Care research in infant and toddler education using text mining trend analysis

Objectives The purpose of this study is to analyze the overall trend of care research and obtain directions and implications for follow-up research by exploring trends in ‘care’ research in infant and toddler education using text mining. Methods Method For this purpose, the title, keywords, and Korean abstract of the paper were analyzed through text mining. The subject of analysis was a total of 76 degree and academic journal papers published in Korea from 2004, when care research emerged in infant and toddler education, to 2024. Results Using LDA analysis, the text mining analysis results were visualized as a word cloud, and as a result of the analysis of papers over the entire analysis period, the most frequent keyword was ‘infant/toddler teacher’, and the same pattern was seen in the keywords analyzed by curriculum period. Research on care in infant and toddler education conducted over the past 20 years has focused on ‘infant and toddler teachers’ and ‘infants and toddlers’, and although there are a small number of topics related to care in infant and toddler education in each curriculum period, discourse analysis and social change have continued to be conducted. It was confirmed that the studies reflected had been conducted steadily. In the care discourse on infant and toddler education, it was confirmed that interest in physical and mental self-care is increasing, from parental care and infant and toddler teacher care to public care that the state is responsible for and society works with. Conclusions By conceptualizing the characteristics that emerged from the analysis results, we categorized the discovered knowledge, and suggested that academic discussions on the policy agenda for care in early childhood education should be active and implications for self-care.