Understanding the mathematics specialist research landscape: A bibliometric analysis

We present a bibliometric analysis of mathematics specialist (MS) research, exploring trends in journal outlets, article citations, authors, institutions, and keywords. Using a data corpus of 80 peer-reviewed articles, we leveraged bibliometric analytic techniques, following Passas’ (2024) steps, which served as our methodological framework. Findings indicate that MS research is situated in either mathematics education specific or general education academic journals, with a higher density of articles featured in general education academic journals. Findings also reveal that the most widely cited MS article in the data corpus featured a longitudinal, large-scale study exploring the relationship between MSs and student outcomes. Author and institutional analyses show that most MS authors, and the institutions in which they are steeped, are located in United States contexts, with a high density of authors located in Northeast and Southern geographic regions. Last, the keyword analysis shows a high volume of diverse keywords. Taken together, these results help us understand the MS research field and provide a productive blueprint, thus enabling others to engage with and expand upon existing work. Implications for researchers, editor teams, and editorial boards are provided.