Global Trends in School Immersion Programs: A 50-Year Bibliometric Analysis and Transferable Insights for Malaysia

Abstract

This study examines the development of global school immersion program research over the past five decades by identifying publication trends, influential contributors, thematic evolution, and emerging research directions while deriving lessons for Malaysia’s multicultural educational context. A bibliometric analysis was conducted using 1,491 journal articles indexed in the Scopus database between 1976 and 2026. Performance analysis and science-mapping techniques were applied using Harzing’s Publish or Perish and VOSviewer to analyse publication patterns, citation performance, collaboration networks, and keyword co-occurrence relationships. The results reveal substantial growth in school immersion program research, particularly after 2015, indicating increasing global interest in immersion-based education. Research output is dominated by the United States and Canada, while bilingual education, language immersion, and intercultural learning remain the core themes. Keyword analysis shows a gradual expansion towards medical education, experiential learning, virtual reality, e-learning, and professional competency development. The findings suggest that immersion scholarship has evolved from a language-focused domain into a broader interdisciplinary field encompassing educational, behavioural, technological, and professional learning contexts. The study extends the conceptualisation of school immersion from language-focused learning towards a broader interdisciplinary conceptual framework integrating intercultural, behavioural, experiential, technological, and competency development dimensions. The findings provide insights for policymakers and educational institutions, particularly in Malaysia, to strengthen immersion-related planning, teacher preparation, intercultural learning, and technology-enhanced educational initiatives. This study offers one of the earliest comprehensive bibliometric analyses of school immersion program research, providing a structured understanding of its intellectual development, research gaps, and future directions.