60-year Research History of Missing Data: A Bibliometric Review on Scopus Database (1960-2019)

Abstract

Research on missing data was initiated in 1960 and the study on this topic grew exponentially across various subject areas since then. Therefore, this study aims to analyze those studies, specifically journal articles published in the context of missing data. Scopus database and analysis tools were utilized to retrieve all available journal articles related to missing data and its data. Next, due to the large number of articles found in the Scopus database, its information can only be efficiently extracted and combined using Mendeley software. To further obtained insights on the extracted information, VOSviewer was used to obtain network visualization and overlay visualization on authors’ keyword and citation metrics was obtained using Harzing Publish or Perish software. Additionally, the growth of publication, languages used, subject area, countries involved, and publication activity were also presented using bibliometric analysis. In total, 6227 journal articles were found. The record shows that a drastic increment of research in missing data happened in 2016, with 446 publications compared to 361 in 2015. Most of the articles were affiliated with researchers in the United States and were written mainly in English. Mathematics, decision sciences, medicine, and computer science are four subject areas that have high number of articles. It is expected that the publications on this topic will increase significantly in 2020 due to its research trend that is currently blooming in the area of medicine and therefore lead to potential directions for future research.