Analysis of Digital Literacy of University Students by Text Mining Techniques

Objectives The purpose of this study is to comprehensively review digital literacy research for university students at the present time, closely analyze research trends by field, lay the foundation for future digital literacy research, and suggest research directions. Methods From 2007 to 2024, the NetMiner data analysis program conducted keyword frequency analysis, keyword network analysis, and community analysis of academic papers related to ‘university student digital literacy’ posted to domestic journals for about 17 years. Results First, the number of publications related to ‘university student digital literacy’ has increased since 2007 for the first time, showing the best posting performance with 31 articles (24.8%) in 2023. Second, ‘competence’ was revealed as the most important keyword, followed by ‘education’, ‘learning’, ‘media’, and ‘information’. The highest simultaneous occurrence frequency was identified as ‘competency-information’, followed by education-media, competency-evaluation tool, education-learning, media-information, liberal arts-education, education-competence, competency-learning, media-competence, nursing-learning, education-information, competency-startup, and competency-utilization. Third, connection centrality was shown in the order of competency, education, learning, thinking, society, media, and media, and mediation centrality was shown in the order of competency, education, media, social media, thinking, media, and proximity centrality was analyzed in the order of highest competency, followed by education, learning, thinking, society, media, and media. Conclusions This study analyzed the research trends of digital literacy among domestic university students to identify the core competencies and related variables of digital literacy, and to confirm the necessity of the development of digital literacy education in the changing educational environment. University students' digital literacy skills have an important influence on various learning and social activities such as information search, problem solving, online communication, and creative expression, which will require future research to establish itself as an essential competency in the era of the 4th industrial revolution.