Teacher Educators: A Bibliometric Mapping of an Emerging Research Area

Abstract

There has been increasing research attention on teacher educators in recent years; however, the dynamics of this research area have not been examined through bibliometric analysis of the relevant studies. This study aimed to perform a systematic mapping of the trends in research studies on teacher educators through the bibliometric data obtained from the Web of Science database. The bibliometric analysis led to four substantial findings: (1) research on teacher educators is an emerging field of educational studies that have experienced a progressive increase since the 2000s; (2) scientific publications in this field are produced by a small group of researchers from the USA, Australia, Canada, several European, and few Asian countries through collaborative research networks; (3) research on teacher educators is primarily spread in general teacher education journals; (4) the main topics regarding teacher educator research area are: professional development, professional identity, works, and practices.