ObjectivesTo survey the domestic research situation of evidence-based education through visual studies. To summarize the utilization of education evidence in China and promote the process of evidence-based practice concepts and methods application in social science fields, so as to facilitate the domestic evidence-based research towards more scientific and practical. Methods WanFang Data and CNKI databases were searched to collect evidence-based education literatures from inception to December, 2017. Tableau and UCINET software were used to conduct visual and co-word analysis of study types, regions, staff, time, foundation/government support and key words. The social evidence based research situation was sketched. Results A total of 54 literatures were included. Beijing and Guangdong province published the most literatures, followed by Zhejiang province and Tianjin municipality. The quantity of literatures published in 2014 reached the peak of 11 articles, followed by 2016 and 2017, and relatively few in remaining years. We found that " evidence-based pedagogy” owned the highest frequency through building core keywords matrix. Conclusions Evidence-based education in China is still at an early stage. Introduction and promotion is currently the main content. There exists problems remaining in the development of evidence-based education, for instance disjointedness of theory and practice, regional unbalance, and deficiency of original-research. It is still a long way to go.
Evidence-based education (EBE) is the integration of professional wisdom and the best available experimental evidence to make educational guiding decisions. EBE aims to improve the scientificity and effectiveness of educational policies, decisions and practices through the combination of evidence-based research and personal professional experience, so as to improve the quality of education and teaching. This paper focuses on the definition, connotation, characteristics, implementation principles and the background of EBE.