Visual Analysis of Ideological and Political Education in Optics Curriculum Based on CiteSpace Knowledge Graph

Abstract

The construction of Curriculum-based Ideological and Political Education (CIE) serves as a strategic measure to implement the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education, with professional courses acting as the fundamental carrier for its advancement. Optics, a pivotal branch of physics and an interdisciplinary field linked to optical engineering technology, is a highly applied core professional course that integrates classic theories with modern technologies. Thus, it is imperative to explore the synergistic development of professional education for applied physics majors and CIE in the optics curriculum. In recent years, universities offering optics courses have accumulated certain practical experience in CIE, yet prominent issues such as unbalanced development, inadequate exploration and homogenization still persist. Based on this, this study adopts the knowledge graph analysis method, taking 187 Chinese journal papers from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database during 2019-2025 as research samples. With the aid of the CiteSpace analysis tool, a visual bibliometric analysis of the sample literatures is conducted to trace and explore the knowledge evolution and logical context of CIE research in China's optics curriculum, aiming to reveal the cutting-edge hotspots and research trends in this field. The findings indicate that since the formal proposal of the CIE concept in 2019, the number of relevant research papers has increased at an average annual rate of 156.3%, marking the entry into a stage of rapid development. In terms of research content, the themes extend multidimensionally with CIE as the core, covering ideological and political education, CIE cases, CIE elements and other related contents. In terms of research subjects, the current research is relatively scattered, and a complete collaborative network has not yet been formed among research institutions and authors. Overall, under the background of fostering virtue through education in the new era, CIE research in the optics curriculum exhibits a strong policy-driven characteristic. In the future, China's CIE research in the optics curriculum should strengthen inter-regional, inter-university and inter-team cooperation, deepen the synergistic integration of CIE cases and educational practice, further highlight problem orientation, and respond to the mission of the times.