ABSTRACT

This study uses bibliometrics and social network analysis methods to investigate the characteristics of the most cited research papers in the Web of Science (WoS) database in virtual patient (VP) studies in interactive learning environments. We identify the most cited studies from the WoS database and then visualize and analyze the research data using bibliometric analysis and VOSviewer. The studies in the dataset were published in 294 different journals in 17 countries between 1989 and 2020. The highest-volume journal was found to be Medical Teacher, and the United States (US) was the country with the highest yield of published studies. The most frequent keywords were virtual patients, simulation, virtual reality, and medical education. The research results show that publishing articles in journals with high impact factors improves the quality of research. The trends in VP research further lay the foundation of bibliometrics for scholars and identify researchers, scientific journals, countries, hot topics, and relevant fields for VP literature. The most cited research uncovers new horizons in the field, providing research inspiration for investigators.

摘要

本研究使用文献计量学和社交网络分析方法来调查交互式学习环境中的虚拟患者（VP）研究中科学网（WoS）数据库中被引用最多的研究论文的特征。我们从 WoS 数据库中确定被引用最多的研究，然后使用文献计量分析和 VOSviewer 可视化和分析研究数据。1989 年至 2020 年间，数据集中的研究发表在 17 个国家的 294 种不同期刊上。发现发表量最高的期刊是Medical Teacher，而美国（US）是发表研究成果最高的国家。最常见的关键词是虚拟患者、模拟、虚拟现实和医学教育。研究结果表明，在高影响因子的期刊上发表文章可以提高研究质量。VP研究的趋势进一步为学者奠定了文献计量学的基础，并确定了VP文献的研究人员、科学期刊、国家、热点主题和相关领域。被引用最多的研究揭示了该领域的新视野，为研究人员提供了研究灵感。