A Co-Citation Network of Young Children’s Learning with Technology

ABSTRACT This paper used a novel literature review approach—co-citation network analysis—to illuminate the latent structure of 87 empirical papers in the field of young children’s learning with technology (YCLT). Based on the document co-citation analysis, a total of 206 co-citation relationships among the 87 papers were identified and then graphically visualized as a network diagram. Accordingly, the five most highly co-cited pairs in the co-citation network were identified. Moreover, seven research streams in the network (three located in the main component, four scattered in the peripheral area) were characterized based on a general assessment of the document research domains. Of these, “technology-assisted language learning” was denoted as the main stream, and “digital literacy” (active from 2008 to 2013) was identified as the emerging stream of the YCLT research network. Looking inside, the six most central papers within the above two research streams were recognized in terms of centrality measures. Furthermore, on the basis of the analysis of follow-up research, the current and future extension research topics are discussed.