Fluid mechanics education in engineering: challenges and trends from a bibliometric analysis

This study explores the challenges and trends in engineering fluid mechanics education through a bibliometric analysis of literature from Scopus spanning from 1978 to 2024. The analysis aims to identify key themes, prevailing challenges, effective methodologies, and emerging trends in this field. The results highlight "fluid mechanics," "engineering education," and "students" as the most interconnected and frequently occurring topics, underscoring their central importance. Engineering dominates the field with 51.8% of the total documents, followed by contributions from social sciences (17.3%) and computer science (10.1%). Geographically, the United States leads with 795 publications and a total citation count of 571, followed by significant contributions from China (90 publications), Portugal (70), Spain (60), Germany (32), and Australia (31). The document types include 342 conference papers (67.5%) and 131 journal articles (25.8%), reflecting diverse dissemination of research findings. Innovative pedagogical approaches, such as active learning and e-learning, are emphasized for their potential to address educational challenges. The findings provide valuable insights for educators and researchers aiming to improve teaching methodologies and curricula, ultimately enhancing student learning outcomes and better preparing future engineers for professional challenges.