A decade of digital competency: emerging themes and trends

This study applies latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) to analyse 2288 articles on digital competency (DC) from Scopus (2015–2024). It identifies key research themes, tracks their evolution and highlights shifts in research priorities. Fourteen topics emerged, with ‘Teacher Education’ being the most prominent. Post-COVID-19, DC research surged, with notable growth in ‘Scales for Digital Competency Measurement’ and ‘Higher Education and COVID-19 Digital Transformation’. ‘Business and Industry 4.0 Transformation’ showed the highest inter-topic acceleration. Conversely, interest in ‘Social Media Use’ and Psychological Well-Being’ declined. Although smaller in volume, the ‘Healthcare’ theme gained momentum. Visualization revealed thematic clusters around education, business transformation and assessment methods. The findings demonstrate a shift toward emerging fields, reflecting technological advances and evolving societal needs.