In the course of discipline development, summarizing and analyzing the existing research results is the only way for researchers to understand the context of discipline development, explore the law of discipline development and improve the theoretical system of discipline ( Zhang et al., 2019). With the advancement of the research on university ranking in China, there have been some summary research results in recent years. Li Wenbing (2007) combed the literatures of China’s university rankings and found that relevant research mainly focused on the comparison of different university rankings, the ontology of university rankings, doubts about China’s university rankings, and suggestions for rationalization of rankings. Wang Shanshan (2010) divided China’s university ranking research into four stages: the budding period, the development period, the prosperity period, and the contending period. She refined the academic research topics into six aspects: ontology research, axiology research, comparative research of rankings, research on ranking evaluation subjects, research on ranking principles and strategies, and criticism and defense of rankings. Yang Jiebing and Liu Shiqing (2016) used the method of bibliometric analysis to analyze the literatures on Chinese university rankings published in core journals collected by CNKI during the period 2003-2013. Sun Chengmengxue (2017) took the literatures related to university ranking from 1994 to 2017 collected by CNKI as samples, and adopted the method of content analysis to analyze the research on university ranking in China from five aspects: research trend, keywords, the sources of literatures, institutions and contents. The above studies have made a phased summary of the research on China’s university ranking, and also provided convenience for the follow-up research on this topic. However, these studies also have some problems, including: single research methods, mainly text analysis, less use of other methods; small sample selection, it is difficult to fully reflect the research status; lack of research tools, etc.

According to the classification and statistics of 46 literatures, the figure of the number of papers published each year on university ranking is obtained (Figure 2). As can be seen from the figure, the average number of papers published each year is 2.7. The number of papers published is 1 in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2011. The number of papers published is 2 only in 2009, 3 in 2010, 2014 and 2016, and 4 in 2008, 2013, 2015, 2018 and 2019. There are no master’s and doctoral dissertations in 2004 and 2006. The largest number of dissertations was 6 in 2017. From 2003 to 2007, a total of 3 papers were published. During this period, China’s university ranking was still in its infancy. After 2008, the number of related master’s and doctoral dissertations in the field of university ranking gradually increased, and more and more scholars began to pay attention to the research of university ranking.

By classifying the sample literatures according to the degree-granting units, the statistical table of degree granting units of master’s and doctoral dissertations in university ranking is obtained (Table 1). From 2003 to 2019, there are 35 universities’ dissertations related to university ranking. Among them, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Hunan University, Southwest University and Hunan Normal University each have 3 papers, 12 in total, accounting for 26.1% of the total. Guangxi Normal University, Nanjing Normal University and Northwest Normal University each have two papers, a total of 6, accounting for about 13% of the total. The other 28 degree-granting units have only one article, a total of 28 papers, accounting for 60.9% of the total.

A total of 40 tutors are involved in 46 dissertations. On average, each teacher directed 1.15 dissertations. From this point of view, the number of tutors is relatively abundant. Among them, Yu Xiaobo and Gao Xiaoqing have the most guidance times, and both of them have three times of guidance. The second is Mr. Liu Niancai, whose guidance times are two. It can be seen from the above that there are 3 teachers who have given guidance twice or more, accounting for 7.5% of the total. There are 37 tutors, whose guidance time is 1, accounting for 92.5% of the total. The detailed statistics of tutor’s guidance are shown in Table 2.

The 46 literatures are sorted according to the cited frequency from high to low, and the top 10 cited frequency are sorted into Table 3. The most frequently cited dissertation “Research on Indicators and Impact of University Ranking” from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2010 was cited 59 times, secondly, the master’s dissertation “National University Rankings Comparative Study of Index System” from Changsha University of Science and Technology in 2010, which was cited 27 times, followed by the master’s degree dissertation “National University Rankings Comparative Study of Index System—Such as Wu Shulian List, Wangda List, and Zhongping List” from Hunan Normal University in 2014, with the cited frequency of 22. The detailed statistics of citation frequency (top 10) are shown in Table 3.

The 46 literatures are found to involve 17 majors. For example, management science and engineering, education economics and management, higher education,

sociology, applied statistics, information science, English language and literature, etc. The detailed statistics of the frequency of disciplines and majors are shown in Figure 3. The 46 literatures are found to involve 8 disciplines, which are pedagogy, management, sociology, economics, mathematics, engineering, literature, and politics. Detailed statistics are shown in Figure 4. Among them, the highest frequency is education, followed by management.

Key words are the high generalization of the core content of the paper, and play

an important and key role in revealing and describing the subject content of the literature ( Chen, 2011). A total of 93 keywords are obtained from 46 literatures. Among them, there are 2 with the frequency of 10 or above, accounting for 2.2% of the total keywords. There are 15 keywords whose frequency is greater than or equal to 2, accounting for 16.1% of the total and 76 keywords with frequency of 1, accounting for 81.7% of the total. The highest frequency is “university ranking”, which is 39, “index system” followed, which is 18. The information is shown in Table 4.