The paper presents an overview of results from the selected international studies dealing with the analysis of particular topics in science education. The results are based on content analysis of papers published in leading international journals.
The main focus is on students' conceptual understanding, however, changes in favor of learning contexts of students have been identified. The analysis of highly cited papers published from 1990 to 2007 shows the focus on inquiry based science education and students' argumentation which is tightly connected with the inquiry based science education.