Mathematics Learning from Concrete to Abstract (1968-2021): A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Mathematics learning is illustrated as a developmental progression in the direction of concrete-to-abstract by educational theorists. Various studies rooted in this notion were conducted in the past. This study aimed to profile the landscape of research rooted in this notion which was published from 1968 to 2021. The bibliographic data of 425 related publications were retrieved from the Scopus database for bibliometric analysis. Descriptive analysis and regression analysis were performed to profile the publication trend. Then, author bibliographic coupling analysis was carried out to identify the domains of research related to mathematics learning from concrete to abstract. The findings show an increasing trend of publication following the exponential model. The research was clustered into five research domains: (i) 'manipulatives and arithmetic learning'; (ii) 'mathematics learning of students with learning disabilities'; (iii) 'Concrete-Representational-Abstract sequence in elementary mathematics teaching'; (iv) 'Ideal mathematics teaching'; and (v) 'mathematics problem-solving and mathematics learning of students with autism spectrum disorder'. The two emergent research domains in this research area are (i) 'mathematics learning of students with learning disabilities'; and (ii) 'mathematics problem-solving and mathematics learning of students with autism spectrum disorder', which have the highest proportion of publications since 2015. The findings of this study can help researchers to understand the current landscape of research with the notion of mathematics learning from concrete to abstract, and hence propose pathways for future research.