RESEARCH TRENDS OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' INITIATIVE: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS BASED ON CHINA

Abstract

As the world’s largest provider of higher education, China offers a valuable perspective for understanding international trends in cultivating college student initiative. This study conducts a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of journal articles on Chinese college students’ initiative published between 1995 and 2024 in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database. By employing quantitative and visualization approaches, the research identifies evolving publication trends, key topics, disciplinary patterns, influential authors, institutions, and highly cited works. Results show that scholarly attention to college students’ initiative in China has grown in tandem with educational reforms emphasizing autonomy, self-regulation, and active engagement—paralleling similar value shifts and research advances globally. The analysis traces a progression from early theoretical frameworks to diversified empirical investigations into psychological, motivational, technological, and environmental factors guiding initiative development. Furthermore, the study highlights both achievements and gaps—specifically a prior lack of systematic, large-scale quantitative reviews in this field. By focusing on China’s experience as a case study, this research provides insights into the theoretical and practical dynamics shaping student initiative worldwide, offering data-driven implications valuable to educators, policymakers, and researchers in both national and international contexts.