Visualization in mathematics education: Research trends and thematic evolution

Visualization is central to mathematical cognition, though the study of visualization in mathematical education (VME) has taken diverse, interdisciplinary directions. This paper seeks to critically chart the intellectual landscape, conceptual development, and research nature of VME literature. A revised bibliometric search strategy was implemented in the Scopus database using an expanded TITLE-ABS-KEY query that combined visualization-related terms with mathematics-education-specific terms. After applying document type, language, publication-year, duplicate-removal, and relevance-screening criteria, a final corpus of 279 journal articles published between 2014 and 2024 was retained for analysis. VOSviewer and Biblioshiny were used to conduct bibliometric mapping, thematic analysis, and temporal evolution to analyze patterns of publications, journals, and authors that emerged and disappeared, as well as influential collaboration patterns, thematic clusters, and research directions. Results indicate that studies on VME have been gradually increasing, with major contributions from the social sciences, mathematics, and computer science. The findings also indicate uneven geographical distribution and varying thematic concentration across VME research. This research offers a synthesis of VME research, organized by structural, thematic, and temporal perspectives. Also, the findings contribute to future visualization-focused mathematics education research by supporting stronger theoretical integration, methodological soundness, and broader contextual and technological representation across diverse educational settings.