Digital education: Mapping the landscape of virtual teaching in higher education – a bibliometric review

Abstract

Abstract Virtual teaching gained momentum for its ability to drive education continuity in times of disruption. As a result, the implementation of virtual teaching has piqued the attention of the higher education sector to leverage the affordances of this mode of instructional delivery, even in times of non-disruption. This study aims to conduct a review of virtual teaching in the higher education sector to reveal the key research trends of previous publications and areas of focus for future research. A bibliometric analysis is used to identify the key topics, themes, authors, sources, articles, and existing collaborations. To achieve this, papers indexed in the Scopus database between 2012 and 2023 were examined and analysed using VOSviewer. The findings of the study are provided through a quantitative analysis that gives a high-level overview of virtual teaching in the higher education sector and highlights the key performance indicators for the creation of articles and their citation through tables, graphs, and visualisation maps. The research yielded a total of 5,663 publications, of which 2,635 published articles were included in the analysis. The findings reiterate virtual teaching as a move in the direction of sustainable education as its assists in democratising knowledge. The analysis highlights the multifaceted nature of the research topic on virtual teaching, revealing six distinct yet interconnected thematic clusters. This study provides a holistic picture of virtual teaching in the higher education sector by integrating the analysis results with pertinent reviews of literature and makes recommendations for future research.