ArticlePDF Available

Global trends of the Common European Framework of Reference: A bibliometric analysis

Wiley
Review of Education
Authors:

Abstract and Figures

The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) is a crucial reference framework for informing teaching, learning and assessment that has achieved worldwide prominence in language education. However, there have been concerns raised regarding the breadth of its influence across different domains and countries. Using a bibliometric approach, a sample of 770 scholarly works on the CEFR publications from the Scopus database was observed to investigate the CEFR research activity. The data was analysed using Microsoft Excel for frequency analysis, VOSviewer for data visualisation, and Harzing's Publish or Perish for citation metrics and analysis. This study sought to investigate the evolution of CEFR research from its inception and subsequent trends based on source title, country and institution, and examined the citation pattern of the publication. It also discusses the fundamental themes based on the occurrences and terms of the keywords, titles and abstracts of the documents. This paper also identifies the major key players involved in the research. The findings demonstrate that the CEFR has been widely disseminated and has had a substantial impact, since the number of publications outside of Europe, such as in North America and Asia, has increased. However, cross‐country collaboration revealed a dearth of CEFR research collaboration across Asia. The findings provide essential input towards the emerging movements and issues in articles, journal performance, collaboration patterns, and research constituents, contributing to the scarce literature on the global trends of the CEFR.
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Review of Educ ation. 2022;10:e3331.
|
1 of 26
https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3331
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/roe
Received: 1 October 2021
|
Accepted: 21 December 2021
DOI: 10.1002/rev3.3331
STATE OF THE ART REV IEW
Global trends of the Common European
Framework of Reference: A bibliometric
analysis
Farah Hussan Sahib1,2 | Mahani Stapa1
© 2022 British Educational Research Association
1Faculty of Social Science and Humanities,
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bharu,
Malaysia
2Centre of Fundamental and Continuing
Education, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu,
Terengganu, Malaysia
Correspondence
Farah Hussan Sahib, Faculty of Social
Science and Humanities, Universiti
Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bharu, Malaysia.
Email: farah_hussan@umt.edu.my
Funding information
None.
Abstract
The Common European Framework of Reference
(CEFR) is a crucial reference framework for informing
teaching, learning and assessment that has achieved
worldwide prominence in language education.
However, there have been concerns raised regard-
ing the breadth of its influence across different do-
mains and countries. Using a bibliometric approach,
a sample of 770 scholarly works on the CEFR publi-
cations from the Scopus database was observed to
investigate the CEFR research activity. The data was
analysed using Microsoft Excel for frequency analy-
sis, VOSviewer for data visualisation, and Harzing's
Publish or Perish for citation metrics and analysis.
This study sought to investigate the evolution of
CEFR research from its inception and subsequent
trends based on source title, country and institution,
and examined the citation pattern of the publication.
It also discusses the fundamental themes based on
the occurrences and terms of the keywords, titles and
abstracts of the documents. This paper also identifies
the major key players involved in the research. The
findings demonstrate that the CEFR has been widely
disseminated and has had a substantial impact,
since the number of publications outside of Europe,
such as in North America and Asia, has increased.
2 of 26
|
SAHIB and STAPA
INTRODUCTION
Over the course of the twentieth century, scholars and language specialists sought to explain
the relevance of acquiring languages and how they might be incorporated and assimilated
into teaching, learning and assessment. In addition, the debates on using the first language
(L1) and second language (L2) in the process of teaching and learning continue to rage
globally to this day, particularly in the context of plurilingual education. In the light of multi/
plurilingualism, ‘hundreds of other languages are spoken as a result of the globalisation of
However, cross- country collaboration revealed a
dearth of CEFR research collaboration across Asia.
The findings provide essential input towards the
emerging movements and issues in articles, journal
performance, collaboration patterns, and research
constituents, contributing to the scarce literature on
the global trends of the CEFR.
KEYWORDS
Common European Framework of Reference, CEFR,
bibliometric analysis, language education
Context and implications
Rationale for this study
The aim of the study was to obtain a better understanding of the CEFR research pat-
terns and trends in the language discipline. The findings of this investigation provide
concrete evidence of its development and global dispersion.
Why do the new findings matter?
The findings reveal the prospective strength and weaknesses of the CEFR research
trend in language education and linguistics publications. They will also suggest av-
enues for further research.
Implications for researchers, practitioners and policy makers
Policy makers, universities and researchers should be encouraging and support-
ing more high- quality research in this important area. Researchers in the discipline
should also consider conducting more ambitious, high- quality research that is likely
to yield robust results. They will obtain benefit from the findings by using them to im-
prove the quality of research and fill in the gaps that have been identified as a result
of this study. The top publications, source titles, institutions, countries, authors, key-
words and citation metrics provide valuable information and future direction for other
researchers looking to produce additional high- quality CEFR research publications.
|
3 of 26
GLOBAL TR ENDS OF THE COMMON EUROPE AN
FRA MEWORK O F REFERENCE: A BIB LIOMETRIC ANALYSIS
capital, economic migration, tourism, and student mobility, among other movements’ (Erling
& Moore, 2021, p. 2). The study of L2 learning has attracted researchers from many aspects
of the field, such as medicine, anthropology, sociology, and education. L2 learning precisely
helps to encourage students to have an equal chance to learn an additional language ‘with
an active involvement and collaboration of L2 educators with L2 learners’ (Dixon et al., 2012,
p. 39). Due to the rapid evolution of language education, concerns have been raised about
the quality of language use and how to achieve mutual comprehension and recognition of its
practice across the continents. Hence, a robust framework is needed to address the issues
of language teaching and learning to standardise its usage.
The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) is a comprehensive approach
to developing international standards established by the Council of Europe (Council of
Europe, 2001). Since its inception in 2001, the CEFR has infiltrated various parts of the
educational landscape, including language curricula, teaching materials, teacher education
and assessment. The CEFR has a wide range of effects in the educational scene. It has
been equally widely used in curricula and language policies today, with major attention paid
to language testing (Little, 2007; Tono, 2019). However, despite its widespread usage in
assessments and tests, past studies have revealed that the CEFR has a low impact in this
sector (Díez- Bedmar and Byram, 2018).
When the CEFR is brought into unique educational environments, teachers frequently
experience difficulties comprehending and executing the abstract concepts in the absence
of concrete exemplars (Mison & Jang, 2011). Teacher opinions on the CEFR indicate that
the framework is difficult to understand, resulting in teachers' having limited knowledge of
the CEFR framework (Alih et al., 2020). Hence, the framework is reported to have no further
application to classroom teaching (Franz & Teo, 2018). Its full potential has yet to be realised
because it is difficult to grasp and teachers are unprepared to implement it (Jones & Saville,
2009).
On the contrary, the CEFR has demonstrated some impact on English language teaching
and learning. It improves language courses and curriculum development in higher education
settings (Kanchai, 2019). It was shown to be significant, with a considerable shift away from
teacher- centred and knowledge- driven classes, towards the encouragement of autonomous
learning (Nagai & O’Dwyer, 2011). Specifically, it also proves to promote students' under-
standing of sentence structures (Krishnan & Yunus, 2019). Although the framework has pos-
itive and negative characteristics, its global impact on language teaching cannot be ignored.
Previous studies have looked at the CEFR's features and their impact on users in the con-
text of education and language requirements skills in other settings such as professional job
demand and citizenship requirements (Read, 2019). Even though research in these areas
is well developed, studies on the CEFR research pattern and trend are limited. There is
an urgent need to research the growth of the CEFR to discover its most recent strategies,
which is essential to inform scholars about the degree of its presence and influence around
the world. Indeed, this can be accomplished by generating a bibliometric analysis of the
literature.
Bibliometric analysis is commonly used because it enables reliable quantification and
analysis of the publications indexed in a database under investigation (Carmona- Serrano
et al., 2020). In terms of CEFR research, Runnels and Runnels (2019) presented the first
bibliometric review of its impact in literature. They looked at the period from 1990 to 2017,
derived from Google Scholar and EBSCO Host as the literature search instruments. They
analysed the data based on the number of publications per year, the geographical location
of the research, highly cited works, and journals with the highest number of relevant publi-
cations. Since then, research on the CEFR has developed significantly, and it is crucial to
keep up with the most recent advancements in the literature. This research conducted a
4 of 26
|
SAHIB and STAPA
bibliometric analysis of published CEFR research from 2002 until 2021 to investigate the
depth and breadth of scholarly work relating to the CEFR. It aims to answer three main re-
search questions:
1. How is CEFR research evolving and progressing?
Number of published studies per year
Sources and document types
Sources titles
Language of documents
2. What are the most predominant themes that have been addressed in CEFR research?
Keyword analysis
Title and abstract analysis
3. Who and what are the leading researchers and institutions in terms of publications on the
CEFR?
Publications by countries
Main institutions
Authorship analysis
Citation analysis
In the following sections, this paper outlines how the study was conducted. Then it de-
scribes the overall evolution and distribution by identifying the number of published studies
per year, sources, document types and document languages. The most common themes
that the researchers are interested in, such as keyword frequency and co- occurences, are
then highlighted. Finally, it discusses how top scholars and institutions have helped further
CEFR research.
METHOD
Database selection
The research carried out in this paper focuses on the analysis of the CEFR in language
education. The Scopus database was utilised to analyse the documents obtained in this bib-
liometric study. Scopus is the largest academic database which contains more than 25,100
active titles, 7000 publishers, 82 million documents, 17 million author profiles, 234,000
books, 80,000 institutional profiles, and 1.7 billion cited references covering 240 disciplines.
This database was chosen because it provides a comprehensive picture of the world's
scientific research output. The Scopus database is currently regarded as one of the key
sources of related data by the international scientific community (Mansour et al., 2021). As
a result, Scopus is advocated as a valuable database for extracting materials related to the
area examined in this research.
Inclusion criteria
Throughout the process, we used a keyword to identify the related documents. The terms
‘CEFR’ or ‘Common European Framework of Reference’ were adopted when searching the
Scopus database for information on article titles and abstracts. This search was conducted
on 25 July 2021, using a specified document published from 2002 until 2021. The research-
ers opted to choose articles issued from the stated year due to the establishment of the
CEFR document, Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning,
Teaching and Assessment by the Council of Europe in 2001. Consequently, a total of 1052
|
5 of 26
GLOBAL TR ENDS OF THE COMMON EUROPE AN
FRA MEWORK O F REFERENCE: A BIB LIOMETRIC ANALYSIS
documents emerged. The documents were further screened, and other unrelated subject
areas were excluded, such as engineering, computer science and energy, focusing only the
language educational field (arts and humanities and social science), leaving a total of 770
documents retrieved by Scopus. In addition, for the review of publications, the standard-
ised protocol of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta- analyses
(PRISMA) declaration was used, whose actions are shown in a flow chart (Figure 1). Hence,
this article achieves conformity by adhering to the specific processes outlined in the PRISMA
protocol (Alduais et al., 2021).
Data analysis and tools
This study employed bibliometric analysis as its research methodology. The approach was
utilised to quantify and analyse the publications indexed in the repository under investiga-
tion (Carmona- Serrano et al., 2020). Bibliometric analysis is a quantitative approach used in
archives and records studies to designate publication patterns within a certain area or body
of literature, and it is based on statistical data (Hyland & Jiang, 2021). We used multiple tools
to obtain detailed results to answer all the research questions. We employed Microsoft Excel
2019 to calculate the frequency and proportion of each publication, as well as to construct
FIGURE 1 Flowchart according to the PRISMA declaration
Records identified through
database searching
(n=1052)
Additional records identified
through other sources
(n=0)
Studies included in
quantitative synthesis
(meta-analysis
(n=770)
Studies included in
qualitative synthesis
(n=770)
Records after duplicates removed
(n=0)
Records screened
(
n=1052
)
Full text articles assessed for
eligibility
(n=770)
Records excluded (other than
subject areas Arts and
Humanities and Sciences
(n=282)
Full-text articles excluded
(n=0)
Screening
EligibilityIncluded Identification
6 of 26
|
SAHIB and STAPA
relevant graphs and charts, VOS Viewer [version 1.6.16] to generate bibliometric connec-
tions and illustrate them, and the citation metrics were calculated using Harzing's Publish
and Perish software.
RESU LT S
Development and progress of the CEFR research
In order to answer the first research question (How is CEFR research evolving and progress-
ing?), the development and distribution of the CEFR research were discussed in terms of:
(a) the number of published studies per year; (b) sources and documents types; (c) sources
titles; and (d) languages of documents.
Number of published studies per year
Table 1 displays detailed statistics on annual CEFR research publications from 2002 to
2021, indicating an upward trend in the number of publications. With only one document
published, 2002 marks the first year that CEFR was published and indexed by Scopus.
There were fewer than 20 documents concerning CEFR in the Scopus database from 2002
to 2008, with no documents published in 2003 or 2004. However, in 2007, there was a sig-
nificant rise in publications, primarily due to a conference on the CEFR held at the Council
of Europe Policy Forum in Strasbourg in 2007. Surprisingly, from 2017 to 2020, the number
TAB LE 1 Number of CEFR research publications by year
Yea r TP %NCP TC C/P C/CP h g
2002 10.13% 112 12.0 0 12. 00 1 1
2005 70. 91% 8372 5 3 .14 46.50 8 8
2006 40.52% 383 20.75 27.67 2 3
2007 17 2.21% 16 403 23.71 25.19 916
2008 60.78% 546 7. 6 7 9.20 4 5
2009 25 3.25% 22 354 14.16 16.09 818
2010 17 2.21% 987 5.1 2 9.67 4 9
20 11 22 2.86% 19 429 19.50 22.58 919
2012 31 4.03% 22 323 10.42 14.68 817
2013 52 6.75% 33 257 4.94 7.79 614
2014 57 7. 4 0 % 39 276 4.84 7.0 8 10 14
2015 60 7.79% 43 287 4.78 6.67 10 14
2016 49 6.36% 31 192 3.92 6.1 9 812
2017 71 9.22% 101 446 6.28 4.42 10 13
2018 89 11. 5 6 % 53 228 2.56 4.30 810
2019 105 13 .6 4% 57 165 1.57 2.89 6 8
2020 120 15.58% 45 93 0.78 2.07 4 6
2021 37 4.81% 4 5 0.14 1.25 1 1
Abbreviations: C/CP, average citations per cited publication; C/P, average citations per publication; g, g- index; h, h- index; NCP,
number of cited publications; TC, total citations; TP, total number of publications.
|
7 of 26
GLOBAL TR ENDS OF THE COMMON EUROPE AN
FRA MEWORK O F REFERENCE: A BIB LIOMETRIC ANALYSIS
gradually rose, indicating a growing interest in CEFR. The quantity of documents published
on CEFR increased dramatically in 2020, with 120 documents produced that year.
In addition, as shown in Figure 2, documents published in 2017 seem to have reached
their peak with the most citations (the total number of citations was 446, and the average
number of citations per publication was 6.28), but in 2018, the number began to decline. The
spike in total citations in 2017 is possibly due to the Council of Europe event on language
conferences (Council of Europe, 2016) and a conference on the CEFR in Japan held in
March 2016. However, documents published in 2002 received the least citations (the total
number of citations per publication was 1 and the total number of citations was 12). The
low number of citations is most likely due to the limited time span between the Council of
Europe's official CEFR document production in 2001, ‘Common European Framework of
Reference: Learning, Teaching, Assessment’, and the CEFR research published in 2002.
Between the CEFR's formal document inception and the succeeding year, there were very
few publications and citations in the area. Nevertheless, the total number of citations fluc-
tuated a lot from 2002 to 2016, with frequent highs and lows. Figure 2 shows that total
publications are increasing, but total citations are showing inconsistent trends. Following
the identification of the annual growth document, the sources for CEFR research, document
types, most active source titles, and language of documents undertaken in CEFR publica-
tions are also clarified.
Sources and document types
This study attempted to discover where CEFR documents had been published by examining
the data based on document source categories. Journals, publications, conference pro-
ceedings, and book series are the only four primary sources of CEFR research. As shown in
Table 2, journals were the most prevalent source, accounting for 652 (84.68%) of the total.
Following that, the overall publishing numbers for books (n = 47, 6.10%) and conference pro-
ceedings (n = 46, 5.97%) are nearly identical, and these sources indicate a substantial 79%
difference from journals. The least common document type (n = 25, 3.25%) was a Scopus
indexed book series.
FIGURE 2 Total publications and citations per year. Abbreviations: TP, total publications; TC, total citations
17417625 17 22 31 52 57 60 49 71 89 105 120 37
12
372
83
403
46
354
87
429
323
257
276 287
192
446
228
165
93
50
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
201
7
2018
2019
2020
2021
Total Citaons
Total Publicaons
TP TC
8 of 26
|
SAHIB and STAPA
The data was also analysed based on document types. The Scopus search retrieved
seven types of documents published on the CEFR, as summarised in Table 3. As shown
in the table, most of the publications are classified as articles (n = 578, 75.06%). This was
followed by documents with less than 10% of the total publication, such as reviews (n = 62,
8.05%), conference papers (n = 55, 7.14%), and book chapters (n = 13, 6.49%). The other
types of documents, for instance, books, notes, and editorials, each represented less than
2% of the total publications.
Sources titles
A journal called Language Assessment Quarterly contributed the most significant number of
publications on the CEFR (n = 26). This was followed by the Language Testing and Modern
Language Journal, with more than 15 total publications (n = 16). Although the Modern
Language Journal has fewer total publications, it proved to be the leader in total citations
(n = 582) and received the highest cite score (n = 7.3) and g- index (n = 16). Table 4 shows
the top 20 most active source titles in the CEFR. After detecting current trends in source
titles, the final characteristic used to determine current trends is the language of documents,
which indicates the languages in which CEFR has been identified.
Languages of documents
CEFR research papers were written in a total of 20 languages. Table 5 reveals that English
was the most widely used language, representing 77.88% of all CEFR publications. The
second most common language was French, which accounted for 6.25%, followed by
TAB LE 2 Sources for CEFR research
Source Type TP %
Journal 652 84.68%
Book 47 6.1 0%
Conference Proceeding 46 5.97%
Book Series 25 3.25%
Tot al 770 100%
Abbreviation: TP, total publications.
TAB LE 3 CEFR research document types
Document Type TP %
Article 578 75.06%
Review 62 8.05%
Conference Paper 55 7.14%
Book Chapter 50 6.49%
Book 13 1.69%
Note 10 1.30%
Editorial 20.26%
Tot al 770 100%
Abbreviation: TP, total publications.
|
9 of 26
GLOBAL TR ENDS OF THE COMMON EUROPE AN
FRA MEWORK O F REFERENCE: A BIB LIOMETRIC ANALYSIS
TAB LE 4 Top 20 Most active source titles
Source Title Publisher
Cite
Score
SJR
2020
SNIP
2020 TP NCP TC C/P C/CP h g
Language Assessment Quarterly Taylor & Francis 1.7 0.9 1.25 26 23 254 9.77 11.0 4 915
Language Testing SAGE 4.0 2.419 2.927 16 14 405 25.31 28.93 10 14
Modern Language Journal Wiley- Blackwell 7.3 3.49 2.884 16 16 582 36.38 36.38 11 16
Lahivordlusi Lahivertailuja Estonian Association for Applied
Linguistics
0.6 0.21 0.471 14 919 1.3 6 2.11 3 3
Deutsch als Fremdsprache Erich Schmidt Verlag GmbH & Co 0.3 0.1 9 0.219 13 511 0.85 2.20 2 3
Language Learning Journal Taylor & Francis 2.4 0.78 1.3 8 13 847 3.62 5.88 5 6
Canadian Modern Language Review University of Toronto Press 0.9 0.48 0.607 12 10 42 3.50 4.20 4 6
Zeitschrift für Fremdsprachenforschung Paedagogischer Zeitschriftenverlag
GmbH & Co. KG
0.2 0.15 0.428 12 710 0.83 1.43 2 2
Educational Linguistics Springer Nature 0.6 0.1 0 .1 11 830 2.73 3.75 3 5
Language Learning in Higher Education Walter de Gruyter 0.6 0.23 0.461 11 0 0 0.00 0.00 0 0
Language Teaching Cambridge University Press 5.9 1.98 3.092 10 8172 17.2 0 21. 50 6 8
Porta Linguarum Universidad de Granada 1.1 0.55 0.884 10 710 1.00 1.4 3 2 2
Internat ional Journal of Education Through
Art
Intellect Publishers 0.9 0.37 1.1 89 9 4 6 0.67 1.50 1 2
Language Testing in Asia Springer Nature 20.49 1.51 9 8 39 4.33 4.88 4 5
Recherc he et Pratiques Pédagog iques en
Langues de S peciali té— Cahiers de
L’APLIUT
Association des Professeurs de
Langues des Instituts Universitaires
de Technologie (APLIUT)
0.2 0.1 0.059 9 5 14 1.5 6 2.80 2 3
Assessing Writing Elsevier 4.2 1.3 3 1. 581 8 7 58 7. 2 5 8.29 6 7
Lidil Revues.org 0.1 0.12 0.1 8 1 1 0 .13 1.00 1 1
System Elsevier 4.2 1.42 2.054 8 5 27 3.38 5.40 4 5
Asian EFL Journal Asian EFL Journal Press 1 0.27 0.781 7 5 13 1.86 2.60 2 3
ELT Journal Oxford Universit y Press 2.4 0.88 1.256 7 7 67 9.57 9.57 4 7
Abbreviations: C/CP, average citations per cited publication; C/P, average citations per publication; Cite Score, average citations rec eived per document published in the source title; g, g- index;
h, h- index; NCP, number of cited publications; SJR, SCImago Journal Rank measures weighted citations received by the source title; SNIP, source normalised impact per paper measures actual
citations received relative to citations expected for the source title's subject field; TC, total citations; TP, total number of publications.
10 of 26
|
SAHIB and STAPA
Spanish, which accounted for 5.38%. The remaining documents were translated into 17 dif-
ferent languages, but they only made up less than 5% of the total. Finally, seven documents
were released in only one language: Arabic, Bosnian, Czech, Italian, Lithuanian, Slovak
and Catalan, which constitute the smallest percentage of the total number of documents
published (0.13%).
Predominant themes of the CEFR research
The primary aim of the second research question (What are the most predominant themes
that have been addressed in CEFR research?) is to identify the main themes of CEFR
research. In this section, the key areas of the research were analysed in terms of (a) the
frequency of keywords and (b) document titles and abstracts.
Keyword analysis
Selecting relevant keywords is vital in determining whether a document will be found when
performing a search. Thus, frequently selecting relevant keywords can be an indicator of the
value of writing. Figure 3 presents a network visualisation of the author's keywords that each
had a minimum of three occurrences. When two keywords appear in the same article, they
are seen to co- occur, implying a link between the two topics (Mansour et al., 2021). To ad-
dress the second research question, we employed VOSviewer's keyword and co- occurrence
TAB LE 5 Languages used for CEFR research publications
Language TP %
English 623 77.88%
French 50 6.25%
Spanish 43 5.38%
German 33 4.13%
Estonian 15 1.88%
Russian 60.75%
Finnish 50.63%
Portuguese 40.50%
Slovenian 40.50%
Tur k ish 40.50%
Croatian 20.25%
Polish 2 0.25%
Serbian 20.25%
Arabic 10.13%
Bosnian 10.1 3%
Czech 10.13%
Italian 10.1 3%
Lithuanian 10.13%
Slovak 10.13 %
Catalan 10.1 3%
Abbreviation: TP, total publications.
|
11 of 26
GLOBAL TR ENDS OF THE COMMON EUROPE AN
FRA MEWORK O F REFERENCE: A BIB LIOMETRIC ANALYSIS
analysis. The authors analysed keywords using VOSviewer, a software tool for creating and
visualising bibliometric networks, to map the keywords assigned to each article (Figure 4).
The colour, circle size, font size, and thickness of connecting lines represent relationships
with other keywords (Wahid et al., 2020). Keywords that are frequently classified in the same
colour are commonly grouped together. Based on the analysis, 14 clusters with 153 items
in the CEFR research have been developed based on the author's keywords. The diagram
suggests that CEFR, evaluation, bilingual education, foreign languages, e- learning, compe-
tencies, Malaysia, globalisation and linguistic mediation have similar colours, implying that
these keywords were closely related and usually occurred together.
The core keywords specified in the search query (i.e., CEFR or Common European
Framework of Reference), assessment, language learning, teaching and Common European
Framework of Reference for Languages are among the most frequently occurring keywords
with more than 2%. The top 20 keywords in the CEFR research are shown in Table 6.
Title and abstract analysis
In this section, VOSviewer was utilised to check the titles and abstracts of gathered doc-
uments for occurrences and the number of co- occurrences per document. To be exact,
this research constructs the co- occurrence network using the binary counting method.
Figure 4 shows a visualisation of a term co- occurrence network, depending on the title and
FIGURE 3 Author keyword
12 of 26
|
SAHIB and STAPA
abstract fields, in which at least 15 terms appear. The node's width indicates the item's heav-
iness, while the thickness of the connecting line reflects the item's intensity of the connec-
tion. When related words are presented in the same colour, they are more likely to appear
together (Mansour et al., 2021). Framework, effectiveness, competency, content, perspec-
tive, policy, implementation and other terms shown in red, for example, are closely related
and frequently exist at the same time in the diagram. Specifically, VOSviewer generates four
distinct colours from the title and abstract of the publication, reflecting four clusters contain-
ing 172 terms.
Figure 5 depicts the layout of a title- based term co- occurrence network. A binary count-
ing method was utilised, with a minimum of five occurrences of each phrase. The data
indicates that the VOSviewer generates seven clusters and 52 items. In CEFR research,
the term ‘common European framework’ was the primary term that served as the core node
of the entire network. Cluster 1 contains the concepts of reference, b2 level, validity and
standard, whereas Cluster 2 has learner, comparison, proficiency level, evaluation and
European language portfolio (ELP). Furthermore, Cluster 3 has language education, pluri-
lingualism, companion volume, implementation, mediation and challenge. Cluster 4 consists
of vocabulary, grammar, acquisition, expression and specific purpose, Cluster 5 includes
textbook, teacher, case study, tool, communicative competence and English study, Cluster
6 has Spain, languages, role and translation, whereby Cluster 7 only has culture, effect and
perception.
Following the keyword analysis, the next section discusses major players and research
collaboration. Additionally, citation analysis was performed to gain a better understanding
of the prevalent issues and to demonstrate the depth of an article's impact. Despite the fact
that there are a variety of methods for assessing the impact of research papers, citation
analysis is the most widely used (Ding & Cronin, 2011).
FIGURE 4 VOSviewer visualisation of a term co- occurrence network based on title and abstract fields
|
13 of 26
GLOBAL TR ENDS OF THE COMMON EUROPE AN
FRA MEWORK O F REFERENCE: A BIB LIOMETRIC ANALYSIS
Major players and research collaboration
This section examines the third research question, which is to evaluate scientific coopera-
tion on CEFR research through (a) an analysis of publications by country, (b) the most active
institutions engaging in CFER research, (c) authorship analysis, and (d) citation analysis.
Publication by countries/countries with most contributions
Table 7 summarises the published indicators for the top 20 nations in terms of CEFR re-
search. Spain has the most scientific papers in the CEFR research field with 116 documents,
followed by the United Kingdom with 73, and Germany and the United States with 55, re-
spectively. The remaining authors’ national associations constituted below 50 articles dis-
persed across the world, including France, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Finland, Turkey,
Canada, Poland, the Czech Republic, Malaysia, Australia, Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan,
Austria, and China. Apparently, CEFR is crucial in several continents, including Europe,
North America, Oceania and Asia.
As illustrated in Figure 6, in terms of total citations, although the United Kingdom was
ranked second in terms of publication volume, it is imperative to emphasise that the coun-
try has the most outstanding overall citation count (n = 950). The Netherlands is second
(n = 481), followed by the United States (n = 383) and Belgium (n = 239). Publications
in Asia, specifically Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan and China, remained low, with all of them
falling below the 20 total publications. Three- quarters of them were European countries,
with a more significant number of publications and citations, most likely due to the CEFR's
TAB LE 6 Top 20 keywords in CEFR research
Keywords TP %
CEFR 138 17.92%
Assessment 24 3.12%
Language Learning 21 2.73%
Tea c hin g 20 2.60%
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages 18 2.3 4%
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
(CEFR)
15 1.95%
Second Language Acquisition 15 1.95%
E- learning 14 1.82%
Higher Education 14 1.82%
Plurilingualism 14 1.82%
Common European Framework of Reference 13 1.6 9%
Foreign Language 13 1.69%
Learner Corpus 13 1.69%
Proficiency Level 13 1.69%
Students 13 1.69 %
Vocabulary 13 1.69%
Self- assessment 12 1.56%
Computational Linguistics 11 1.43%
Abbreviation: TP, total publications.
14 of 26
|
SAHIB and STAPA
European origins and the period since the framework was implemented. The CEFR has
been used in language teaching for many years in Europe, but not in Asia.
Main institutions
This section analyses the current situation of the most active CEFR research institutions.
The total number of publications by the top 15 most productive institutions is shown in
Table 8. In terms of publication volume, Jyväskylän Yliopisto was placed at the top, fol-
lowed by the Catholic University of Louvain and the Educational Testing Service. Three
institutions in Spain, two in Belgium, two in the United Kingdom, and one each in the United
States, Finland, Slovenia, Estonia, Malaysia, Germany, Ireland, and the Czech Republic
were among the most active CEFR research institutions.
Authorship analysis
Table 9 lists the contributions of 20 leading researchers to CEFR research. Boasting eight
publications each, Ari Huhta of Jyväskylän Yliopisto, Centre for Applied Language Studies
in Finland, David Little of Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, and Brian North of Eurocentres
Foundation in Switzerland are the three most productive authors. However, five of the au-
thors are from Germany, indicating that the country produces fertile authors in the field of
CEFR research.
The current research uses VOSviewer software for co- author analysis to effectively ex-
amine the authors’ collaboration and produce a network visualisation (Figure 7). The anal-
ysis is based on the fact that influential writers have been cited at least once in one CEFR
publication and is calculated using the fractional counting technique. Specific characteristics
FIGURE 5 VOSviewer visualisation of a term co- occurrence network based on title field
|
15 of 26
GLOBAL TR ENDS OF THE COMMON EUROPE AN
FRA MEWORK O F REFERENCE: A BIB LIOMETRIC ANALYSIS
such as colour, circle size, text size, and thickness increase the direction of the authors’ con-
nection. Associated authors are frequently listed consecutively, as indicated by the use of
the same shade. The figure, for example, suggests that K. Wisniewski, A. Abel and J. Hana
worked closely together. According to the findings, C. Harsh, K. Wisniewski and O. Koller,
from Germany, appear to have had an equivalently strong collaboration with colleagues from
other world regions, including Spain, Finland and Hungary.
Figure 8 displays the network visualisation map of the author's affiliated nation. Only
countries that have cited more than one article and more than one citation are included in
the analysis. Based on the fractional counting method, the findings imply that Spain plays
a significant role in international collaboration. Spain has a tight connection with Slovenia,
Germany and the United Kingdom, whereas the Netherlands has links with Norway, Hungary
and South Africa. Finally, the third research question highlighted the issue of citation analy-
sis, which reveals the volume of CEFR research citations in language teaching.
Citation analysis
A summary of CEFR research citations from the Scopus database is shown in Table 10. For
770 papers published over 19 years (2002– 2021), a total of 3775 citations were recorded,
representing an estimate of 198.68 citations per year on average.
Table 11 summarises the 20 most often cited publications on CEFR research, ranked by
the number of times each document was cited. J. Milton authored the most cited document
TAB LE 7 Geographic origins of the CEFR research
Country TP NCP TC C/P C/CP h g Continent
Spain 116 26 156 1.34 6.00 611 Europe
United Kingdom 73 58 950 13.01 16.38 15 29 Europe
Germany 55 40 227 4.13 5.68 912 Europe
United States 55 42 383 6.96 9.12 12 17 North America
France 45 30 231 5.13 7.70 914 Europe
Netherlands 32 26 481 15.03 18.50 10 21 Europe
Italy 30 12 44 1.47 3.67 2 6 Europe
Belgium 28 21 239 8.54 11. 3 8 915 Europe
Finland 28 20 174 6.21 8.70 512 Europe
Tur key 27 13 37 1.37 2.85 4 5 Europe
Canada 21 14 75 3.57 5.36 5 8 North America
Poland 21 946 2.1 9 5.11 3 6 Europe
Czech Republic 20 12 51 2.55 4.25 4 6 Europe
Malaysia 20 11 37 1.85 3.36 3 5 Asia
Australia 18 13 171 9.50 13.1 5 713 Oceania
Japan 18 12 47 2.61 3.92 3 6 Asia
Switzerland 17 12 104 6.12 8.67 610 Europe
Tai wan 16 757 3.56 8.14 4 7 Asia
Austria 14 727 1.93 3.86 3 5 Europe
China 13 927 2.08 3.00 4 4 Asia
Abbreviations: C/CP, average citations per cited publication; C/P, average citations per publication; g, g- index; h, h index; NCP,
number of cited publications; TC, total citations; TP, total number of publications.
16 of 26
|
SAHIB and STAPA
with 198 citations from a book on second language vocabulary learning (2009). The second
and third publications, both published in 2011, are research articles on language assess-
ment and measuring second language competency, written by E. Shohamy, with 115 total
citations, and J.H. Hulstijn, with 103 total citations.
Figure 9 demonstrates the mapping of citations for publications with a minimum of 20
citations. A visual representation of the important authors in the area and how their ideas
were placed concerning one another are presented. Figure 10 depicts further information on
the countries of origin. Countries that have been cited with a minimum of five articles and
five citations per country are included in the analysis. At this point, it appears that Spain,
the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany are the countries that influence CEFR
research the most.
DISCUSSION
Since its inception, CEFR has had its unique strengths, which can be segregated into two
categories: inclusive tools and holistic goals. First, the shared reference levels and illustra-
tive descriptors of the CEFR are often cited as one of the CEFR’s greatest assets by teach-
ers concerned with uniformity and clarity in language proficiency (Mison & Jang, 2011).
Second, the CEFR promotes multilingualism and plurilingualism as policy tools to foster mu-
tual understanding among people from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds (Council
of Europe, 2001). Plurilingual individuals are multilingual who can speak and understand
multiple languages fluently and efficiently. They do not store their linguistic information in
a discrete and distinct repertoire, but rather in an interconnected repertoire (Yüce & Mirici,
2019). Indeed, the CEFR is now used not only in Europe but in many parts of the world be-
yond and has been translated into more than 40 languages due to its distinctive features.
The two strengths outlined above exemplify the distinctions between the two approaches
to linguistic and cultural diversity. However, concerns have been raised about the CEFR
research's breadth and collaborative nature across different regions of the world. In order
FIGURE 6 Total publications and citations based on geographical location
11673555545323028282721212020181817161413
156
950
227
383
231
481
44
239
174
37
75 46 51 37
171
47
104
57 27 27
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
Total citaons
Total Publicaons
TP TC
|
17 of 26
GLOBAL TR ENDS OF THE COMMON EUROPE AN
FRA MEWORK O F REFERENCE: A BIB LIOMETRIC ANALYSIS
to address this problem, we conducted a 19- year bibliometric analysis of 770 items of the
CEFR literature published in Scopus (from 2002 to 25 July 2021). This study aims to answer
three research questions: (1) how is CEFR research evolving and progressing; (2) what are
the most predominant themes that have been addressed in CEFR research; and (3) who and
what are the leading researchers and institutions in terms of publications on the CEFR. The
answers to these questions were analysed using different key themes.
In response to the first research question about the evolution and progress of CEFR,
the findings in this study indicated that publications on the CEFR began in 2002 with a
single document, following the Council of Europe's, 2001 release of an official document
named ‘Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching,
and Assessment’. Despite the fact that there were no publications in 2003 and 2004, the
number of articles has progressively increased since 2010. The growth may be due to the
subsequent manual published by the Council of Europe, ‘Relating Language Examinations
to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching,
Assessment (CEFR)’ in 2009. This discovery was consistent with the findings of Runnels
and Runnels (2019), who discovered an upsurge in CEFR research beginning in 2011.
This demonstrates that CEFR was recognised early on in its growth by researchers from
Europe and the West. A dramatic shift occurred in 2009 when more than 20 publications
were produced per year, possibly because CEFR began to garner substantial attention as it
moved beyond Europe. It was introduced in Asia, such as in Vietnam (2008), Japan (2008),
Malaysia (2013) and Thailand (2014). However, between 2017 and 2021, there was a con-
siderable decline in overall citations (from 446 to 5). The reduction could be explained by the
increasing number of publications in English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a
second language (ESL) contexts where English is not the first language. The United States
is the only English- speaking country among the active affiliations during that period, with
TAB LE 8 The 15 most active institutions
Institution Country TP NCP TC C/P C/CP h g
Jyväskylän Yliopisto Finland 19 13 154 8 .11 11. 8 5 512
Catholic University of Louvain Belgium 14 9113 8.07 12 .5 6 5 9
Educational Testing Service US 11 845 4.09 5.63 4 6
Univerza v Ljubljani Slovenia 11 538 3.45 7. 6 0 3 5
Tallinna Ülikool Estonia 11 919 1.73 2 .11 3 3
Universidad de Jaén Spain 10 940 4.00 4.44 4 6
Universidad Complutense de
Madrid
Spain 10 621 2.10 3.50 3 4
Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia
Malaysia 9 5 16 1.78 3.20 2 3
Universität Leipzig Germany 9 6 31 3.44 5.17 3 5
Trinity College Dublin Ireland 9 6 256 28.44 42.67 5 6
University of Bedfordshire UK 9 8 72 8.00 9.00 5 8
Charles University Czech
Republic
9 6 34 3.78 5.67 2 5
Lancaster University UK 9 7 221 24.56 31.57 5 7
Universidad de Córdoba Spain 8 4 18 2.25 4.50 2 4
KU Leuven Belgium 8 7 50 6.25 7.14 4 7
Abbreviations: C/CP, average citations per cited publication; C/P, average citations per publication; g, g- index; h, h- index; NCP,
number of cited publications; TC, total citations; TP, total number of publications.
18 of 26
|
SAHIB and STAPA
TAB LE 9 The 20 most productive authors in CEFR research
Author's Name Affiliation Country TP NCP TC C/P C/CP h g
Huhta, A. Jyväskylän Yliopisto, Centre for Applied
Language Studies
Finland 8 6 107 13.38 17.83 4 6
Little, D. Trinity College Dublin Ireland 8 7 258 32.25 36.86 5 7
North, B. Eurocentres Foundation Switzerland 8 8 113 14.13 14.13 6 8
Köller, O. Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics
Education
Germany 7 7 40 5.71 5 .71 4 6
Harsch, C. Universität Bremen Germany 6 4 20 3.33 5.00 2 4
Piccardo, E. University of Toronto, Universite Grenoble
Alpes
Canada France 6 6 33 5.50 5.50 4 5
Wisniewski, K. Universität Leipzig Germany 6 5 48 8.00 9.60 3 5
Deygers, B. Universiteit Gent Belgium 5 5 39 7.80 7.8 0 3 5
Fleckenstein, J. Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics
Education
Germany 5 5 24 4.80 4.80 4 4
Kitsnik, M. Eesti ja üldkeeleteaduse Instituut Estonia 5 3 7 1.40 2.33 2 2
Papageorgiou, S. ETS, Center for Language Education and
Assessment Research
USA 5 5 53 10.60 10.60 4 5
Snoddon, K. Ryerson University, School of Early Childhood
Studies
Canada 5 4 28 5.60 7.0 0 3 4
Bärenfänger, O. Universität Leipzig, Sprachenzentrum Germany 4 3 12 3.00 4.00 2 3
Díez- Bedmar, M.B. Universidad de Jaén Spain 4 4 25 6.25 6.25 3 4
Fairon, C. Catholic University of Louvain, CENTAL,
Louvain- la- Neuve
Belgium 4 2 15 3.75 7. 5 0 2 2
Figueras, N. EALTA CEFR SIG UK 4 4 74 18.5 0 18.50 3 4
Hulstijn, J.H. Universiteit van Amsterdam Netherlands 4 4 227 56.75 56.75 4 4
Kárpáti, A. Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem, Institute of
Communication and Sociology
Hungary 4 3 5 1.25 1.67 1 2
Martin, M. Jyväskylän Yliopisto, Department of Language
and Communication Studies
Finland 4 2 16 4.00 8.00 2 2
McNamara, T. Educational Testing Service, Princeton USA 4 4 30 7.50 7.50 3 4
Abbreviations: C/CP, average citations per cited publication; C/P, average citations per publication; g, g- index; h, h- index; NCP, number of cited publications; TC, total citations; TP, total number
of publications.
|
19 of 26
GLOBAL TR ENDS OF THE COMMON EUROPE AN
FRA MEWORK O F REFERENCE: A BIB LIOMETRIC ANALYSIS
Malaysia, Belgium, Germany and Spain rounding out the top five. As a result, the publication
credentials are probably influenced by the profile of these institutions.
Compared with other types of documents, CEFR is found primarily in journals in the
form of articles. The top three most active source titles have been invaded by journals man-
aged by well- established publishers from English speaking countries, such as Taylor &
Francis and SAGE from the United Kingdom, and Wiley- Blackwell from the United States,
all of which have a long- standing legacy and exceptional record in the field of publishing.
Additionally, English is the predominant language of the CEFR documents, albeit they are
also published in multiple languages. The majority of documents are written in English as a
result of the language's extensive use throughout the scientific world (Sönmez, 2020) and
FIGURE 7 Network visualisation map of the CEFR research co- authors
FIGURE 8 Network visualisation map of the CEFR research co- authors by country
TAB LE 10 CEFR research citations metrics
Metric Data
Total papers 770
Total citations 3775
Number of years 19
Citations per year 198.68
Citations per paper 4.90
Authors per paper 1.95
h- index 28
g- index 45
20 of 26
|
SAHIB and STAPA
TA B L E 11 Most cited publications
Authors Ye a r Title Source title TC CPY
Milton J. 2009 Measuring second language vocabulary
acquisition
Measuring Second Language Vocabulary
Acquisition
198 16.5
Shohamy E. 20 11 Assessing multilingual competencies: Adopting
construct valid assessment policies
Modern Language Journal 115 11. 5
Hulstijn J.H. 20 11 Language proficiency in native and non-
native speakers: An agenda for research
and suggestions for second- language
assessment
Language Assessment Quarterly 103 10.3
Verspoor M., Schmid M.S., Xu X. 2012 A dynamic usage- based perspective on L2
writing
Journal of Second Language Writing 95 10.56
Hulstijn J.H. 2007 The shaky ground beneath the CEFR:
Quantitative and qualitative dimensions of
language proficiency
Modern Language Journal 94 6.71
Alderson J.C. 2007 The CEFR and the need for more research Modern Language Journal 88 6.29
Little D. 2005 The Common European Framework and the
European Language Portfolio: Involving
learners and their judgements in the
assessment process
Language Testing 83 5.19
Little D. 2007 The issue: The Common European Framework
of Reference for languages: Perspectives
on the making of supranational language
education policy
Modern Language Journal 76 5.43
Alderson J.C., Huhta A. 2005 The development of a suite of computer- based
diagnostic tests based on the Common
European Framework
Language Testing 76 4.75
Weir C.J. 2005 Limitations of the Common European
Framework for developing comparable
examinations and tests
Language Testing 68 4.25
Young T.J., Sachdev I. 2011 Intercultural communicative competence:
Exploring English language teachers’
beliefs and practices
Language Awareness 65 6.50
|
21 of 26
GLOBAL TR ENDS OF THE COMMON EUROPE AN
FRA MEWORK O F REFERENCE: A BIB LIOMETRIC ANALYSIS
Authors Ye a r Title Source title TC CPY
Richards J.C. 2013 Curriculum approaches in language teaching:
Forward, central, and backward design
RELC Journal 64 8.00
Little D. 2006 The Common European Framework of
Reference for Languages: Content,
purpose, origin, reception and impact
Language Teaching 56 3.73
Thewissen J. 2013 Capturing L2 Accuracy Developmental
Patterns: Insights from an Error- Tagged
EFL Learner Corpus
Modern Language Journal 47 5.88
Byram M., Parmenter L. 2012 The Common European Framework of
Reference: The globalisation of language
education policy
The Common European Framework
of Reference: The Globalisation of
Language Education Policy
45 5.00
McNamara T. 2 011 Managing learning: Authority and language
assessment
Language Teaching 39 3.90
Taillefer G.F. 2007 The professional language needs of
Economics graduates: Assessment and
perspectives in the French context
English for Specific Purposes 36 2.57
Chen Y.- H., Baker P. 2016 Investigating criterial discourse features across
second language development: Lexical
bundles in rated learner essays, CEFR B1,
B2 and C1
Applied Linguistics 35 7.00
Figueras N., North B., Takala S.,
Verhelst N., Vam Avermaet P.
2005 Relating examinations to the Common
European Framework: A manual
Language Testing 35 2.19
Hasselgreen A. 2005 Assessing the language of young learners Language Testing 34 2 .13
Abbreviations: CPY, citations per year; TC, total citations.
TA B L E 11 (Continued)
22 of 26
|
SAHIB and STAPA
this is common in international academic settings where English is widely accepted as the
language of communication (Bozdoğan, 2020).
In regard to the second research question, it seeks to elucidate the CEFR themes that are
most frequently discussed among scholars. The findings from the keyword, title and abstract
analysis can be observed from the results of VOSviewer. The author's keywords discovered
are CEFR, evaluation, bilingual education, foreign languages, e- learning, competencies,
globalisation and linguistic mediation. Furthermore, the top keywords employed by scholars
in this study are CEFR, assessment, language teaching, learning and e- learning, which sig-
nify the areas mainly discussed. These terminologies are intricately intertwined in CEFR re-
search, indicating that they have an essential function and may provide a strong foundation
for future CEFR research by other researchers. Looking at the term ‘assessment’ as the top
keyword, it certainly aligns with other findings of this research, such as the two most active
source titles (Table 4), ‘Language Assessment Quarterly’ and ‘Language Testing’, and the
most cited publications (Table 11) by Milton (2009), Shohamy (2011) and Hulstijn (2011). The
publications devoted to language assessment are indeed the two most active source titles
in the CEFR research landscape. In a similar vein, the three aforementioned authors' most
cited papers are also all about language assessment. As a result, the outcome of the most
prevalent keyword— ‘assessment’— in this study is consistent with other findings. This may
assist other researchers in determining that the keyword is prevalent in the CEFR study,
which corresponds to the intensity of this theme in the CEFR domain.
Addressing the third research question, there seems to be a decent degree of scien-
tific collaboration on CEFR research worldwide, as evidenced by an analysis of countries,
institutions, authors and citations. Although the CEFR was founded in Switzerland, schol-
arly writings have been widely disseminated throughout North America, Oceania and Asia.
Thus, despite its origins in the European setting, the framework's applicability can be found
worldwide. According to the findings of this study, Spain had the highest number of publica-
tions on the CEFR, indicating that it was at the forefront of CEFR research at the time. This
FIGURE 9 Network visualisation map of citations of the CEFR documents
|
23 of 26
GLOBAL TR ENDS OF THE COMMON EUROPE AN
FRA MEWORK O F REFERENCE: A BIB LIOMETRIC ANALYSIS
could be because Spain formally began to implement the CEFR in 2006 and has actively
created publications since 2005.
Additionally, most of the articles are available in English, Spanish and a few in French,
Portuguese and Catalan. Due to the variety of languages utilised and the contexts in which
they are used, it is likely that the rate of publication will increase. The three Spanish institu-
tions included among the most active research institutions in the CEFR area also indicate
their reputation. However, although Spain was seen to be productive in CFER research, in
terms of the total number of citations, the United Kingdom ranked first out of all the countries
studied. This is supported further by the fact that the United Kingdom is an English- speaking
country with a large number of articles written in English. Hence, as elucidated earlier, this
reflects that the language is widely used throughout the world and exerts considerable im-
pact in the sphere of publishing.
In this study, further investigation reveals that assessment has played a significant role in
developing the CEFR. For example, Ari Huhta from Finland is the most productive author,
and his articles from 2005 to 2012 were primarily concerned with language assessment. The
finding supports the idea that assessments receive the utmost attention in CEFR research
(Little, 2007; Tono, 2019). Furthermore, it is essential to highlight that the three top- cited
FIGURE 10 Network visualisation map of citations of the CEFR documents by country
24 of 26
|
SAHIB and STAPA
publications also covered topics and sources titles on language assessment. This study dis-
covered that language assessment is a crucial primary focus in the CEFR after thoroughly
examining the major players, including leading researchers and institutions. Publications on
assessment have garnered increased attention and citations from other researchers, and
their influence has continued to grow.
In order to understand how scholars interact with one another, it is necessary to con-
duct a research collaboration analysis. This can shed light on clustered research among
authors from a specific area, which in turn can be used to rationalise and stimulate new
studies among authors from underprivileged regions (Donthu et al., 2021). By examining
co- authorship, this study indentified the countries with the most active research collabo-
rations. However, there was little collaboration in CEFR research across Asia. This may
result in a fragmented understanding of the CEFR, which may affect the effectiveness of
the framework.
CONCLUSION
This study intends to investigate the trend and pattern of CEFR research by looking at the
status of publication, the citation pattern, presenting the themes involved, and offering sug-
gestions for future CEFR research. The findings indicate that the CEFR has been evenly
dispersed and is having a significant impact, as evidenced by the growth in the number
of publications outside of Europe, such as in North America and Asia. The data acquired
from the Scopus database is presented in this study using a bibliometric approach, which
includes quantity, quality and structural map (i.e., the number of publications by year, docu-
ment types, languages, keyword analysis, most active source titles, countries with the most
contributions in the CEFR research, most active institutions, the number of citations and
citation metrics) (Kushairi & Ahmi, 2021). The study does, however, have certain limitations
that the discussion is extrapolated from a bibliometric analysis of published CEFR research
from 2002 to 2021. It should be noted that the study is confined to a specific database,
Scopus, and is based on the favoured keywords in document titles. This study did not con-
sider other major and extensive databases that discussed the CEFR, such as the Web of
Science, Google Scholar and EBSCO Hosts. Hence, it may limit the overall outcome of the
CEFR publication trends in the field of study. Future research can incorporate various data-
bases to conduct searches, amend and compare the results of different keyword phrases,
and see how CEFR research varies by thematic area of study. CEFR research could prob-
ably offer valuable results at this juncture.
The current study provides a comprehensive picture of recent research on the CEFR
emerging trends in articles, journal performance, collaboration patterns and research con-
stituents, which aids in improved comprehension. Each of the signs points to an expansion in
this field of research, which could lead to new prospects for improving educational systems.
In addition, all of these contributions will help new scholars gain a broad perspective on this
field (Deveci, 2021). This research also makes a contribution by employing the bibliometric
method to broaden scholars’ understanding of the literature on language instruction. For this
reason, bibliometric analyses will continue to be a critical tool for determining the gaps in any
subject or field (Yurtcu & Güzeller, 2021). Hence, scholars can use this technique to perform
their research, especially when conducting literature reviews on their topic of interest.
The findings of this study will assist specific researchers in understanding the CEFR's
worldwide success in the linguistic and educational fields, as well as suggest areas for future
research. It is predicted that the CEFR will remain relevant for the next decade as a result
of its widespread use in language education around the world, as it is now popular among
Asian countries such as Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan and China, which are actively producing
|
25 of 26
GLOBAL TR ENDS OF THE COMMON EUROPE AN
FRA MEWORK O F REFERENCE: A BIB LIOMETRIC ANALYSIS
CEFR- related publications. This demonstrates that its allure is growing and its worldwide
usage is increasing. However, while the assessment has received considerable attention,
the authors have paid less attention to its use in areas other than education. Although Read
(2019) stated that the framework is mostly used in the fields of professional job demand and
citizenship requirements, these aspects have remained elusive. As a result, other academ-
ics and practitioners should pay more attention to these areas, paving the way for future
research.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
ETHICAL APPROVAL
As this research is based on a review of published studies, this is not applicable to our
research.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
Data sharing is not applicable as all relevant data are within the article.
ORCID
Farah Hussan Sahib https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1055-2127
REFERENCES
Alduais, A., Deng, M., & Gökmen, S. (2021). Is female education ‘gendered’ and procedurally yet substantively
practiced’ in China? Insights from a systematic review and the practical theory. Review of Education, 9,
e3302. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3302
Alih, N. A. C., Yusoff, M. A. M., & Abdul, A. H. (2020). Teachers’ Knowledge and belief on the CEFR implementa-
tion in Malaysian ESL classroom. Educational Research (IJMCER), 2(5), 126– 134.
Bozdoğan, K. (2020). A bibliometric analysis of educational studies about ‘museum education’. Participator y
Educational Research, 7(3), 161– 179. https://doi.org/10.17275/ per.20.40.7.3
Carmona- Serrano, N., López- Belmonte, J., Cuesta- Gómez, J. L., & Moreno- Guerrero, A. J. (2020). Documentary
analysis of the scientific literature on autism and technology in Web of Science. Brain Sciences, 10(12), 1– 17.
https://doi.org/10.3390/brain sci10 120985
Council of Europe (2001). Common European framework of reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assess-
ment. Cambridge University Press.
Council of Europe (2016). 1st Symposium on The linguistic integration of adult migrants: Lessons from research,
Strasbourg. March 30- April. LIAM Project: www.coe.int/lang- migrants (accessed 18 August, 2021).
Deveci, İ. (2021). Review of entrepreneurship education literature in educational contexts: Bibliometric analysis.
Participatory Educational Research, 9(1), 214– 232. https://doi.org/10.17275/ per.22.12.9.1
Díez- Bedma r, M. B., & Byram, M. (2018). The current inf luence of the CEFR in sec ondary education: Teachers’ per-
ceptions. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 32(1), 1– 15. https://doi.org/10.1080/07908 318.2018.1493492
Ding, Y., & Cronin, B. (2011). Popular and/or prestigious? Measures of scholarly esteem. Information Processing
and Management, 47(1), 8096. ht tps://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2010.01.002
Dixon, L. Q., Zhao, J., Shin, J.- Y., Wu, S., Su, J.- H., Burgess- Brigham, R., Gezer, M. U., & Snow, C. (2012).
What we know about second language acquisition. Review of Educational Research, 82(1), 5– 60. https://
doi.org/10.3102/00346 54311 433587
Donthu, N., Kumar, S., Mukherjee, D., Pandey, N., & Lim, W. M. (2021). How to conduct a bibliometric analysis:
An overview and guidelines. Journal of Business Research, 13 3, 285296. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusr
es.2021.04.070
Erling, E. J., & Moore, E. (2021). Socially just plurilingual education in Europe: Shifting subjectivities and practices
through research and action. International Journal of Multilingualism, 18, 523– 533.
Franz, J., & Teo, A. (2018). ‘A2 is Normal’ – Thai secondary school English teachers’ encounters with the CEFR.
RELC Journal, 49(3), 322– 338. https://doi.org/10.1177/00336 88217 738816
Hyland, K., & Jiang, F. K. (2021). A bibliometric study of EAP research: Who is doing what, where and when?
Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 49, 100929. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2020.100929
Jones, N., & Saville, N. (2009). European language policy: Assessment, learning and the CEFR. Annual Review
of Applied Linguistics, 29, 51– 63. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267 19050 9090059
26 of 26
|
SAHIB and STAPA
Kanchai, T. (2019). Thai EFL university lecturers’ viewpoints towards impacts of the CEFR on their English lan-
guage curricula and teaching practice. NIDA Journal of Language and Communication, 24(3 5), 2 3 47.
Krishnan, P. D., & Yunus, M. M. (2019). Blended CEFR in enhancing vocabulary among low proficiency students.
Arab World English Journal (AWEJ), Special Issue on CALL, 5, 141– 153. https://doi.org/10.24093/ awej/
cal l 5 .11
Kushairi, N., & Ahmi, A. (2021). Flipped classroom in the second decade of the Millenia: A Bibliometrics analysis
with Lotka’s law. Education and Information Technologies, 26(4), 4401– 4431. https://doi.org/10.1007/s1063
9- 0 21- 10457 - 8
Little, D. (2007). The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Perspectives on the making of
supranational language education policy. Modern Language Journal, 91, 645– 655.
Mansour, A. Z., Ahmi, A., Popoola, O. M. J., & Znaimat, A. (2021). Discovering the global landscape of fraud
detection studies: A bibliometric review. Journal of Financial Crime. Advance online publication. https://doi.
org/10.1108/jfc- 03- 2021- 0052
Mison, S., & Jang, I. C. (2011). Canadian FSL teachers’ assessment practices and needs: Implications for the
adoption of the CEFR in a Canadian context. Synergies Europe, 6, 99 – 108.
Nagai, N., & O’Dwyer, F. (2011). The actual and potential impacts of the CEFR on language education in Japan.
Synergies Europe, 6, 141 – 152.
Read, J. (2019). The influence of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) in the Asia- Pacific
region. LEARN Journal: Language Education and Acquisition Research Network Journal, 12(1), 12– 18.
Runnels, J., & Runnels, V. (2019). Impact of the Common European Framework of Reference— A bibliometric
analysis of research from 19902017. CEFR Journal, 1, 18– 32. https://cefrj apan.net/image s/PDF/Newsl
etter/ CEFR- 1- 1- art2_JRunn els_VRunn els.pdf
Sönmez, Ö. F. (2020). Bibliometric analysis of educational research articles published in the field of social study
education based on Web of Science Database. Participatory Educational Research, 7(2), 216– 229. https://
doi.org/10.17275/ per.20.30.7.2
Tono, Y. (2019). Coming Full Circle – From CEFR to CEFR- J and back. CEFR Journal- Research and Practice.
Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT); CEFR & Language Portfolio. SIG.ISSN 2434- 849X, 3,
5 17.
Wahid, R., Ahmi, A., & Alam, A. S. A. (2020). Growth and collaboration in massive open online courses: A biblio-
metric analysis. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 21(4), 292– 322. https://
doi.org/10.19173/ irrodl.v21i4.4693
Yüce, E., & Mirici, İ. H. (2019). A qualitative inquiry into the application of 9th Grade EFL program in terms of the
CEFR. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 15 , 1171– 1187. https://doi.org/10.17263/ jlls.631560
Yurtcu, M., & Güzeller, C. (2021). Bibliometric analysis of articles on computerized adaptive testing. Par ticipatory
Educational Research, 8(4), 426– 438. https://doi.org/10.17275/ per.21.98.8.4
How to cite this article: Sahib, F. H., & Stapa, M. (2022). Global trends of the
Common European Framework of Reference: A bibliometric analysis. Review of
Education, 10, e3331. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3331
... Additionally, the number of co-occurrences of keywords was used to generate a network for keyword analysis. Furthermore, Harzing's Publish and Perish tool was used to compute the citation metrics in detail (Sahib and Stapa, 2022). Studies title, abstract, or keywords not in the query: ((TITLE-ABS-KEY ("sustainable diet" OR "sustainable diets") AND TITLE-ABS-KEY ("climate change" or "climate" or "mitigation")) AND (LIMIT-TO (SUBJAREA, "AGRI") OR LIMIT-TO ( SUBJAREA, "ENVI") OR LIMIT-TO ( SUBJAREA, "SOCI") ) AND ( LIMIT-TO ( DOCTYPE, "ar") ) AND ( LIMIT-TO ( SRCTYPE, "j") ) AND ( LIMIT-TO ( LANGUAGE, "English")) ...
... When conducting literature reviews, researchers can consult bibliometric articles to obtain a comprehensive overview of recent research. (Sahib and Stapa, 2022). Future research could explore various databases such as Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Emerald, and others. ...
Article
Full-text available
Sustainable diets are food patterns that can be practised as a climate mitigation strategy. Using a bibliometric approach, a sample of 133 papers was selected from 1239 identified articles on “Sustainable diets” and “Climate change” or “climate” or “mitigation” as the query from the Scopus database. The articles were examined to identify the growth and characteristics of this body of knowledge. The data were analysed using Microsoft Excel for frequency analysis, VOSviewer for the visualisation of data, and Harzing’s Publish or Perish for citation metrics analysis. The first publication was in 2009, and the number of publications increased rapidly after that. Eighty-five percent of the publications appeared between 2019 and 2023. The United States was the highest contributor of publications, followed by the United Kingdom. The most common keyword used was sustainable diets, and the most prevalent theme was “climate change.” We conducted a thematic literature review by analysing the clusters of keywords listed by the VOSviewer. Based on the pentagram sustainability model, we identified four emergent themes: “environmental dimension of sustainability in dietary choices for climate mitigation”, “economic aspect of adopting a sustainable diet”, “policy pathways for climate mitigation through sustainable diet promotion”, and “the social dynamics in promoting sustainable diet”. The cultural dimension of sustainability was found to be still lacking in studies involving sustainable diets as a climate mitigation strategy. The findings suggest future studies should recognise the cultural underpinnings of promoting a sustainable diet as a climate mitigation strategy.
... This framework is a standard for defining the L2 curriculum and the level of proficiency that can be measured systematically (Trim, 1991). Uniformity through a strong framework is necessary due to the rapid evolution of L2 education causing concern about the quality of language used and how to achieve mutual understanding and recognition across continents (Sahib & Stapa, 2022). ...
... The CEFR level of competence is a comprehensive approach as an international standard that has been used as a reference in various language education landscapes covering curriculum, teaching materials, teacher education, and assessment (Sahib & Stapa, 2022). However, despite its widespread use, in the context of Arabic language education, the implementation of CEFR still needs to be improved compared to other languages, especially English. ...
Article
Full-text available
In 2001, the European Union (CoE) introduced the Common European Framework of Reference for Language (CEFR) to measure the competency and mastery of languages found in Europe and other languages in the world. In the context of Arabic language education, Saudi Arabia was one of the first countries to implement Arabic language proficiency measurements based on CEFR standards, particularly at Umm al-Qura University, Mecca, and Saudi Electronic University. This article aims to gather studies related to Arabic language proficiency based on the CEFR standard. In addition, this article also provides added value by analyzing each study to provide an explicit overview of the studies. To achieve the goal, qualitative methods are used, where library methods and document analysis are practiced. CEFR-related studies and articles will be collected and analyzed using inductive and deductive methods. The analysis of these findings has also found that five main themes have been debated. Among them is the need to establish a proficiency standard in Arabic. There is consensus among some Arabic language experts that the proficiency standard for the Arabic language needs to be established along with other world languages. Apart from that, some experts also think that it is necessary to have indicators of Arabic language proficiency based on CEFR standards. This is considering that this standard has been used in the measurement of proficiency for some other languages of the world.
... The publications on tax evasion that can be found in the Scopus database will serve as the primary focus of our attention. It has been decided to use the Scopus database due to its well-known status as 'the largest single abstract and indexing database ever built as well as the largest searchable citation and abstract literature search list' (Burnham, 2006;Falagas et al., 2008;Kokol et al., 2021;Mansour et al., 2022;Sahib & Stapa, 2022). ...
... For the T A B L E 2 Methodology of the search. visualisation and mapping of the scholarly network, we employed the VOSviewer program (Bastian et al., 2009;Kokol et al., 2022;Sahib & Stapa, 2022;Van Eck & Waltman, 2020). VOSviewer is a widely recognised software tool specifically designed for bibliometric analyses. ...
Article
Full-text available
This study presents an extensive bibliometric review of research publications on tax evasion using the Scopus database. Data analysis was conducted using Microsoft Excel, Open Refine, Harzing's Publish or Perish, and VOSviewer. Since 1998, there has been a continuous growth in the number of research papers published on tax evasion. The United States emerged as the most productive country in terms of published tax evasion studies. Specifically, Florida International University ranked first as the most active institution in publishing important articles related to tax evasion research. The Journal of Public Economics stands out as the most renowned journal in this field. However, it should be noted that this research relies on the Scopus database, which may have certain limitations that can influence the results. Moreover, this study acknowledges the crucial role of education in comprehending and combating tax evasion. It highlights the significance of educational institutions, such as Florida International University, in generating valuable research on tax evasion. By promoting education and raising awareness about the intricate nature of tax evasion, scholars and practitioners can make well‐informed decisions and formulate effective strategies to mitigate its adverse effects. To the best of the researcher's knowledge, this study represents the first extensive bibliometric analysis that offers a comprehensive overview of tax evasion research while recognising education's vital role in tackling this issue. Context and implications Rationale for this study A bibliometric study on tax evasion provides valuable insights into the existing literature, research trends and knowledge gaps, which can inform educational interventions and the development of effective strategies to promote tax compliance. It helps identify best practices and evidence‐based approaches to enhance tax education and assess the impact of education on tax compliance. Why do the new findings matter? The findings of a tax evasion bibliometric study are crucial for education as they inform and enhance educational initiatives. They provide insights into the existing research landscape, allowing educators to tailor their approaches and incorporate best practices. Ultimately, integrating the findings of a tax evasion bibliometric study into education enhances the effectiveness of educational efforts in reducing tax evasion. Implications for researchers and practitioners Tax evasion bibliometric study has significant implications for researchers and practitioners in education. Researchers can benefit from identifying research gaps, exploring collaborative opportunities, and gaining methodological insights to advance knowledge in the field. For practitioners, the findings support evidence‐based decision‐making, enable the tailoring of educational interventions, and foster collaboration with researchers. The study promotes a stronger connection between research and practice, enhancing the effectiveness of educational efforts in addressing tax evasion. Ultimately, the implications of a tax evasion bibliometric study contribute to the development of evidence‐based strategies and interventions in the education sector.
... Because CEFR deals with the roles and learning contents of language learners as a social agent, it includes various fields that can be applied to foreign language learning research, such as curriculum, syllabus, teaching method, evaluation, and culture. As a result, the CEFR's description of L2 learners' language proficiency is The related Korean CEFR studies were not mentioned in a study that employed a bibliometric approach to assess 770 CEFR-related studies gathered using a SCOPUS database from 2002 to 2021 (Sahib & Stapa, 2022). The study result showed that CEFR-related studies have focused on language assessment. ...
... On the other hand, the number of literature targeting textbook development and teaching methods was relatively low. According to the result of a study that analyze 770 CEFR studies conducted in various countries around the world using the SCOPUS database, most of the studies focused on language evaluation (Sahib & Stapa, 2022). Similarly, in the results of this study, there were many studies in the field of evaluation. ...
Article
Full-text available
This study aims to analyze the trend of CEFR(Common European Framework of Reference) related research in South Korea using the method of a systematic review and to discuss the research fields required in relation to CEFR. The Council of Europe released the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) in 2001. It acts as a standard for curriculum, teaching, learning, and evaluation. With this, thirty kinds of literature from the years 2000 to 2020 that satisfied the selection criteria were chosen from a search of CEFR-related research on English education. After the 2015 revised national curriculum was implemented, studies related to CEFR increased by 70% from 2018 in terms of publication year, and 60% of those studies used quantitative methodologies. After organizing the subjects of the studies by the Korean academic levels and CEFR levels, the data showed a focus on research for elementary and university while a wide range of CEFR levels from Basic User to Proficient User was represented. Since CEFR builds vocabulary, grammar, and language competence based on corpus data, 80% of the studies were performed in relation to the curriculum and evaluation using the corpus. However, in order to successfully apply CEFR to Korean English education, research on more detailed level settings and the linkage between each level needs to be actively conducted. More studies are necessary to adapt CEFR to the EFL context in Korea since CEFR describes communication skills that L2 learners should have, including pluricultural competence. This means a wide range of studies on CEFR are needed to expand the quality and quantity of English education in Korea.
... Scopus was selected as the primary database for this study's literature review. Its status as the largest academic database, combined with its comprehensive field coverage, carefully curated high-quality content, and global scope of publications, made it particularly suitable for our analysis (Baas et al., 2020;Sahib & Stapa, 2022;Vera-Baceta et al., 2019;Zhu & Liu, 2020). A total of 165 articles were found in the initial search. ...
Article
Full-text available
Implementing formative assessment (FA) in physics learning has been widely acknowledged as an effective strategy for enhancing learning process and student performance. Unfortunately, there was a dearth of thorough research on formative assessment in high school physics learning, including publication opportunities, physics topics evaluated by prior studies, and forms of formative assessment investigated by prior studies. This review mapped studies on formative assessment in physics subjects in the high school context. The research method used was a systematic review by analyzing relevant research results from the Scopus databases that published over the past decade (from 2014 to 2023). A total of 17 articles were examined in this study. This study found that Q1 ranked journals were where the most articles with FA topics in high school physics subjects were published. Mechanics was the most common physics topic investigated by previous research. Technology-based formative assessment was the most common form of FA used by previous studies. The results of this review may benefit researchers, school leaders, and policy makers when they aspire to do research or facilitate the implementation of formative assessment in physics class.
... Firstly, Scopus is chosen as the preferred database for this study due to its vast coverage of scholarly literature. With over 87 million documents, including journal articles, conference papers, and more, Scopus provides a comprehensive overview of research output in various disciplines, including education (Sahib & Stapa, 2022). ...
Article
Full-text available
transformative pedagogical approach with diverse applications across educational fields. However, its impact in Islamic countries has raised concerns regarding its breadth and relevance across sectors. This study offers a bibliometric review of CBL research from 1991 to 2024, analysing 176 publications from the Scopus database. Various tools, including Microsoft Excel for frequency analysis, VOSviewer for data visualization, and Harzing's Publish or Perish for citation metrics, were employed. The findings indicate a significant rise in CBL research, yet citation trends remain inconsistent. Most studies were concentrated in the medical and educational fields, with Indonesia and Malaysia leading in publication output, while Egypt hosted the most active institutions. The keywords used in CBL research highlighted three themes: human-centric focus, educational focus, and academic keywords. However, the lack of specific, focused keywords limits in-depth exploration. The results provide important implications for improving CBL research and practise in Islamic countries.
... El desarrollo de la lengua oral se enmarca en el progreso en competencia comunicativa, entendida como la capacidad de un hablante para comunicarse eficazmente en diferentes contextos (Gumperz & Hymes, 1972). Aunque se han desarrollado diversas propuestas para categorizar las dimensiones de esta competencia (Bachman, 1995;Canale, 1995;Van Ek, 1986), aquí se adopta el modelo más reciente del Marco Común Europeo de Referencia para las Lenguas (MCERL) (Consejo de Europa, 2002, 2021, por constituir un referente clave en la enseñanza de lenguas no solo en el contexto europeo sino también a nivel mundial (Hidalgo, 2019;Sahib & Stapa, 2022). Además, este modelo se emplea frecuentemente en investigaciones actuales (Martínez-Sánchez et al., 2022;Torres-Gordillo et al., 2020;Whyte, 2019). ...
Article
Full-text available
Las apps creadoras de relatos digitales pueden ser idóneas para estimular y evaluar la competencia comunicativa oral, explicada a partir de las competencias lingüística, socio-lingüística y pragmática. Así, tras evaluar el potencial inmersivo y la capacidad para potenciar la producción verbal en la Educación Infantil de la app Imagistory, esta investigación empírica —no experimental, descriptiva y observacional— se centra en: 1) evaluar la competencia comunicativa oral del alumnado de educación infantil (N=93) mediante el registro de sus producciones orales utilizando dicha app, y 2) identificar la relación entre el nivel competencial mostrado y el engagement suscitado por la tarea narrativa apoyada en la app. La metodología es mixta: ‘cualitativa’, adscrita al paradigma hermenéutico, pues los investigadores analizan el contenido de los relatos elaborados atendiendo a indicadores intrínsecos a la competencia comunicativa oral y, ‘cuantitativa’, ligada al tratamiento estadístico de los datos recabados con un instrumento diseñado y validado (α=0,805). Los resultados subrayan un nivel competencial del alumnado medio-alto, independientemente de la edad y género, detectándose la buena pronunciación y uso correcto de elementos morfológicos, tiempos verbales y vocabulario en sus producciones orales. Esta competencia se REVISTA SIGNOS. ESTUDIOS DE LINGÜÍSTICA 2024, 57(115) 427 correlaciona significativamente con el engagement suscitado por la app. La secuencia de ilustraciones que presenta ha incrementado su interés, curiosidad e inmersión en la historia, lo que contribuye a la construcción de un relato oral coherente y cohesionado. En conclusión, estas herramientas permiten evaluar el discurso oral en primeras edades, elaborar el diagnóstico inicial de esta competencia, detectar las limitaciones del alumnado y constatar su progreso. Palabras clave: competencia comunicativa,
... Pallotti 2009;Kuiken and Vedder 2014;Lambert and Kormos 2014) have pointed out its inadequacies in evaluating learners' performance in the communicative/pragmatic aspects, that is, how an L2 learner adapts her linguistic output appropriately to meeting particular communicative needs. Such scholarly arguments are corroborated by the changing L2 pedagogical practices where teachers are moving away from Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/applij/advance-article/doi/10.1093/applin/amae030/7655514 by guest on 20 April 2024 teaching/assessing language in isolation and towards task/project/content-based, communicationoriented teaching driven partly by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (Little 2006;Figueras 2012;Sahib and Stapa 2022). As we move towards task/project/content-based, communication-oriented teaching, addressing the inadequacies in the existing language assessment practices mentioned above is clearly a priority. ...
Article
In response to calls for an assessment tool that provides a separate performance dimension from the linguistic quality-oriented measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) and guided by systemic functional linguistic (SFL) theories, this study introduces a set of fine-grained objective measures of communication/content/function (CCF)-related performance in second language (L2) narratives and empirically tests the validity of these measures using vigorous research procedures and statistical tests. The test results show that these CCF measures assessed their intended SFL functional dimensions, in contrast to the key CAF measures that evaluated mainly linguistic dimensions of narrative performance. More specifically, these CCF measures offered an objective evaluation of the communication/content quality of narrative task performance as evaluated by the subjective functional adequacy scales, while the key CAF measures provided an objective assessment of the linguistic quality of task performance as measured by the largely subjective International English Language Testing System (IELTS) scales. The study also discusses the implications of the results for making the assessment of L2 task performance more accurate and comprehensive.
... Findings published between 2014 and 2023 were defined by the search parameters used. Previous research in bibliometric analysis in language education studied the article patterns and style is (Arik and Arik, 2017;Sahib and Stapa, 2021;Sun and Lan, 2021;Hyland & Jiang, 2021;Akbulut, 2020;Barrot, 2023;Miao et al., 2023). These studies are geared towards the field of linguistics, such as morphology, assessment in teaching and learning and language revolution in academic language. ...
Article
Full-text available
Writing is the process of conveying ideas and arguments in a structured, coherent, andpersuasive manner within a predetermined framework of words and formatting. This articlewill thoroughly examine the trends and patterns in the field of essay writing research usingbibliometric analysis, revealing the most essential topics and influential figures in this area.The study aims to track the evolution of essay writing research since its inception and discernprevailing trends by examining source titles, geographical origins, affiliated institutions, andcitation patterns in publications. Microsoft Excel was utilized for frequency analysis.VOSviewer was used for data visualization, while Harzing’s Publish or Perish (PoP) was usedfor citation metrics and analysis. Additionally, it covers vital themes based on keywords,publication titles and abstracts. This document also describes the significant contributors tothe research. Contributing to the scant literature on the study trends of essay writing in socialsciences, the findings provide critical insights into emerging trends and issues in article andjournal performance, collaboration patterns and research components (PDF) Research Trends and Patterns of Language Education in Writing (2014-2023): A Bibliometric Analysis. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377800240_Research_Trends_and_Patterns_of_Language_Education_in_Writing_2014-2023_A_Bibliometric_Analysis [accessed Dec 12 2024].
... For example, the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) is the most widely used LPS for planning and evaluating curricula, certifications, examinations, and textbooks (Byram, 2020). After its publication, studies on its impacts amounted (Brunfaut & Harding, 2020;Byram, 2020;Green, 2018;Sahib & Stapa, 2022), revealing its strengths and weakness in education. The feedback contributed to the release of The Companion Volume (CV) in 2020 (Council of Europe, 2020). ...
Article
Full-text available
The application of the language proficiency scales (LPS) in education validates its function, as it can explore the value in-depth. However, little systematic research on applying LPS has been conducted due to the complex intertwining of stakeholders and a lack of theoretical framework and practical approaches. Adopting the framework proposed by Y. Jin and Jie (2020), this study explored how the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and China’s Standards of English (CSE) were used and impacted various stakeholders in the education context. The literature search was taken from WoSCC, Scopus, and CNKI from 2018 to 2022. Qualitative content analysis was used for systematic review. Results showed that policymakers used LPS in education policy guidance; teachers applied them as the benchmark of diagnostic assessment to get accurate language profiles of students and create new approaches to teaching; students used them as goal-setting guidance and self- or peer assessment criteria to track progress; test developers aligned them with tests to obtain reliable results; curriculum designers tailored descriptors and scales from CEFR to develop new curricula, align, or revise the existing ones; researchers used LPS as references to develop new rubrics, frameworks and assessing models. This study could provide insight in scientific application of LPS. However, it focused mainly on the CEFR and CSE with a framework for exploring the impact of language testing. Studies containing more scales and theorizing the framework of aftereffects of LPS should be encouraged.
Article
Full-text available
Published in 2001, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), a reference framework which informs teaching, learning and assessment in language education, appears to be increasingly recognized, referenced and utilized in language education contexts worldwide. To date however, the extent, provenance and adoption of the collected body of knowledge concerning the CEFR has yet to be systematically analysed, rendering it difficult for any conclusions to be made about its impact. A bibliometric analysis was therefore conducted to explore the CEFR from the document’s more formal origins in 1990 to the end of 2017 for the bibliometric indicators of number of publications per year, geographical location of research, highly cited works and journals with the highest number of relevant publications. The findings show that research on the CEFR has increased significantly over the examined time. The majority of publications with a focus on the CEFR are European, but numbers are increasing in geographical areas outside of Europe, and particularly in Asia. The framework is discussed in numerous types of publications covering a range of topics in language education. These findings suggest that the CEFR has been used in contexts beyond its origins and has influenced many aspects of language education around the globe. Diffusion of innovations theory suggests that the CEFR’s impact and influence is likely to increase over the next ten years in and outside of Europe and especially in Asia.
Article
Full-text available
The items that are suitable for everyone's own ability level with the support of computer programs instead of paper and pencil tests may help students to reach more accurate results. Computer adaptive tests (CAT), which are developed based on certain assumptions in this direction, are to create an optimum test for every person taking the exam. It then becomes essential to examine the development process of such important exams and to monitor what studies have contributed to this development in what year. Citespace is a program developed to map information fields, explain the relationship between different disciplines, examine and estimate the studies in a certain period of time, uncover the latest studies and predict the trend issues that occur according to the analysis of bibliographic records of related publications. In this study, it is aimed to find out what articles about CAT are produced in which areas, at what time periods e and which articles have a significant effect in these periods. CiteSpace program was used to make a document/article co-citation analysis. Articles on CAT between 1946-2016 were scanned by “or” connector. A total of 637 articles were used, the analyses were finalized according to the networks. As a result of the research, clusters were determined based on the relationship in the citations, articles that were the most cited and important among studies on CAT were presented
Article
Full-text available
Female education in China is an over‐researched area, yet it does not provide enough evidence on the country's exact pattern of female education practice. On the one hand, the National Plan of 2010–2020 emphasises equal education policies regardless of gender type. On the other hand, reported research raises several gendered and procedural yet substantive practices of female education in China. Thus, it was essential to conduct this study to inform policymakers, practitioners and researchers on the status of this area, based on a systematic review of 47 eligible included studies conducted between 2009 and 2020, including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed designs. The review answers two questions: (1) What are the substantive findings of qualitative synthesis on gender equity of female education in China? (2) Regardless of the existence or absence of gender inequity, what patterns of female education exist, and what kind of framework or model could be proposed to reform female education in China? The PRISMA guideline and SPIDER tool were used to conduct and report this study. The practical theory was also used—proposing a model that may serve to diagnose as well as intervene in the conflict of female education equity in China. Findings and conclusions showed that both gender equity and gender inequity are disadvantageous at short‐term and long‐term levels. For this reason, relativism might help to reduce the impact of these two patterns. While cultural and social capital is still the main impacting factor on gender equity in any country, reform should take place. Relativism could be achieved through reasonable understanding and interpretation of the sources that form the cultural and social capital. It takes place also by preventing the causes of gender gaps. These include over‐interpretation and under‐interpretation of gender roles, mainly those which are female. Gender should never be used as a factor in human capital. Context and implications Rationale for this study To examine the claim of female education in China being gendered and procedurally yet substantively practised or not; we therefore did a systematic review of the quantitative, qualitative, and mixed‐method design studies on female education equity in China between 2009 and 2020. Why the new findings matter It is not clear whether China's female education system manifests gender or another type of inequality, or what patterns characterise it compared to other countries. This systematic review introduces a framework to understand the female education system in China through the different patterns which govern human capital, social capital, economic capital and cultural capital. Implications for education researchers and policymakers This study has implications for policymakers, decision‐makers, teachers and researchers interested in conducting systematic reviews in education science. The literature review identified some themes: gender equity and minorities, gender equity in higher and vocational education, national development and policy adjustment, Chinese context‐based social factors, misconceptualisation of gender equity, quantitative inequity, and finally, mission schools; The systematic review identified themes like minority discrimination, discrimination between rural and urban areas, the impact of education on health and psychology, educational leadership and policy, educational attainment/performance, and social capital; Using the five constituents of the Practical Theory led to the proposal of a model presenting patterns of female education, helping to reform female education; and Policymakers, practitioners and researchers on female education might find it informative and practical to conduct more systematic reviews on female education when applying this theory and other related theories.
Article
Full-text available
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the descriptive and evaluative findings of articles conducted in educational contexts on entrepreneurship education in the Web of Science (WoS) database. For this purpose, the bibliometric analysis method was used in this study. This systematic literature review examined 352 scientific articles published from 1991 to 2020 in the WoS database. VOSviewer software was used to visualize the results of the analysis. The descriptive results showed that the most articles, in terms of years, were published in 2017; Matlay was the most productive author, and Lappeenranta University of Technology was the most productive organization; Education + Training was the most productive journal and England was the most productive country. The evaluative results showed that Matlay had the largest co-authorship network; England was the country with the highest co-authorship network and the University of Tasmania and Birmingham City University had the largest co-authorship network. Moreover, Matlay had the highest (citations and total link strength) co-citations of cited authors. On the other hand, Kuratko had the highest (citations and total link strength) co-citations of cited references. Finally, the keywords occurrence networks showed that the biggest node was entrepreneurship education. Based on these results, systematic literature reviews on entrepreneurship education in educational contexts at the national level in different countries could be carried out.
Article
Full-text available
The articles in this special issue explore approaches to research and action in language education that have the potential to transform subjectivities and practices in relation to linguistic diversity. They seek ways within education and teacher education to overcome what Gogolin ([1994]. Der monolinguale ‘habitus’ der multilingualen Schule. Waxmann Verlag) called the ‘mononlingual habitus’, i.e. the deep-seated habit of assuming monolingualism as the norm for all individuals and thus for schooling. In doing so, the contributors aim to (re)inscribe multi/plurilingual education in Europe as a socially engaged pedagogical approach and field of research grounded in ideals of social justice. In this introduction, we provide a brief overview of multi/plurilingual education in Europe, linking to current critical work on neoliberalism, language, education and social justice. We then introduce and discuss some of the key theoretical concepts used by the different authors for studying subjectivities (e.g. attitudes, beliefs, ideologies, mind-sets) as well as the methodological approaches employed in the articles. We close with an overview of the different articles that make up the special issue and by highlighting some of the enduring issues in the field of multi/plurilingual education.
Article
Full-text available
The CEFR-J project was launched in Japan in 2008. The CEFR-J gives a set of Can Do descriptors for 10 CEFR sub- levels (Pre-A1 to B2.2) and related Reference Level Description (RLD) work, whilst including developed profiling for vocabulary, grammar, and textual features were developed. In this article, the English resources created for the CEFR-J are applied in preparing teaching resources for other major European languages as well as Asian languages. To achieve this, a series of teaching/learning resources including the CEFR-J Wordlist and Phrase List initially developed for English were translated into 27 other languages using neural machine translation. These translated word and phrase lists were then manually corrected by a team of language experts. The automatic conversion of English to other languages was evaluated against human judgments as well as frequency analysis referencing web corpora. Three types of e-learning resources were created, taking into consideration the wordlists and the phrase lists for teaching those languages to undergraduate students: (1) a flash-card app for learning vocabulary, which allows for classification by both thematic topic and CEFR level, (2) an online syntax writing tool for the study of grammar and vocabulary, and (3) an online spoken and written production corpus collection tool. Keywords: CEFR-J, multilingual resources, e-learning, machine translation, automatic conversion, NLP, multilingual corpora, web-based, writing tool, spoken production
Article
Full-text available
This paper aims to examine the current dynamics of the flipped classroom studies and to propose a direction for future research for the field. Using a bibliometric approach, we observe a sample of 1557 documents from the Scopus database to identify research activity on the flipped classroom. The keywords “flipped classroom” and “flipped learning” have been executed in the search query. We presented the earlier stage of research in the flipped classroom, the subsequent trends, publications status based on source title, country and institution and examined citations pattern of the publication. We also discuss the themes based on the occurrences and terms of the keywords, title and abstract of the documents. This paper also predicts the future study in the flipped classroom using Lotka’s law. We found that the pattern distribution of the author’s contribution fits with the law. We conclude by suggesting a few potential research directions on the flipped classroom. Research on flipped classroom focuses on approaches, strategies and effectiveness perceived by practitioners and learners with relatively less attention on author’s contribution and the prediction on their future and sustainable contribution and networking in guaranteeing the survival and expansion of flipped classroom approach for the coming decades.
Article
Full-text available
The objective of the study is to track the progression of the scientific literature on autism and the technology applied to this disorder. A bibliometric methodology has been used, based on a co-word analysis. The Web of Science database was chosen to perform the analysis of the literature. A unit of analysis of 1048 publications was configured. SciMAT software was used mainly for document analysis. The results indicate that the first studies appeared in 1992, but it was not until 2009 that the research volume increased considerably. The area of knowledge where these studies were compiled was rehabilitation, which marks the truly therapeutic nature of this type of study. One of the authors with the most studies, as well as the most relevant research, was Sarkar, N. Manuscripts were usually research articles written in English. It could be concluded that research in this field of study focused mainly on interventions carried out through the use of technological resources, with students or young people who present with ASD. This line of research, although not the only one, was the most relevant and the one that had aroused the most interest among the scientific community.
Article
Purpose This paper aims to present a bibliometric analysis of publications from the Scopus database on fraud detection studies. Design/methodology/approach The current research used Microsoft Excel to conduct the frequency analysis, VOSviewer for data visualisation and Harzing’s Publish or Perish for citation metrics and analysis. Findings In alignment with these research results, the publications on fraud detection studies have been consistently increasing since 2005. India was rated first as the most active country in fraud detection research. Tongji University from China was the most active institution that published significant publications related to fraud detection research. A total of 160 scholars from 89 various countries and 160 different institutions published several fraud detections studies with multi-authors’ participation in different languages. Originality/value To the best of the authors knowledge, this study is the first study to review fraud detections publications in the Scopus science database.
Article
Bibliometric analysis is a popular and rigorous method for exploring and analyzing large volumes of scientific data. It enables us to unpack the evolutionary nuances of a specific field, while shedding light on the emerging areas in that field. Yet, its application in business research is relatively new, and in many instances, underdeveloped. Accordingly, we endeavor to present an overview of the bibliometric methodology, with a particular focus on its different techniques, while offering step-by-step guidelines that can be relied upon to rigorously perform bibliometric analysis with confidence. To this end, we also shed light on when and how bibliometric analysis should be used vis-à-vis other similar techniques such as meta-analysis and systematic literature reviews. As a whole, this paper should be a useful resource for gaining insights on the available techniques and procedures for carrying out studies using bibliometric analysis. Keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Performance analysis; Science mapping; Citation analysis; Co-citation analysis; Bibliographic coupling; Co-word analysis; Network analysis; Guidelines.