Mapping the Intellectual Structure in the Field of Educational Management in Iran: Co-Word Analysis

Co-word analysis is a tool to depict the intellectual structure of scientific productions. So the purpose of this study is to map the intellectual structure of research status in the field of educational management in Iran.

This applied research has been done by co-word analysis. The research population includes all original Persian scientific articles indexed in databases, named Normagz, SID, and Magiran. Examples with the four main keywords "educational management", "educational leadership", "school management" and "school leadership" along with their sub-topics and their plural and singular states based on searching for the same phrase and without applying a time limit, during the years 1988 to 2020, between 2nd and 20th of July 2020 were searched.  These keywords were selected according to "Eric Online Thesaurus", "Persian subject headings", "Congress library subject headings", "Educational management culture book" and "consensus of three professors of educational management". To collect data, first, 1066 articles were retrieved by an advanced search of selected keywords, and 891 articles remained after removing duplicate and unrelated items. In the next step, all the keywords of the articles that were under each title of the article were placed in the Excel file in one column, and the keywords in the titles of the articles were examined one by one by the researcher and after getting the final opinion from the experts in the field and they were given in the continuation of keyword column. At first, 3688 keywords including their repetitions (2221 words excluding repetitions) were obtained from the titles and keywords of the articles. After correcting the typographical and space errors that were too much due to the entry of relatively inappropriate information in Persian databases, the phase of assimilation of words began. In the next step, while checking the keywords one by one, referring to the accepted and common keywords (including 56 keywords) with the opinion of experts in the subject area of the research. Finally, a list of keywords was obtained in which all the words with semantic connections were replaced with the general keyword. A number of keywords completely unrelated to the subject area were also removed based on the opinion of subject experts in the field of educational management. Finally, the number of 2203 keywords, including their repetition, remained for further analysis. Afterwards, the researcher replaced the selected and referred keywords in the entire research data. Excel, RavaR Matrix, and UciNet software were used for data analysis and NetDraw was used to visualize the co-word network.

"Educational Management", "Educational Leadership" and "School Management" have been the most common themes in terms of co-word. In fact, these words form the main discussions related to this field. Hierarchical clustering resulted in the formation of 3 clusters in that the educational management cluster has a central and important position as a mature and developed cluster. Educational Leadership and School Management were identified as underdeveloped and emerging or declining clusters and compared to the educational management cluster, they have attracted less attention in the studies of the educational management field.

The study of the knowledge structure in the field of educational management identified the research status that can be a roadmap for future research. In the field of educational management, the issues surrounding learning leadership and school management as immature and underdeveloped clusters need more attention in future research. Therefore, if attention to these issues is placed on the agenda of the country's educational system, we will see more prosperity in the field of educational management in the future. Therefore, pushing the scientific community toward these issues and conducting research in this direction will be practical and fruitful.