Research on Competition in Education in China Since the Reform and Opening up: the Number of Papers Pub-lished in Journals from CNKI and its Interpretation

Abstract

Competition in education refers to the situation or activity in which educational subjects compete for victory. This study focuses on the periodic literature of CNKI and identifes three stages of Chinese scholars’research on competition in education as a social phenome-non: the embryonic stage from 1983 to 1990, the developmental stage from 1991 to 2005, and the stable stage from 2005 to the present. The characteristics of these three stages are as follows: 1. In the embryonic stage, the number of papers is growing exponentially, and qualitative research is the primary research method used to construct the theory of competition in education; 2. In the developmental stage, academic pa-pers on competition in education increase annually, while research methods continue to build from previous stages and expand in depth and scope; 3. In the stable stage, the number of studies reached its maximum and remained constant. Research methods evolved from qualitative and theoretical research to practical and quantitative research.