Abstract:

This study aims to explore the evolution of the educational research focuses in international academia by drawing the topic clustering knowledge map of educational research literature from 1997 to 2019, so as to obtain the “central themes”, “central institutions”, and “central countries”. The evolution of educational research focuses mainly reflects that the research horizon has always been extended around the theme of the discourse of the times, the research orientation has changed from responding to the needs of educational practice to taking into account theoretical innovation and practical pursuit, and the research object has shifted from focusing on teachers to focusing on students, the research method has shifted from focusing on using a single research method to using a mixture of multiple research methods. The evolution of educational research institutions in international academia mainly manifests that the number of educational research centers has increased in steps, and the academic “centrality” of a single central institution is reduced; the proportion of types is polarized, and the university-type center institutions are firmly in the leading position; the cooperation model is diversified, and scientific research community is gradually becoming mainstream. The evolution of the international academic educational research center countries demonstrates that the pattern structure is dominated by developed countries, and the developed countries and developing countries participate in synergy; the geographical distribution has changed from the core point distribution to the cluster and scattered type.

Key words: international academia, educational research, central theme, central institution, central country