Hot topics and evolution of frontier research in early education: A bibliometric mapping of the research literature (2001–2020)

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to explore the evolving trend of research directions in the field of early education. In this research, CiteSpace and VOSviewer were used to visually analyze documents published in eight SSCI journals between 2001 and 2020. Through methods such as co-authorship analysis, cluster analysis, and cocitation analysis, this study found that child care, school readiness, early education quality, effortful control, executive function, self-regulation, and teacher–student relationships are hot topics in early education. Early education research has distinctive interdisciplinary characteristics.