Trends and Foundations of Creativity Research in Education: A Method Based on Text Mining

This study aimed to identify trends and foundations of creativity research in education using the Structural Topic Model (STM). First, English-language journal articles about creativity research in education included in the Social Science Citation Index and Science Citation Index Expanded databases were selected. Then, considering semantic cohesiveness and exclusivity of words to topics, the articles were divided into twelve topics using STM. Topic 2, which attracted increasing research interest, was selected using a method similar to standard regression analysis. The changing focus of Topic 2 was identified through an analysis of its research contents. Finally, the foundations of creativity research in education across three periods (1990-1999, 2000-2009, and 2010-2019) were obtained through a review of their 10 most highly cited papers. The conclusions are that a) there are twelve topics of creativity research in education; b) research about the creative process of engineering design in STEM education is likely to attract further interest in the future; and c) highly cited papers are mainly concerned about the mechanisms underlying idea generation and personality and social factors. Studies of the mechanisms underlying idea generation have been the foundation of creativity research throughout all time periods studied.