Author(s)

Meiting Huang ¹

Affiliation(s)

¹ Department of General Education, Tourism College of Zhejiang, Hangzhou, China

Corresponding Author

Meiting Huang

ABSTRACT

Artificial intelligence has become increasingly important in education, yet its development in vocational education remains underexplored. This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of 85 English language journal articles and reviews retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. It examines publication trends, key contributors, and thematic patterns in this field. The results show that research output was limited before 2020 but increased rapidly after 2021, reaching a peak in 2025. China was the most productive and most cited country, while citation impact across institutions, journals, and authors was uneven and often driven by a small number of highly cited studies. Keyword co-occurrence analysis identified four main thematic areas related to data-driven technologies, intelligent instructional support, learner-centered development, and future-oriented applications. These findings suggest that research on artificial intelligence in vocational education is growing rapidly, although the field has not yet developed a fully coherent intellectual and thematic structure. 

KEYWORDS

Artificial intelligence, Vocational education, Bibliometric analysis, Keyword co-occurrence, Educational technology

CITE THIS PAPER

Meiting Huang. Artificial Intelligence in Vocational Education: Trends, Contributors, and Thematic Developments. Curriculum and Teaching Methodology (2026). Vol. 9, No.2, 162-170. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23977/curtm.2026.090220.

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