Bibliometric Analysis of Studies Focusing on Critical Thinking in Early Childhood

Abstract

This study aimed to examine studies on critical thinking in early childhood through bibliometric analysis. In the research, 251 studies on the concept of "critical thinking" were selected according to the inclusion criteria and analyzed with the VOS-viewer program. In the study, co-author, co-reference, co-citation and co-word analysis of the studies on the concept of "critical thinking" was carried out according to the distribution of the ten most cited authors and publications, years, published sources and countries. According to the results of bibliometric analysis on critical thinking, it was concluded that the birthplace of the subject and the most productive country is the USA. According to the co-author analysis, it was concluded that Daniel and Gagnon were the authors who contributed the most to the subject, Lipman and Kuhn according to the result of co-citation analysis, and Dovigo and Karadağ according to the result of co-citation analysis. In addition, according to co-word analysis, the most recurring keywords in the studies were critical thinking, early childhood education, creativity, early childhood, cognitive development, teacher training, preschool. As a result of the research, it was concluded that the number of studies on critical thinking in early childhood is low and there should be an increase in studies with children as the sample.