Knowledge Visualization of Research on Higher Education Reform in China: Scientifically Generating Knowledge Maps from 1949 to 2023

This study aims to provide a systematic review of research in the field of higher education reform in China. We analyzes 30,952 publications collected from China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) spanning from 1949 to 2023 and employs CiteSpace and Microsoft Excel for bibliometric analysis. It was found that the research on higher education reform is deeply influenced by the national development strategies and education policies, and the research themes change in stages with the adjustment of the policy contents. The results of the bibliometric analysis show that the overall trend of the number of publications in the field of higher education reform during the past seventy years shows a fluctuating growth; the research output is characterized by talent and geographic clustering; the literature on the themes of discipline construction and talent cultivation is the most concerned by scholars; the high-frequency keywords and term clusters analysis clarify the core research themes in the field; and the burst terms detection reveals the five phases of the development of higher education and the evolution of the research focuses. In addition, we make a forward-looking prediction of the future research directions of higher education based on the results of the visualization analysis and the important national educational policies in recent years. This provides researchers with a systematic knowledge framework to critically reflect on and conduct further research on higher education reform.