Evolution of topics in education research: a systematic review using bibliometric analysis

• Published in: Educational review (Birmingham) Vol. 72; no. 3; pp. 281 - 297
• Main Authors: Huang, Cui, Yang, Chao, Wang, Shutao, Wu, Wei, Su, Jun, Liang, Chuying
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Birmingham Routledge 03.05.2020; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Academic guidance counseling; Bibliometrics; Childhood; Citations; Comorbidity; Density; Early childhood education; Education; Education research; Educational administration; Educational Finance; Educational History; Educational psychology; Educational Research; Educational systems; Educational Technology; Educational Trends; Engineering Education; Higher education; Information Retrieval; Interdisciplinary aspects; Interdisciplinary education; Interdisciplinary research; keyword co-occurrence network; Keywords; Learning Strategies; Psychology; Science and technology; Social sciences; Special education; Systematic review; Teacher Education; Teachers; Teaching; Teaching Methods; topic evolution analysis; Topics
• ISSN: 0013-1911; 1465-3397
• DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2019.1566212

Education research tends to exhibit interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary characteristics. Based on the subject areas in Google Scholar, within the 51 disciplines under social sciences, nine subjects are directly related to education (early childhood education, education, educational administration, educational psychology & counselling, educational technology, higher education, science & engineering education, special education, teaching & teacher education). The interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary characteristics of education research make it difficult for researchers to identify the overall development of specific topics within the field. In this paper, we first collect core papers from the field of education. Then, we construct keyword co-occurrence networks using these papers. Finally, based on the density distribution of keyword co-occurrence networks, we analyse changes in network density at each stage of educational research. Last, we identify the development trends of core topics in the education field. Our main contribution is the quantitative methodological design for examining the hot topics and evolution of education research, which is highly multidisciplinary and covers a large volume of publications.