*Article* **Current State and Future Trends: A Citation Network Analysis of the Academic Performance Field**

**Clara Martinez-Perez \*, Cristina Alvarez-Peregrina , Cesar Villa-Collar and Miguel Ángel Sánchez-Tena**

School of Biomedical and Health Science, Universidad Europea de Madrid, 28670 Madrid, Spain;

cristina.alvarez@universidadeuropea.es (C.A.-P.); villacollarc@gmail.com (C.V.-C.);

miguelangel.sanchez@universidadeuropea.es (M.Á.S.-T.)

**\*** Correspondence: claramarperez@hotmail.com

Received: 6 June 2020; Accepted: 22 July 2020; Published: 24 July 2020

**Abstract:** *Background*: In recent years, due to its complexity and relevance, academic performance has become a controversial research topic within the health and educational field. The main purposes of this study were to analyze the links between publications and authors via citation networks, to identify the different research areas and to determine the most cited publications. *Methods*: The publication search was performed through the Web of Science database, using the term "Academic Performance" for a time interval from 1952 to 2019. The software used to analyze the publications was the Citation Network Explorer. *Results*: We found a total of 16,157 publications with 35,213 citations generated in the network, and 2018 had the highest number of publications of any year. The most cited publication was published in 2012 by Richardson et al. with a citation index score of 352. By using the clustering function, we found nine groups related to different areas of research in this field: health, psychology, psychosociology, demography, physical activity, sleep patterns, vision, economy, and delinquency. *Conclusions*: The citation network showed the main publications dealing with the different factors that affect academic performance, and it was determined that psychological and psychosocial factors were the most relevant.

**Keywords:** academic performance; citation network; motivation
