The Philosophy of Sport and Physical Education: Four Decade Publication Trends via Scientometric Evaluation

Abstract

The study purpose was to look into the production of scientific publications on the Philosophy of Sports and Physical Education.
 Materials and methods. Scopus and Web of Science databases and various bibliometric indicators such as global publication trends, most active authors, number of citations, and author keywords were used to collect publications.
 Results. A total of 1103 publications on the philosophy of sport and physical education were found from 1981 to 2021. This review used data in comma-separated values (CSV) format for Scopus, which was then exported to Microsoft Excel and text documents in WoS format, as well as ScientoPy software. The research findings provide information that, from 1981 to 2021, publications experienced a fluctuating trend in quantity. Starting in 2016, publications have reached double digits, with the number of publications reaching 71 documents. The United States is listed as the most productive country with a number of published documents as high as 226 academic scientific works. Ryall, E., University of Gloucestershire, United Kingdom, became the most prolific author with a total of 33 publications. The Department of Philosophy in the United States is at the forefront of publications with 39 documents.
 Conclusions. A number of limitations in this study are unavoidable. First, the research method used by researchers is not completely perfect, including how to find documents, categorize documents, and document provider databases, which cannot be ignored. Researchers believe that this scientometric research provides important information about future research directions in the philosophy of sport and physical education.