A Bibliometric Analysis on Research Trends of Digital Literacy in Higher Education from 2012 to 2021

Abstract

Digital literacy is a multidimensional concept that encompasses a complex integration of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and cognition dimensions, which gains increased attention in the context of higher education. The objective of this study is to analyze the scientific production of digital literacy in higher education from 2012 to 2021 based on the Scopus database, and reveal the current research trends on this subject. To this end, a bibliometric study was carried out, which first investigated some variables that addressed different features, from the distribution of publications to the most productive countries/regions and the prolific publication venues, and continued with the analysis of the authors and the keywords co-occurrence through VOSviewer software. The results show that the most frequently explored themes in the area of digital literacy can be detected, which focused on the integration of digital technology, ontology research and the educational practices of digital literacy, and the effectiveness evaluation of digital literacy in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of this study are beneficial for researchers to gain a comprehensive understanding of digital literacy in the domain of higher education, and provide new directions for future research.