The Past, Present, and Future of Research on Mathematical Giftedness: A Bibliometric Analysis

There is a well-established historical background of research on mathematical giftedness that can be traced back to the early 1900s. An overarching purpose of this research was to review and explore the existing research and its evolution since its emergence in educational and psychological studies. Thus, we examined the past, present, and future of research on mathematical giftedness using a bibliometric analysis. Our findings provided extensive insights into the intellectual structure of the extant literature on mathematical giftedness, including the leading journals, articles, countries, authors, institutions, and networks among researchers as well as key research topics that were investigated in the literature. Perhaps one of the most striking findings of this study was about the productivity in the field over the years as the bibliometric analysis indicated a decline in the number of publications that were published in the last several years. We discussed possible factors behind the recession in research investigations on mathematical giftedness and provided significant implications of the findings to inform future research.