A Bibliometric Analysis of Research on Teacher Burnout in Higher Education: A Comparative Study of Chinese and Global Literature

Abstract

This study offers a comparative bibliometric analysis of research on teacher burnout in higher education using data from the Web of Science and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) spanning January 2001 to June 2025. Drawing on standard science-mapping techniques implemented in CiteSpace, the analysis examines publication trajectories, leading institutions, and thematic structures via keyword co-occurrence, clustering, temporal evolution, and burst detection. Results show steady global growth with pronounced acceleration after 2019, and a broadly similar expansion in the Chinese literature, though with distinct thematic emphases. International scholarship clusters around stress, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, depression, and faculty populations, reflecting a sustained psychological and organizational orientation. By contrast, the Chinese scholarship more frequently prioritizes practical concerns such as performance, intervention strategies, occupational stress, social support, and teacher development. Temporal patterns suggest convergence in recent years on cross-cutting topics including work–life balance, psychological capital, and emotional labor. Collectively, the findings delineate both common ground and divergence in how teacher burnout in higher education is conceptualized and studied across contexts, and they highlight opportunities for cross-cultural synthesis, methodological integration, and policy-relevant inquiry.