderbilt University 8 1 USA 267

1 Purdue University 8 2 United

Kingdom 28

1 The University of Texas at

Austin 8 3 Turkey 22

1 Texas A&M University 8 4 Canada 19

1 Michigan State University 8 5 Australia 18

1 University of Wisconsin-

Madison 8 6 Indonesia 16

2 National Taiwan Normal

University 7 7 Netherlands 11

2 University of Michigan Ann

Arbor 7 8 Germany 9

2 Rutgers University News

Brunswick 7 8 Taiwan 9

3 Florida State University 6 9 Israel

Sweden 8

14

In the study, the institutions that provided the funds for the research on the 15

use of literary elements in mathematics education were also examined. It has 16

been determined that a total of 117 funds have been supported for research 17

carried out in this context. Among these funding agencies, those who shared 18

the top three places that offered the most funding were National Science 19

Foundation (n=41), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (n=9), 20

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human 21

Development (n=8), National Institutes of Health (n=8) respectively. 22

23

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Figure 5. Funding Agencies 1

2 3

The list of the most cited publications among the studies on this subject is 4

presented in Table 3. Accordingly, the most cited publication is published in 5

the Harvard Educational Review with the title “Teaching disciplinary literacy 6

to adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy”. This article was published 7

by Shanahan T., & Shanahan, C. in 2008 and received 632 citations. When the 8

most cited articles are examined, we are faced with a wide spectrum of 9

research on the use of literary elements in mathematics teaching, such as 10

problem solving, disciplinary literacy, integrated education programs (STEAM 11

etc.) and early childhood. 12

13

Table 3. Top articles that received the most citations 14

Article Author(s) Published Journal Times

Cited

1.Teaching disciplinary literacy

to adolescents: Rethinking

content-area literacy

Shanahan,

T., &

Shanahan,

C.

2008

Harvard

Educational

Review

632

2.Number sense growth in

kindergarten: A longitudinal

investigation of children at risk

for mathematics difficulties

Jordan,

N.C.,

Kaplan, D.,

Nabors,

Oláh L., &

Locuniak,

M.N.

2006 Child

Development 363

3.A case study of computer

gaming for math: Engaged

learning from gameplay?

Ke, F. 2008

Computers

and

Education

271

4.The real story behind story

problems: effects of

representations on quantitative

reasoning

Koedinger,

K.R., &

Nathan,

M.J.

2004

Journal of

the Learning

Sciences

243

41

9

8

8

7

5

5

4

4

4

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

National Science Foundation

U.S. Department of Health and Human…

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute…

National Institutes of Health

U.S. Department of Education

Institute of Education Sciences

Social Sciences and Humanities Research…

Government of Canada

James S. McDonnell Foundation

Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan

RECORD

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5.Formal and informal home

learning activities in relation to

children's early numeracy and

literacy skills: The development

of a home numeracy model

Skwarchuk,

S.-L.,

Sowinski,

C., &

LeFevre J.-

A.

2014

Journal of

Experimental

Child

Psychology

219

6.Cognitive arithmetic and

problem solving: a comparison

of children with specific and

general mathematics difficulties

Jordan,

N.C., &

Montani,

T.O.

1997

Journal of

Learning

Disabilities

209

7.What is disciplinary literacy

and why does it matter?

Shanahan,

T., &

Shanahan,

C.

2012

Topics in

Language

Disorders

207

8.An analysis of arithmetic

problem posing by middle

school students

Silver,

E.A., &

Cai, J.

1996

Journal for

Research in

Mathematics

Education

197

9.Science as the center of a

coherent, integrated early

childhood curriculum

French, L. 2004

Early

Childhood

Research

Quarterly

193

10.The development of spatial

skills through interventions

involving block building

activities

Casey,

B.M.,

Andrews,

N.,

Schindler,

H., Kersh,

J.E.,

Samper,

A., &

Copley, J.

2008

Cognition

and

Instruction

169

1

In the visual, which examines the cooperation network between countries 2

and authors in the context of the publications produced (Fig. 6), 48 countries 3

and a total of 40 links established between these countries are included. The 4

countries with the highest number of connections among countries are USA 5

(13 links), UK (9 links) and Netherlands (6 links), respectively. This shows 6

that the number of USA and UK related studies are high. Therefore, these 7

countries have stronger cooperative social networks. 8

9

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Figure 6. Co-authorship network among countries 1

2 3

In Figure 7, the results of co-authorship analysis are given. A total of 10 4

links and 3 clusters were identified in the analysis. Authors usually appear to 5

have 2 or 3 connections. Therefore, authors who carry out studies on the use of 6

literary elements in mathematics teaching mostly work alone. 7

8 Figure 7. Co-authorship network among authors 9

10 The authors' co-citation network analysis is presented in Figure 8. When 11

the cut-off point for at least 40 citations was determined among the authors 12

working on this subject, the number of authors decreased to 37. When the co-13

citation network of 37 authors was examined, 4 clusters emerged. The first 14

cluster, the red one, includes names such as Van den Heuvel Panhuizen, M., 15

Elia, I., Ginsburg, H. P. and Casey, B. The studies in this cluster are about the 16

use of children's literary products in mathematics teaching, children's picture 17

books and early childhood mathematics education. Therefore, it is possible to 18

say that the works of the authors in this cluster are mostly cited from the focus 19

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of children's picture books. It is seen that names such as Alibali, M. W. and 1

Carpenter, T. P. in the second cluster (green) work on story problems. It is 2

seen that the third cluster (blue) is further away from the other three clusters 3

and includes names such as Vygotsky, L. S. Since the use of literary elements 4

in mathematics teaching brings in-class discussions and sharing, some studies 5

on the subject can refer to Vygotsky's social constructivism theory 6

(Nurnberger et al., 2020). In the fourth and last cluster (yellow), names such as 7

Geary, D. C., Fuchs, D., and Fuchs, L. S. stand out. Such a cluster may have 8

emerged because these researchers work on learning disabilities focused on 9

both language skills and mathematics in the intervention programs they 10

developed and applied to children's books to support both areas. When the co-11

citation network on the use of literary elements in mathematics teaching is 12

evaluated in general, this subject finds its answer in different subjects such as 13

problem solving, children's books and intervention programs, and it is also 14

cited from fields such as psychology, which is related to educational sciences, 15

together with different fields of educational sciences. 16

17

Figure 8. Co-citation authors network 18

19 In studies on the use of literary elements in mathematics teaching, co-20

word analysis was performed to reveal the frequency of keywords used by the 21

authors and the relationship between them (Figure 9). As a result of the co-22

word analysis, it is seen that a total of 13 but 2 main clusters emerged. These 23

clusters are shaped around words close to the keywords "content (area) literacy 24

and disciplinary literacy" and "elementary mathematics education (pre-school 25

and primary school)". When the changes in the keywords used by the authors 26

in their studies are analyzed on a yearly basis, the following picture emerges: 27

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in 2010-2012, textbooks, pedagogy, writing and constructivism; in 2012-2014 1

literature, reading, content area reading and problem solving; in 2014-2016, 2

mathematics, storytelling, word problems and elementary education; in 2016-3

2018 early childhood, picture books, comprehension, digital storytelling, 4

disciplinary literacy and reading strategy, and finally in 2018-2020, shared 5

reading, parent-child interactions, preservice teachers, children's books, 6

content literacy, and professional development keywords are used. 7

8

Figure 9. The co-word analysis 9

10 According to the analysis, the prominent words are mathematics (n=51), 11

early childhood education (n=32), mathematics education (n=22), (reading) 12

comprehension (n=18), early childhood (n=17), problem solving (n=17). =17), 13

content (area) literacy (n=16), children's literature (n=15), instructional tools 14

(strategy, method, technique, and material) and digital storytelling (n=13). 15

When the connections between the keywords are examined, it is seen that the 16

mathematics education and mathematics keywords have a connection with 17

children's literature; there is a connection between content (area) literacy and 18

children's literature, but there is no connection between content (area) literacy, 19

mathematics education and mathematics. This situation can be considered as 20

an indication that the limitations of the keywords chosen by the authors are left 21

aside, that the studies linking these three areas are limited. Therefore, this 22

table, which emerged as a result of the common word analysis, offers some 23

perspectives on the conceptual structure of the use of literary elements in 24

mathematics education (Öztürk & Gökhan, 2021). 25

26

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Discussion 1

2 In this study, in which bibliometric and descriptive analyzes of the articles 3

on the use of literary elements (children's picture books, stories and reading) in 4

mathematics education were investigated, a search was carried out on the 5

Scopus database covering the years 1951-21 September 2021. A total of 484 6

studies were accessed according to the inclusion criteria. The data were first 7

analyzed with descriptive analysis. Accordingly, it was seen that the first study 8

on the subject was carried out in 1951 and the studies showed an irregular 9

increasing trend. The most studies on the use of literary elements in 10

mathematics education were carried out in 2020. Although not regularly, it can 11

be said that the number of studies generally tends to increase after 2010. In this 12

case, the importance of various literacy such as mathematical literacy due to 13

exams such as Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) may 14

have played a key role. This finding of the study coincides with the results of 15

Wu (2018). He also found that the change of studies on children's picture 16

books according to years tends to increase, albeit irregularly. 17

Three of the researchers who have the most publications on the use of 18

literary elements in mathematics education are Weber, K., Yang, K. L., and 19

Powell, S. R. Weber, K. conducts studies on the reading of mathematical texts 20

and proof as a dimension of mathematical reading. Yang K. L. has a similar 21

ground that conducted studies on reading mathematical content and focused on 22

reading comprehension. Powell, S. R., on the other hand, conducted studies on 23

mathematical vocabulary, learning disabilities, and children's picture books. 24

Powell, S. R. is followed by Cooper, S., Elia, I., Herbst, P., Purpura, D. J., and 25

Van den Heuvel-Panhuizen, M. It is seen that the related authors also carry out 26

studies on children's picture books, problem solving, mathematical language 27

and animated stories. Accordingly, the studies of the authors who published 28

the most in terms of selected keywords were carried out in a way to include 29

different dimensions of mathematical reading and literary elements. This 30

associates with the contribution of the context that stories and various 31

mathematical texts provide for learning mathematics (Golden, 2012; 32

Trakulphadetkrai et al., 2019). When the journals that include studies on this 33

subject are examined, it is seen that the authors mostly publish in journals that 34

focus on topics such as mathematics education, early childhood education, 35

reading, literacy and educational psychology. This may be related to the 36

multidimensional nature of the subject and the importance given to reading for 37

learning. 38

Considering the distribution of studies on the use of literary elements in 39

mathematics education according to institutions and countries, it is seen that 40

there are six institutions that share the first place with eight publications. As in 41

the distribution of the top ten universities, the most publications on the subject 42

originated in the USA. This may have arisen because only in English 43

publications were included in this study. A similar view emerges when the 44

funds received by the related publications are examined. The National Science 45

Foundation gave the researchers the most support on this issue. The number of 46

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funds given by the institutions following the National Science Foundation are 1

close to each other. 2

When the most cited publications on the subject are examined, it is seen 3

that "Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area 4

literacy" by Shanahan T., and Shanahan, C. “What is disciplinary literacy and 5

why does it matter?” by the same authors. It is seen that his publications are 6

among the ten most cited publications. The fact that each of the articles in the 7

top ten was published in different journals can be considered as an indicator of 8

the multidisciplinary nature of the subject. In addition, the prominence of 9

discipline-specific literacy such as mathematical literacy due to international 10

exams such as PISA may be one of the reasons for this situation. 11

Finally, co-word analysis was performed in the study. Thus, the current 12

research on the use of literary elements in mathematics education and the 13

conceptual structure of the relevant subject have been revealed. Especially 14

after 2012, the prominence of keywords such as content literacy, disciplinary 15

literacy, storytelling, digital storytelling, pre-service teachers, picture 16

books/children's books and professional development suggests that the 17

professional development and storytelling processes of teacher candidates and 18

in-service teachers gain importance. Research on the subject is carried out 19

using digital media or picture books. However, the trend of research is moving 20

towards teacher education. When the frequencies of the keywords are 21

examined, it is noticed that the studies on the subject still focus on the early 22

childhood period and children's books. This is in line with the findings of 23

Edelman et al. (2019). This situation can be considered as a research gap in the 24

context of studies to be carried out with different grade levels. Because, in the 25

literature, it is noted that very few of the studies on the subject are conducted 26

experimentally, while the studies are mostly carried out at the early childhood 27

level (Clarissa et al., 2021; Edelman et al., 2019). The fact that the studies are 28

mostly carried out in this age range may cause pre-service and in-service 29

teachers to hold negative beliefs about the use of literary elements in 30

mathematics education. Because there is still not enough evidence about how 31

books and other literary elements other than children's books can contribute to 32

mathematics teaching (Jett, 2014; Nurnberger-Haag et al., 2020). Therefore, 33

based on the keywords that emerged in the context of this bibliometric 34

analysis, it is thought that it is important to conduct research that reveals on 35

which mathematics subjects, for which grade level, under what conditions and 36

on which variables the integration of literary elements into mathematics 37

teaching is effective (Author/s, in press; McGuire et al., 2020). 38

39

40

Conclusions and Limitations 41 42

There are some limitations of this study, in which bibliometric and 43

descriptive analyzes of articles about the use of literary elements in 44

mathematics education are applied. First of all, the data of the study were 45

obtained only from the Scopus database. The studies obtained from WOS were 46

2021-4495-AJE – 12 OCT 2021

16

also accessed, but since VOSviewer, the tool used in the analysis, could not 1

process the data obtained from these two different databases together, the 2

study was conducted with the Scopus database, which gave much more 3

documents as a result of the literature search. In the future, more inclusive 4

studies can be carried out by using other analysis tools with data from more 5

than one database. Another limitation of the study is related to search 6

strategies. Before literature search, the keywords frequently used in studies on 7

the subject were examined and a search code was created accordingly. Since 8

the selected keywords were searched in the title, abstract and keywords 9

section, a large body of research were reached in the first search. The reason 10

for this situation is that, as seen in the findings of the research, the studies on 11

the subject have spread to many different fields and to many different journals. 12

The researcher/s benefited from such a search strategy because they wanted to 13

include all studies that may be relevant to the subject. Then, in order to 14

eliminate irrelevant studies, a data cleaning process was carried out and the 15

abstracts of the studies were examined. Thus, a literature review was 16

conducted that is both comprehensive enough to reach all the studies on the 17

subject and limited enough to exclude irrelevant studies. In the future, research 18

can be carried out by choosing more specific keywords, but the aim of this 19

study is to draw a framework as inclusive as possible for researchers interested 20

in this subject. Finally, the last access date of the data obtained through Scopus 21

is 09.21.2021. Since new studies are included in the databases every day, it is 22

possible to reach different results in future studies. Despite all its limitations, it 23

is thought that the framework and landscape that figured out as a result of this 24

research can support researchers, decision makers, practitioners and 25

stakeholders who are interested in this subject to take the necessary 26

precautions for the following years. 27

28

References 29

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