Meta-Regression-Based Co-Word Analysis

Meta-regression-based co-word analysis is a hybrid scientometric technique that enriches traditional co-word mapping by weighting keyword co-occurrence networks with meta-regression-derived effect estimates. Instead of treating all documents as equally informative, the method uses statistical regression to incorporate study-level moderators — such as publication year, sample size, or methodological quality — into the co-occurrence structure, revealing how thematic clusters in a research field vary across moderator conditions.