A bibliometric analysis of scholarly literature related to digital literacy in higher education during the pandemic period

Abstract

Digital literacy has been a popular research topic in the areas of library and information science, computer science, and education. Whereas emergence of the pandemic further facilitated the exchange of these fields. This study investigated scholarly articles about digital literacy over a 4-year time span and tried to depict the future research trends in higher education after the pandemic by employing the method of science mapping and visualizing to identify the prospective themes. Through analysing the collected data, results indicated that studies of digital literacy in higher education during the pandemic mainly focused on the application, evaluation, and challenges of digital literacy faced by students and teachers, but there were other themes from the perspectives of pedagogy, psychological well-being, and equity that will be addressed more in future studies. The findings of this study provide a further understanding of research trends and are beneficial for practitioners to gain insight.

Keywords:

• Digital literacy
• bibliometric analysis
• higher education
• post-pandemic

Reviewing Editor:

• Luis Francisco Pedro, Department of Communication and Arts, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal

Subjects:

• ICT
• Adult Education and Lifelong Learning
• Higher Education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yong Tan

Yong Tan holds a Master of Arts degree in literature studies and was a previous lecturer teaching English major students at universities in China. He is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Education at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. His main research interests focus on educational technologies in language teaching and learning, EFL teaching and learning, higher education studies, and digital literacies.