The Visualization Analysis of TCFL Classroom Management Based

on Citespace

Shuanjun An and Yueou Wang

Bohai University, Jinzhou, China

Keywords: Classroom Management, Research Hotspots, Citespace, Visualization.

Abstract: Nowadays, Chinese is gradually becoming an international lingua franca with an upward trend. Based on the

national policy of Chinese language, in order to better promote the development of Teaching Chinese as

Foreign Language (TCFL), TCFL classroom management is taken as the object in this study. The purpose is

to understand the layout of classroom management research, predict the development trend of classroom

management, and provide new guidelines and references for subsequent classroom management research.

Bibliometric analysis methods such as keyword co-occurrence, clustering and burst detection were applied to

generate a science mapping using relevant literature in the China Knowledge Network (CNKI) database from

2000-2022 as the data source. The rapid development of TCFL education in China cannot be separated from

the promotion of related Confucius Institutes. In recent years, influenced by the Covid-2019 and the increasing

emergence of online teaching, the research direction has also changed. The visualization analysis of classroom

management research by science mapping will help the future promotion and expansion for classroom

management.

1 INTRODUCTION

Because of people's different perceptions of

classroom and management, the definition of

curriculum management has different meanings.

Broadly speaking, there are four different kinds of

meanings. First, it is a procedure applied to achieve

the goals of classroom activities. Second, it is a

decision making that coordinates various

relationships between individuals and groups in the

classroom. Third, it is an activity that deals with

various conflicts and contradictions in classroom

activities. Fourth, it is a special organ that promotes

the growth of the classroom (Chen Shijian, 2003).

Classroom management is a constant part of the

overall teaching and learning activities and has a

significant impact on the effectiveness of teaching

and learning. Proper teaching management can fully

demonstrate the teaching vitality and learning and

continuously promotes the smooth running of

teaching and learning activities. In the teaching

process, the teacher acts and reacts on the students.

As the medium between the two, classroom

management can effectively help teachers regulate

the teaching environment and provide students a

positive learning experience.

By screening the data on TCFL classroom

management in the China Knowledge Network

(CNKI) database, classroom management from

various aspects, such as teaching models, teaching

methods and teaching reforms, were investigated,

which led to the formation of a huge research network.

Based on the collection and organization of a large

number of valid research records, Citespace version

5.7 R1 (64-bit) was used as the main instrument to

analyze TCFL classroom management in a

synchronic and diachronic, multi-dimensional and

multi-perspective manner. The purpose of the study

is to identify salient issues and prospects, and to think

about strategies related to TCFL classroom

management. The visualization analysis of Citespace

is effectively applied to increase the real-world value.

2 THE BACKGROUND OF

CITESPACE AND DATA

PROCESSING

Citespace software is a modeling software for

bibliometrics created by a Chinese-American scholar,

Professor Chen Chaomei. The four categories of

research processes with visual science mapping and

An, S. and Wang, Y.

The Visualization Analysis of TCFL Classroom Management Based on Citespace.

DOI: 10.5220/0012282500003807

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Seminar on Artiﬁcial Intelligence, Networking and Information Technology (ANIT 2023), pages 315-322

ISBN: 978-989-758-677-4

315

integrated approach that can be presented through

Citespace can avoid the subjective nature of narrative

literature reviews (See Figure 1). In this study, with

the help of Citespace, a bibliometric analysis tool, a

valuable overview of the research history will be

provided and the structure, dynamic evolutionary

patterns, and emerging themes of the field will be

identified, so as to provide guidance for subsequent

research. In this study, a total of 3439 relevant papers

were retrieved in the search time span from January

2000 to January 2022. In order to ensure the accuracy

of the data samples, manual data cleaning and

screening were performed for each of the search

results and data conversion was performed using the

data function in Citespace software to convert the

format of all China Knowledge Network databases

into WOS format. And the whole literature was de-

duplicated using the Remove Duplicates function in

the WOS option, and a total of 411 valid papers were

obtained.

Figure 1. Citespace Flowchart.

3 KEYWORD CO-OCCURRENCE

VIEW ANALYSIS

The Timezone View of keyword co-occurrence uses

the co-occurrence of word pairs or noun phrases in a

collection of literature to determine the relationships

between topics and the frequency of word

occurrences in the disciplines represented by the

collection. The Timezone View shows the evolution

of the TCFL classroom management research field,

the evolution of keywords and the networked

relationships that influence each other from a

temporal perspective. The affinity between them is

measured through the number of such co-occurrences.

The Timezone View represents time on the horizontal

axis, presenting the keywords of TCFL classroom

management as research hotspots in different years.

Figure 2. The Timezone View of keyword co-occurrence

for TCFL classroom management.

The meaning of Centrality in the menu of

Citespace software is intermediary centrality, which

is an important indicator to measure the importance

of nodes in the network (other common indicators to

measure the importance of nodes include degree

centrality, proximity centrality, etc.) Citespace

software uses this indicator to discover and measure

the importance of the literature, and highlights this

category of literature on the view with a purple

aperture. Literature with high intermediary centrality

is often a key pivot connecting two different fields,

also known as a "turning point" in Citespace. The

equation of intermediary centrality is where

denotes the number of shortest paths from s to t, and

denotes the number of nodes passing through i in the

shortest path from s to t. From the perspective of

information transmission, the higher the intermediary

centrality, the higher the importance of the nodes. The

impact of these nodes on network transportation is

also high when they are removed.

Figure 2 shows the development trend of TCFL

classroom management research hotspots from 2000

to 2022. From the Timezone View of keyword co-

occurrence, it can be seen that there are five most

significant keyword nodes in the field of TCFL

classroom management research, which are densely

connected to each other, indicating significantly

positive correlation and inheritance among the

keywords. So it can be seen that the hotspots studied

in different time periods are both different and

relevant. According to the distribution of nodes, the

development of TCFL classroom management is

divided into four stages. Taking the year 2000 as the

time point, the period before 2000 is called the "pre-

development stage," the period from 2000 to 2007 is

called the "mid-development stage," the period from

2008 to 2014 is called the "post-development stage,"

and the period from 2015 to 2022 is called the

"current development stage".

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The first stage (before 2000) is the pre-

development stage of TCFL classroom management.

However, at this time, there is no in-depth research

and exploration on TCFL classroom management, but

more on how to promote TCFL, which belongs to the

academic inquiry level rather than the teaching

management level. The second stage (from 2000 to

2007) is the mid-development stage of TCFL

classroom management, at which it can seen that

there are obvious research hotspots. However, the

research hotspots only focus on the level of "teaching

management", but not the level of classroom

management. The strong policy support in China has

promoted the development of TCFL and paved the

way for the next stage of transformation and

development. The third stage (from 2008 to 2014) is

the post-development stage of TCFL classroom

management, at which the research hotspots have

been very obvious and intensive, and classroom

management has been a research hotspot. The

development of Confucius Institutes promotes the

practice of TCFL. At the same time, teachers have

explored the teaching and learning in detail and paid

more attention to classroom management. The fourth

stage (from 2015 to 2022) is the current development

stage of TCFL classroom management. Based on the

third stage, the research hotspots become more

detailed. During the eight years, a total of 335 articles

are published, which objectively reflects the research

hotness of TCFL classroom management. With the

continuous development of China's economy, the

strengthening of the comprehensive strength, and the

improvement of foreign cooperation, TCFL is

becoming more and more internationalized under the

trend of reform and opening up and the change of the

information age.

4 THE VISUALIZATION

ANALYSIS OF SCIENCE

MAPPING OF TCFL CLASS

ROOM MANAGEMENT

RESERCH LITERATURE

4.1 Keyword Co-Occurrence Analysis

of Research Literature

"Keyword word co-occurrence network analysis, also

called co-occurrence analysis, is a text content

analysis technique that identifies the relationship of

related topics in the subject area represented by a text

by analyzing the forms in which pairs of terms (word

or noun phrase pairs) co-occur in the same text topic,

so as to explore the development of the discipline."

(Pan Li, 2000) Keywords are essential in academic

papers. Although they are brief and occupy limited

space in the paper, they are a concise summary of the

content. They can be used not only to retrieve relevant

literature, but also to understand the field of study.

1) The Analysis of High-frequency Keyword

Centrality of TCFL Classroom Management

The saved project file of TCFL classroom

management was selected in Citespace visualization

software, the time zone was set in Time Slicing (2000-

2022), 1 year was selected as the time slice for analysis,

and the node type was selected as Keyword. In this study,

the generated mappings were pruned using Pathfinder,

Pruning silced networks and Pruning the merged

network algorithms. Based on the keyword co-

occurrence mapping, the citation frequency, centrality

and burst rate of keywords about TCFL classroom

management from 2000 to 2022 were exported by

Citespace software. (See Table 1 and Table 2).

Table 1. High-frequency words and high-centricity

keywords in literature (Top20).

Number

Frequency

Centrality

Keywords

187

0.33

0.35

0.36

0.38

0.61

0.04

0.08

0.05

0.36

0.19

0.03

0.04

0.05

0.28

0.37

0.13

0.04

0.15

0.02

0.03

Classroom Management

Teaching Management

Chinese Teaching

Case Study

TCFL

Problem behavior

Chinese as a Foreign

Language

Chinese Classroom

Overseas Students

International Students in

China

Classroom Problem Behavior

Countermeasure

Chinese Classroom

Management

Chinese International

Education

Problem

Strategy

Thailand

TCFL Classroom

Volunteer Chinese teacher

Management

Table 2. The keyword burst rate in literature (Top 10).

Number

Keywords

The Burst Rate

Problem behavior

Thailand

Chinese Classroom

International Students in

China

Colleges and Universities

Philippines

Classroom Problem

Behavior

Coping Strategy

Student Problem Behavior

Questionnaire Survey

3.72

2.49

2.07

2.01

1.88

1.81

1.75

1.68

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"The purpose of science mapping is to better

understand the state and mechanism of scientific

development, so it is important to interpret it.

Mapping interpretation is a work that is both

scientific and constructive natures. The constructive

nature inevitably makes the mapping interpretation

vary from person to person and it is impossible to be

consistent. While the scientific nature requires the

mapping interpretation to be standardized and

rigorous, which needs to follow certain rules and

procedures." (Chen Yue, 2015) High-frequency word

analysis is to extract the frequency distribution of

core content in the literature that can represent the

whole stage. It is used to investigate the main research

points in TCFL classroom management, so as to

predict the future research direction and prospect.

Keywords are the core of an article, so articles are

often based on keywords. Therefore, based on 411

valid articles, keywords were selected as the research

objects for analysis, and Citespace software was used

to visualize and analyze the keywords so as to obtain

the keyword co-occurrence mapping. There were 390

keyword nodes and 500 node links in the keyword co-

occurrence mapping, with a density of 0.0066,

showing that the number of keywords in this field was

large. However, there were fewer links and less

density of association between keywords, so the

research topics in this field were scattered. The

definition of high-frequency words and low-

frequency words was mainly based on the formula

proposed by Donoghue: T=(-I+(1+8I)½)/2, where I is

the number of keywords. The boundary threshold for

high-frequency words and low-frequency words in

the research field was 26.13, i.e., keywords that occur

27 times or more are high-frequency keywords in this

field. As can be seen from Table 1, among all the

high-frequency keywords in the 23-year development

stage of TCFL classroom management (from 2000 to

2022), "classroom management" has the highest

frequency of 187, followed by "teaching

management", "Chinese language teaching", "case

study", "TCFL teaching", "problem behavior",

"TCFL" and so on. In Table 1, it can be seen that the

centrality of each keyword is different. If the

centrality of a node exceeds 0.1, it means that the

node is a central node, indicating that it is more

important and more influential in the research. As can

be seen from Table 1, among all the keywords from

2000 to 2022, "TCFL" has the largest intermediary

centrality of 0.61, followed by "case study", "problem

behavior", "Chinese language teaching", "teaching

management", "classroom management" and other

keywords, indicating that TCFL classroom

management in these 20 years were developed under

the gradual advancement of case study and teaching

practice and they influenced each other. These

keywords can pave the way for the subsequent

research work and reflect the development trajectory

and research focus of TCFL classroom management.

The distribution and linkage of these keyword nodes

objectively show the research trend of TCFL

classroom management in these 23 years. Each

keyword node has its historical roots, showing a

progressive trend in terms of chronological order. The

high-frequency keywords in Table 1 can demonstrate

that TCFL has received strong support from the

national policy and the strong support from the

Ministry of Education during this period, and the

research fields have gradually been hierarchically

obvious and started to have specific branches,

indicating the rapid development of relevant research

in TCFL and the specific planning for classroom

management in the teaching process. Therefore,

TCFL classroom management is closely related to

China's situation and policies, indicating that TCFL

classroom management is a research field associated

with China's major policies during this period.

Foreigners can learn Chinese to better understand

Chinese culture and play a role of cultural

dissemination. At the same time, we can also take

advantage of traditional culture to strengthen our

cultural confidence, so as to better transmit our

traditional culture and improve our cultural influence

in the world.

Figure 3. Overseas Students (Burst Rate: 5.83).

Figure 4. Teaching Management (Burst Rate: 5.21).

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318

Figure 5. Problem Behavior (Burst Rate: 3.73).

Figure 6. Thailand (Burst Rate: 2.48).

Figure 7. Volunteer Chinese Teacher (Burst Rate: 2.35).

Figure 8. Overseas Students in China (Burst Rate: 2.10).

Figure 9. Chinese Classroom (Burst Rate: 2.08).

Figure 10. Chinese Classroom Management (Burst Rate:

1.97).

Figure 3-10. The history curves of keywords with

high burst rate from 2000 to 2022.

From the data in Table 1 and Table 2, it can be

seen that in the keyword co-occurrence network,

there is no significantly positive correlation between

the frequency and centrality of keywords and no

positive correlation between the centrality of

keywords and the burst rate. Based on the relevant

keywords with high burst rates, the curve of keywords

with high burst rate from 2000 to 2022 can be

analyzed. Through these eight historical curves, it can

be found that the fluctuation of "Overseas Students"

and "Teaching Management" is obvious. It can be

clearly seen that in Figure 3, the keywords about

"Overseas Students" have the most publications in

2012, but the number of publications from 2017 to

2020 is zero. It can be clearly seen that in Figure 3,

the keywords on "Overseas Students" have the most

publications in 2012, but the number of publications

from 2017 to 2020 is zero, which shows that the

situation of Covid-2019 has a lot of impact on

overseas students coming to China. In Figure 4, it can

be clearly seen from the figure that teaching

management has developed faster in these 23 years,

and the amount of attention from scholars has

increased year by year, and the overall general trend

is now rising. It shows that "Teaching Management"

is a research hot spot and can be used as a future

research guide. In the rest of the figures, it can be

found that the overall research trend is decreasing,

which shows that there is still no complete system for

the corresponding detailed analysis of classroom

management, and it still presents a multi-dispersed

situation. However, the research on the corresponding

level of classroom management has been advanced

overall in recent years. The Report to the 20th

National Congress of the Communist Party of China

pointed out that the strategy of strengthening the

country through talents should be implemented in

depth, and a large, well-structured and well-qualified

talent team should be built from the perspective of

"invigorating China through science and education

The Visualization Analysis of TCFL Classroom Management Based on Citespace

319

and developing a strong workforce for the

modernization drive". From the perspective of

"building cultural confidence and strength and

securing new successes in developing socialist

culture", it is proposed to enhance the influence of

Chinese civilization, emphasize deepening the

exchange and mutual understanding of civilizations,

and promote Chinese culture to the world.

International Chinese Language Education, as a

medium of Chinese and foreign humanities

cooperation and exchange, should not be neglected in

promoting the high-quality development of

international Chinese education. Classroom

management is a part of teaching management, and

an excellent classroom management program has a

great role in promoting classroom teaching.

4.2 Analysis of Burst Words in

International Chinese Language

Education Classroom Management

The function of Burst detection in CiteSpace can

detect large changes in the number of citations at a

certain time, so as to detect the decline or rise of a

particular subject term or keywords. For Citespace

visualization software, such information is a kind of

deeper measure. The keyword burst can be detected

in combination with keyword clustering analysis. The

intensity and duration of keyword burst can reflect the

hotspots and trends in the research field during a

certain period of time. Therefore, in this study, the

keywords in the international Chinese education

language classroom management literature were

analyzed by using Citespace software, and the results

are shown in Figure 4 and Figure 5.

Interpreting from the order of burst time, the time

span of keyword burst indicates the distance of their

burst time.(Shen Youhua, 2004) The longer the burst

time and the longer the period, the more influential

the keyword is in the academic field. In turn, it can be

identified as the specific distribution of academic

research centers - research hotspots. Only by grasping

the research hotspots can we set them as the preferred

research focus direction for researchers and help

scholars to control the main points of the field. Figure

3 shows that the keyword "Teaching Management" is

the keyword with the longest burst period, from 2000

to 2012, which lasts for 13 years; the keyword

"TCFL" also has a long burst period, from 2000 to

2010; and the burst period of the keyword "Overseas

Students" lasts for 13 years from 2001 to 2013. The

burst intensity values of these three keywords are 5.21,

1.84, and 5.83 respectively, which shows that

classroom management is mainly based on teaching

management. The burst period of keywords at the end

of the graph are short, including "Problem Behavior",

"Chinese Classroom", and "Philippines" three

keywords. Due to the border with China, the

continuous development of Chinese teaching

resources in the Philippines, the enrichment of

Chinese teaching resources and the continuous

improvement of the popularity of Chinese have

gradually improved the problem analysis plan of

Chinese teaching and teaching process in the

Philippines. Therefore, these three keywords are

hoped to be hotspots for research.

Figure 11. The keyword burst graph of international

Chinese language education classroom management

(ranked by year).

Figure 12. The keyword burst graph of international

Chinese language education classroom management

(ranked by burst intensity).

Interpreting from the keyword burst intensity (see

Figure 5), the level of the keyword burst intensity also

determines the influence of keywords.(Rawat Keshav

S., 2021) The keywords "Teaching Management",

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320

"Overseas Students", "Management", "TCFL", and

"International Chinese Language Education"

represent some important aspects of curriculum

management in international Chinese language

education. These keywords have received widespread

attention and become highly influential research

frontier hotspots. According to the comparison of

Figure 4 and Figure 5, it can be found that the same

keywords appear in both figures, such as "Teaching

Management", "Overseas Students", "Management",

"TCFL", etc., which have strong and continuous

influences. While the research hotspots in this field

are changing constantly, they also has their certain

inheritance.

5 CONCLUSION

According to the relevant science mapping by

Citespace software, combined with the development

process of TCFL in China, the number of articles

issued varies greatly and shows a rising trend on the

whole from the time distribution of the TCFL

classroom management research literature. The first

stage (before 2000) is the pre-development stage of

TCFL classroom management. At this stage, there

is no in-depth research and exploration on TCFL

classroom management, but more on how to promote

TCFL, which belongs to the academic inquiry level

rather than the teaching management level. The

second stage (from 2000 to 2007) is the mid-

development stage of TCFL classroom management.

At this stage, the TCFL teaching just entered the

development stage. Although classroom management

is emphasized compared with the previous stage, it is

still not a research hotspot. The research status at that

time is visualized by the slight increase in the number

of published articles. The third stage (from 2008 to

2014) is the post-development stage of TCFL

classroom management. The development of

Confucius Institutes promotes the practice of TCFL.

At the same time, teachers have explored the teaching

and learning in detail and paid more attention to

classroom management. The fourth stage (from 2015

to 2022) is the current development stage of TCFL

classroom management. At the post-epidemic stage,

the forms of TCFL have become diversified. The

combination of TCFL and information science has

provided great convenience for the dissemination and

reception of information. "Online teaching" begins to

become an emerging hotspot. From a comprehensive

perspective, the research field of TCFL classroom

management is expanding continuously and the

research topics are deepening constantly.

In this study, a specific science mapping analysis

of TCFL classroom management was conducted

using Citespace software, which is conducive to

clearly showing the overall development trend, status,

development hotspots and prospects of TCFL

classroom management research in China. It is of

great significance for the subsequent research on

TCFL classroom management. It is hoped that this

study can provide a reference for future research,

which can make rapid progress.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was financially supported by the following

funds:

1) The 2021 Graduate Education and Teaching

Reform Research Project of Bohai University

"The Exploration and Practice of Teaching

Mode of Degree of International Chinese

Language Education in the Post-Epidemic Era"

(Project No.: YJG20210020);

2) The International Chinese Language Education

Innovation Project of the Sino-Foreign

Language Exchange and Cooperation Center of

the Ministry of Education in 2021: "The

Research and Practice of Cooperation in the

Construction of Chinese Language Teachers in

the University of Burundi" (Project No.:

21YH004CX3);

3) The Teaching Resources Construction Project of

the International Chinese Language Education

Chinese Proficiency Level Standard 2022 by the

Sino-Foreign Language Exchange and

Cooperation Center of the Ministry of Education

"The Three-dimensional Development and

Construction of Localized Teaching Resources

for International Chinese Language Education in

the Central African Republic" (Project No. :

YHJC22YB027).

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