With the continuous reform of the education curriculum, the focus of the curriculum is to provide personal and social needs-related knowledge. In the teaching process for this type of knowledge, the cultivation of students' higher-order thinking has aroused widespread concern in the education field. In this paper, CiteSpace and HistCite bibliometric methods are utilized to analyse the higher-order thinking literature in the core collection of Web of Science. Through an analysis of the number of articles, the research topic words and the countries from which the papers were sent, the overall characteristics of international higher-order thinking research are summarized. The primary finding of this research is that the field of higher-order thinking is on the rise. Secondary findings are the focus of higher-order thinking research, which can be divided into four aspects: higher-order thinking ability, instruction of higher-order thinking, the curriculum and sections of higher-order thinking, and higher-order thinking learning. In short, this research helps researchers understand the development of higher-order thinking, provides a theoretical foundation and an entry point for research directions, and not only provides meaningful and valuable references for follow-up related research but also promotes the development of higher-order thinking practice.