This study maps and interprets three decades of research on student partnerships in pedagogical co-design, identifying key contributors, dominant themes, and persistent knowledge gaps. A scientometric review of publications indexed in Web of Science and Scopus between 1993 and 2023 was conducted. After deduplication and blinded, multi-reviewer screening in Rayyan, 119 peer‑reviewed English-language records met the inclusion criteria, focusing on pedagogical co-design with student partners. Analyses of co-occurrence, co-citation, thematic evolution, and international collaboration were conducted using Bibliometrix/Biblioshiny and VOSviewer. The findings show that scholarly output has accelerated since the mid‑2000s, with a notable decline in 2021. Research activity is concentrated in education and STEM fields, primarily within school and university contexts. Core themes center on students, co-design, teaching, and learning, while engineering, pedagogy, and human–computer interaction appear as foundational yet less densely developed areas. Across mapping techniques, participatory approaches remain central, alongside emerging strands such as artificial intelligence and blended learning. The findings support positioning students as partners to enhance educational relevance and engagement, and the study articulates actionable design principles and evaluation priorities. To our knowledge, this is the first scientometric study focused specifically on student-partnered pedagogical co-design over a 30-year window, providing an integrated interpretation across multiple science-mapping techniques.
Boruzie et al. (Thu,) studied this question.