Trends, Hotspots and Future Prospects: The Evolution of Teachers’ Roles in Educational Settings: A Bibliometric Analysis (2005-2025)
Keywords:
Teachers’ roles; bibliometric analysis; research trends; educational research; professional developmentAbstract
This study adopts bibliometric analysis to systematically examine the research development on teachers’ roles from 2005 to 2025. Based on 1,648 documents retrieved from the Scopus database, we conducted a comprehensive bibliometric analysis using both performance and science mapping approaches. The findings reveal a steady growth in teachers’ roles research, with a significant acceleration after 2015, reflected in increased publication volume. The analysis identified influential journals, authors, and highly cited documents. Through co-word analysis and thematic mapping, it identified major research themes including online teaching roles, teacher professional development, learner-centered teaching approaches, and technological pedagogical content knowledge. The thematic evolution indicates a shift from traditional teaching roles to more diverse and adaptive roles in technology-enhanced learning environments. However, the study is limited by its exclusive reliance on the Scopus database, its focus on English-language publications, and the citation-latency effect, which may underestimate recent works. Future research should pursue comparative studies, address under-examined themes such as cultural responsiveness, teacher well-being, and professional autonomy, and adopt innovative methods such as large-scale text mining and social network analysis. This bibliometric analysis contributes to a deeper understanding of research trends in teachers’ roles. The results offer the potential to inform educational exploration and offer valuable insights for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.
https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.24.9.18
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