The evolving knowledge base on leadership and teacher professional learning: a bibliometric analysis of the literature, 1960-2018

Abstract

© 2019 International Professional Development Association (IPDA). This review of research used science mapping to analyze the knowledge base on leadership and teacher professional learning in K-12 schools. The review identified 793 Scopus-indexed documents related to this topic. Bibliographic data associated with these documents were examined using bibliometric analyses (e.g. author, journal and document citation and co-citation analysis). These analyses document intellectual progress in this field over time, identify key authors and documents, and institutions, and illuminate the intellectual structure of the field. Initially slow growth in the 1970s and 1980s was followed by markedly accelerating growth of research on this topic continuing to the present. We found three main research streams or Schools of Thought comprising this knowledge base: Teacher Leadership of Professional Learning Communities, Principal Leadership for Teacher Learning, Shared Leadership for Teacher Learning. The review identified a need for substantive reviews of research related to these Schools of Thought. Although the literature evidenced a geographical imbalance favoring Anglo-American-European scholarship, a trend of increasing contributions from other regions of the world was observed and should be encouraged. Scholars entering this field will wish to focus on the key authors and documents identified in this review.