Innovative Pedagogy in Elementary School Mathematics Education: A Systematic Literature Review and Bibliometric Analysis
Abstract
Innovative pedagogy has been at the heart of efforts to strengthen mathematics learning in early grades, but the field is still scattered among a wide range of technologies and rapidly evolving learning approaches. This study maps the scientific landscape of innovative pedagogy in elementary school mathematics education through systematic literature review combined with bibliometric analysis. By following the PRISMA 2020 protocol, a search of the Scopus database yielded 1,002 records, which were then filtered based on the criteria of subject area, focus, and document type so that a final corpus of 19 indexed and peer-reviewed articles published between 2021 and 2026 was obtained. The corpus was analyzed descriptively to see publication trends, geographic distribution, and source journals, and visualized through co-occurrence, co-authorship, and co-citation maps using VOSviewer. The findings show a sharp acceleration in recent times, with 58% of studies published in 2025–2026 and a noticeable shift towards artificial intelligence, large language model tutoring, augmented reality, and learning analytics. The thematic synthesis identifies four main strands: technology-assisted learning, teacher competence and readiness, inclusive and equitable practices, and assessment and feedback design. The bibliometric map shows a geographically fragmented field with very minimal cross-border collaboration and no representation from Indonesia. This study contributes an integrated and up-to-date picture of how innovation is reshaping primary school mathematics pedagogy and advocates contextually sensitive research to reach underrepresented backgrounds
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