Research Trends in Education in the Context of COVID-19 in Spain: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

COVID-19 has caused many difficulties worldwide, education being one of the most affected areas. This research aims to disseminate the research trends about education in the context of COVID-19 in Spain. Through a systematic review, all research works about this topic in the Spanish context, that were published between 2020–2022 in national and international high-impact journals, have been analysed. After analysing 242 articles, the results show: (a) the keywords that were used most frequently: “learning” (93); “teaching” (53); “higher education” (43); “pandemic” (30); “competence” (29); and “ICT” (22); (b) research trends, which can be categorised as the following topics, among others: “ICT and Digitalisation”; “Teaching, Learning, and Innovative methodologies”; “Educational Policies”; “Sustainability”; “Acquisition and Development of Skills and Competences”; “Health and Welfare”; (c) that the most popular topic in educational research in Spain was “Teaching, Learning, and Innovative Methodologies” (19.30%), followed by “ICT and Digitalisation” (18.04%), whereas articles about educational policies were a minority (2.85%); (d) that in Spanish educational research, articles about formal education have been the most popular (86.36%), followed by articles about non-formal education (7.02%) and articles about informal education (6.62%). Consequently, the scientific community has highlighted the impact of the pandemic on education, especially in relation to “Teaching, Learning, and Innovative Methodologies”.