The Research Trend of Employability in HE From 2000 to 2019--A Visual Analysis Using Citespace

Abstract

Employability is about having the capability to gain initial employment, maintain employment and obtain new employment. Research on employability in each country is increasing because of the serious situation of graduate unemployment. There are lots of studies on employability from the range of its concept, key elements, to supports to raise the employability in higher education. Employability has been variously defined in terms of organization and policy. As long as the various studies about employability were published, it had been difficult to identify a big picture and directions for future research. CiteSpace, which is designed to analyze existing literature by co-citation networks, can provide a clear picture of the research in this field. This paper investigated and visualized the research trends of employability in higher education around the world. We constructed a framework for trends analyses based on theoretical reviews. All the data was collected on Scopus, one of the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. 661 articles published in international journals in past 2 decades were collected and analyzed. In terms of contributing countries, the major driving force is from the United Kingdom, and Australia. Yorke M, Harvey L and Tomlinson M are top cited authors. In terms of the popularity of research topics, recent employability research has mainly focused on university activities, class act, career planning, lunar side and international internship.