International Comparative Study On Educational Technology’s Research Status And Trends In China, USA, UK And Australia

Under the trend of education informationization, the academic influence and practical utility of educational technology receives increasing recognition from the academic and educational circles. In the face of rapid development of the field and challenge within, fully understanding of research focus and trend in the field overseas can provide reference to the development of educational technology in China. For the academic journal announces, spreads and accumulates the results of scientific research and its academic guiding role, researchers can obtain knowledge of research focus and trends within a certain period of time by analyzing the articles published in journals of influence and reputation.The study gathered bibliography of articles published between 2010 and 2014 by four journals included in the Social Science Citation Index and Chinese Science Citation Index in the field of Educational Technology(EDTECH) from CNKI and Web of Science(Wo S) separately. The study applied Word Frequency Analysis, Multi-Variate Analysis(Factor Analysis, Cluster Analysis and Multi-Dimensional Scaling Analysis)and Social Network Analysis methods in examining key words and descriptors with the aid of software, such as SATI, Excel, SPSS and Uci Net, visualized the results to reveal the research areas with research status and trends by country, and followed by a comparison discussion. The author hope to inform the EDTECH community of China about the trends of EDTECH research on topics and the differences between China and the developed countries. Recommendations for the development of educational technology in China are also included. The author believes that such examination of trends can help facilitate fruitful discussions of directions for future research.