Research on Students in COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreaks: A Bibliometric Network Analysis

Abstract

Over a billion students worldwide have suffered from school closure since the beginning of COVID-19 due to confinement. Educational Researchers have been illustrating various issues in the form of thousands of publications which signifies a significant academic interest. This review aimed to portray the vast scientific landscape of COVID-19 and students’ experience in the current research directions. As many as 2,055 Scopus-indexed articles released between 2020 and 2021 (online publications) were retrieved by PRIMA guideline to be reviewed. We performed Bibliometric network analysis using VOSviewer software to generate the articles authors’ keywords mapping, temporal authors’ keywords mapping, and country collaboration mapping. Researchers from the U.S., China and the U.K. led the overall published articles. Furthermore, the researchers found nine publications related to student mental health and medical education, which indicate a new trend. On the other hand, Latin American and African countries are the most unproductive in this field. This article presents a complementary educational approach to understanding a comprehensive picture of what researchers worldwide have been doing. Researchers suggest further future reviews of medical & nursing education, distance learning, and social media use in times of a pandemic.