Trends of generative AI applications in educational settings

With the development and widespread adoption of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), educational institutions and scholars worldwide have begun exploring the potential contributions and applications of GenAI in education. This study aimed to identify the primary research directions of GenAI in education using keyword co-occurrence analysis, by revealing the commonly used keywords for GenAI application in educational research as well as the correlations between different research topics. The results indicate that current research on GenAI in education primarily focuses on learners' perceptions of using GenAI and literature reviews of GenAI in education research. Over time, studies on the evaluation of the learning effectiveness of GenAI have increased; however, there are still fewer studies on the testing and development of GenAI as a teaching support tool and the application of GenAI as an evaluation and feedback tool. Moreover, there is a notable lack of analysis of the cognitive and behavioural characteristics of learners during the learning process of GenAI. Based on the analysis results, this study provides recommendations for future research within each research category.