Mapping the evolution of digital learning and student engagement: scopus-based bibliometric analysis of themes and trends

Abstract

This study examines and maps the intellectual structure of research linking digital learning and student engagement, a body of work that has expanded rapidly across several disciplines and become difficult to see as a whole. Addressing the absence of a single consolidated map at this specific intersection, it applies bibliometric analysis to journal articles indexed in Scopus, retrieved with a title–abstract–keyword strategy that combined digital-learning and engagement terms and limited to open-access, final-stage, English-language articles. The retrieved set comprised 771 records; after a transparent, rule-based validation step that set aside one record dated outside the coverage range, 770 articles published between 2023 and 2026 formed the analytical dataset. Keyword co-occurrence, citation, temporal-overlay, and co-authorship analyses were visualised in VOSviewer. Author-keyword analysis shows that the field is organised around a core of online learning (178 occurrences), student engagement (164), and higher education (144), with a recent shift (average publication year ≥ 2025) toward personalised learning, technology-enhanced learning, digital learning, educational technology, and artificial intelligence. Citation influence concentrates in 2023 and centres on chatbots, generative AI, self-efficacy, and interaction in online classes, led by a study on chatbots for goal setting and social presence (224 citations). Scholarly contribution is broadly distributed: 94.5% of the 2,685 contributing authors appear on a single article, indicating a wide community of many independent teams. The study contributes a consolidated, evidence-based map in which engagement functions as the conceptual hinge between the technological and psychological strands of digital-learning research, and it shows that recent attention is moving toward intelligent and personalised digital environments.