ISSN: 2226-6348
Open access
Interprofessional collaboration and consultation have become increasingly important in special and inclusive education due to the growing complexity of supporting students with disabilities. Despite expanding scholarship in this area, the literature remains fragmented across disciplines, methods, and geographical contexts, limiting a comprehensive understanding of its development. This study conducts a global bibliometric analysis of research on interprofessional collaboration and consultation in special education published between 2020 and 2025. A total of 903 Scopus-indexed journal articles and review papers were analysed using VOSviewer to examine publication trends, influential countries, international collaboration networks, and emerging research themes. The findings indicate sustained growth in publication output, particularly after 2022, with output rising from 96 documents in 2020 to 301 in 2025, reflecting a cumulative growth of 213.5%. Research contributions are concentrated in high-income countries, although participation from underrepresented regions particularly in Asia and the Middle East has gradually increased. Thematic analysis identifies five keyword clusters anchored in inclusive education, disability support, digital collaboration, professional capacity building, and research methodology. This study clarifies the intellectual landscape of the field and offers insights for future research, policy development, and practice in special and inclusive education.
Baas, J., Schotten, M., Plume, A., Côté, G., & Karimi, R. (2020). Scopus as a curated, high-quality bibliometric data source for academic research in quantitative science studies. Quantitative Science Studies, 1(1), 377–386. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00019
Dettmer, P., Thurston, L. P., & Dyck, N. (2013). Consultation, collaboration, and teamwork for students with special needs (7th ed.). Pearson.
Donthu, N., Kumar, S., Mukherjee, D., Pandey, N., & Lim, W. M. (2021). How to conduct a bibliometric analysis: An overview and guidelines. Journal of Business Research, 133, 285–296. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.04.070
Friend, M., & Cook, L. (2017). Interactions: Collaboration skills for school professionals (8th ed.). Pearson.
Fullan, M. (2016). The new meaning of educational change (5th ed.). Teachers College Press.
King, G., Strachan, D., Tucker, M., Duwyn, B., Desserud, S., & Shillington, M. (2021). The application of a transdisciplinary model for early intervention services. Infants & Young Children, 34(2), 120–135.
Mongeon, P., & Paul-Hus, A. (2016). The journal coverage of Web of Science and Scopus: A comparative analysis. Scientometrics, 106(1), 213–228. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1765-5
Murawski, W. W., & Bernhardt, P. (2016). An administrator's guide to co-teaching. Educational Leadership, 73(4), 30–34.
Prenger, R., Poortman, C. L., & Handelzalts, A. (2019). Factors influencing teacher collaboration in professional learning communities. Teaching and Teacher Education, 86, Article 102921. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.102921
Resnik, D. B. (2020). What is ethics in research and why is it important? National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Thistlethwaite, J., Kumar, K., Moran, M., Saunders, R., Carr, S., & Yates, K. (2020). Interprofessional education: A review of context, learning, and the research agenda. Medical Education, 54(1), 58–70.
UNESCO. (2020). Global education monitoring report 2020: Inclusion and education: All means all. UNESCO Publishing.
van Eck, N. J., & Waltman, L. (2010). Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics, 84(2), 523–538. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3
van Eck, N. J., & Waltman, L. (2014). Visualizing bibliometric networks. In Y. Ding, R. Rousseau, & D. Wolfram (Eds.), Measuring scholarly impact (pp. 285–320). Springer.
Wagner, C. S., Whetsell, T. A., & Mukherjee, S. (2015). International research collaboration: Novelty, conventionality, and atypicality in knowledge recombination. Research Policy, 44(7), 1315–1322.
Azhari, M. H., Lokman, A. N., Hussain, M. A., & Rashid, S. M. M. (2026). A Global Bibliometric Analysis of Interprofessional Collaboration and Consultation in Special Education: Trends, Networks, and Emerging Research Themes (2020-2025). International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 15(2), 304–314.
Copyright: © 2026 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode