Characteristics of Interdisciplinary Knowledge Flow in Sports Science Based on Citation Analysis

Taken 79,758 sports science research papers collected from the core collection data in Web of Science from 2011 to 2020 as samples, the characteristics of interdisciplinary knowledge flow of sports science from the two dimensions of knowledge absorption and knowledge diffusion are analyzed by the methods of literature measurement and visualization. The results show that the knowledge absorption of sports science mainly comes from the journal groups such as health, nursing, medicine, molecular genetics, biology, psychology, pedagogy, sociology and rehabilitation, etc., and has gradually formed a relatively stable interdisciplinary research model. In the corresponding time period, the knowledge diffusion breadth of sports science increases logarithmically with time; the knowledge diffusion intensity shows the characteristics of power-law distribution, while the knowledge diffusion speed increases exponentially with time. 15 disciplines such as orthopedics, surgery, rehabilitation, physiology and other are the core disciplines of knowledge diffusion for sports science while the research fields of interdisciplinary knowledge flow mainly focus on sports trauma, sports physiology, sports rehabilitation, sports psychology, sports sociology, sports system engineering, sports neuroscience, sports health and environment, sports nutrition, sports biomechanics, physical education and teaching, children's sports and geriatric sports medicine, etc.