Over the past twenty years in the 21st century，the research on Tao Xingzhi’s educational thoughts has been advancing steadily on the overall scale. The research mainly focuses on the interpretation of ideological text and the analysis of the application of thought in practice. It shows a transformation from theoretical research to the combination of theory and practice. The macro topic selection is given priority to the combination of macro and micro topics；There are three basic trends in the transformation from historical research methods to the integration and application of various research methods. Although tao Xingzhi’s educational thought theory system has withstood the test of The Times，there are still some problems such as few high-quality local innovation research results，lack of research on returning to subjectivity and influencing factors，and being constrained by essentialism thinking mode.