Analysis of the subareas of education in universities of a developing country: from a multivariate perspective

This study focuses on an analysis of scientific production in the field of education within universities in developing countries. For this purpose, academic articles were classified into 17 predefined subareas: Higher Education, Educational Technology, Educational Policy, Inclusive Education, Pedagogy and Didactics, Science Education, and Mathematics. A keyword analysis algorithm was designed to identify and classify publications in these subareas using key terms present in the titles, abstracts, and authors' keywords. This study used the multivariate HJ-Biplot technique to visualize the relationship between Ecuadorian universities and the research sub-areas in which they concentrated their scientific production. The results indicated that both public and private universities focus their research on key areas, such as Higher Education, Science and Mathematics Education, Educational Technology, and Inclusive Education, with significant differences in the correlations between subareas. In particular, private universities show a strong correlation between Educational Technology and Health and Wellness Education, whereas the correlation between Inclusive Education and Science and Mathematics Education is weak. Additionally, low representation was identified in emerging sub-areas, such as Educational Policy and Neuroeducation, underscoring the need to foster more research in these areas.