COVID-19 and Education: History
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José-Antonio Marín-Marín

COVID-19 has produced a transformation in society that has, in turn, influenced the field of education. The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of COVID-19 on education using the Web of Science database. A methodology based on bibliometrics was used. Specifically, a scientific mapping of the literature was carried out, as well as a co-word analysis on the state of the question. The analysis included 940 publications. The results show that the institution with the highest volume of production in this field is the University of London. Among the journals, the Journal of Chemical Education stands out. Furthermore, in the analysis of the structural and thematic development of co-words, a high percentage of keyword matching was observed. In 2020, the motor themes were mental-health, organic-chemistry, general-public, first-year-undergraduate, and upper-division-undergraduate, while in 2021, they were autism-spectrum-disorder, adoption, internet, and intervention. It can be concluded that investigation into COVID-19 in the educational field is in its initial process. 

  • bibliometric
  • scientific mapping
  • scimat
  • education

1. Introduction

No one could foresee the impact that the global pandemic due to COVID-19, which shook the world throughout 2020, would have [1]. That year will be remembered as the year of the pandemic and will go down in history because more than 1.5 billion people around the planet were confined to stop the spread of SARS-CoV2, the causal agent of COVID-19 [2][3]. The state of alarm decreed by several countries led to strict confinement. It affected society socially, economically, psychologically, and educationally [4][5].

On the European continent, in March and from one day to the next, face-to-face classes were suspended. This forced the transformation of all university teaching to the online format [6]. It was an unplanned emergency adaptation, and this has served to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the current university [7].

Despite the progress of information and communication technologies (ICT), COVID-19 has highlighted the absence of knowledge on the use of digital resources and educational platforms that contemporary society has [8]. The competence shortages in digital matters by teachers and students have hampered the transformation of educational scenarios towards digital, up to the moment, face-to-face encounters [9]. Educational institutions had not realized the importance of different digital learning environments until the arrival of this pandemic [10]. In addition, COVID-19, as well as the lack of technological resources and digital competence, increased the complexity of teaching [11].

Nonetheless, classes were virtualized, and a model designed for face-to-face teaching was adapted [12], which was implemented at all educational stages [13]. We have managed to adapt in times of pandemic, transposing elements from one model to another, but without retouching or rethinking educational design [14].

The virtual campuses of the universities resisted. Although they were designed as a complement to face-to-face teaching, they assumed all the teaching activities of all degrees [15]. The teachers did not have, on many occasions, sufficient digital skills. On the other hand, the students sometimes had limitations (in their family residence, some lacked the technological means necessary to work at maximum performance, or the desirable level of internet connection) [16]. Too much effort has gone into adaptation, which has undoubtedly made us discover the benefits of technology, but it has also highlighted the digital divide [17][18].

Regarding the teaching methodology, this has materialized with an immediate learning of video-conferencing tools between the months of March and April 2020 [19]. As the second most used tool in emergency transposition, the slide presentations were complemented with a background voice-over or narration [20]. This instructional panorama involved great inconveniences for training plans of university races based on practice, such as medicine, architecture, engineering, arts, and others. In these cases, the content and practices had to be adapted in specific centers to a purely digital environment. All of this brought with it a mediatic and training impact, due to the formative deficiencies of these students and future professionals in the near future [21][22][23][24].

Finally, as of June 2020, the evaluation processes began, which had to be carried out completely virtually [25]. Universities improved their virtual campuses, and the race began for the transposition of final exams that saturated the virtual university campuses because they brought together hundreds of students in a synchronous way to take tests for which very little time was allowed. This situation seriously stressed the entire university community [26].

The challenge continues; the evolution of the health situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic is uncertain and social and community health care is a priority. It is time to reflect on options and make profound and coordinated changes in education. Without any doubt, it is time to address new educational models of an active nature [27].

2. Justification and Objectives

This study derives from the impact that COVID-19 has had on the teaching and learning processes, a fact that continues to occur now [28]. In this sense, science advances quickly, above all, on topics of special relevance to the present, as is everything related to COVID-19. Recently published studies can improve knowledge and reduce the gap on the status of the issue by means of their findings. This is especially so in the field of health, because of the importance of knowing the most recent information on vaccines and treatments. The field of education also acquires a relevant value in society, to train future generations. For this reason, this research is valuable for the purpose of analyzing the volume of publications carried out on the status of the matter. This will serve to settle the knowledge bases on what was studied by different expert researchers in the field of education. This will create new progress and proposals to inform, act, and improve education in times of academic uncertainty.

To find out how this pandemic is causing alterations in educational systems around the world, this research was carried out from a bibliometric perspective of the scientific literature. Bibliometry is postulated as a research methodology focused on the analysis of scientific publications on a specific question or focus of study [29][30]. This allows the scientific community to know the progress and significance that a theme or construct has achieved throughout its existence [31].

An essential aspect of a bibliometric study is the selection of an adequate database. In this case, the analysis was produced on the basis of the Web of Science (WoS) database. The selection of this database is justified in the fact that it is considered one of the databases that compiles a large volume of studies concerning the field of social sciences, with education being framed in this field [32][33].

The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of COVID-19 (and its derived names) in documents indexed in WoS. This will allow us to establish the bases of the knowledge generated by this question. In addition, it will serve as a reference to initiate future studies by the scientific community. Therefore, this work represents an exploratory vision of COVID-19 in the field of education.

Therefore, the objectives of this research are focused on knowing the documentary performance in WoS of COVID-19 in the field of education, determining its scientific evolution, revealing the most significant topics covered in the literature, locating the most influential authors so far, and predicting the themes and motor authors.

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su13105452

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