Trends of Positive Youth Development Publications (1995–2020): A Scientometric Review

In recent decades, the positive youth development approach has gained momentum among researchers and practitioners who focus on youth potential and adolescent well-being. In this study, 1435 academic works on positive youth development (PYD) are collected from the Web of Science using CiteSpace, reviewed and analyzed. First, the number, subject distribution, country, and institution of published papers are presented, and the author collaboration network involved in PYD is analyzed using network analysis. The results show that authors and institutions in Western societies are the main contributors to PYD research and that interdisciplinary collaboration is gradually growing. Using document co-citation analysis, research hotspots in the field were investigated. Furthermore, the research frontiers and trendy topics in PYD from 2010 to 2019 were found by using burst detection, and research gaps were identified. The findings provide research directions for future PYD studies in the field of applied quality of life research.