Community of Inquiry in Technology-Mediated Collaborative Learning: A Bibliometric Analysis (2021-2025)
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Abstract
Background and Aim: Technology-mediated learning has attracted growing interest in higher education, including applications of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework. This study mapped publication trends, contributors, bibliographic relationships, and research themes in this field between 2021 and 2025.
Materials and Methods: Bibliometric data were retrieved from Dimensions AI on 22 July 2026. Article selection was reported using PRISMA 2020. The initial 37,715 records were filtered by publication year, publication type, research field, Sustainable Development Goal, open-access status, and selected source titles, yielding 278 open-access journal articles. Performance analysis, bibliographic coupling, and keyword co-occurrence analysis using VOSviewer examined publication patterns, citation impact, contributing authors, organizations, countries, sources, and thematic associations.
Results: Annual output increased from 37 articles in 2021 to 67 in 2023, declined to 55 in 2024, and reached 69 in 2025. China and the United States contributed 32 and 31 publications, respectively. A study by Ayanwale received the most citations (291), while Education and Information Technologies demonstrated the highest citation impact among the analyzed sources. Bibliographic coupling identified publication groups sharing reference structures. Keyword co-occurrence revealed three thematic clusters: educational technology, student engagement, and learning effectiveness; CoI and learning interaction; and COVID-19, online teaching, and learner perceptions.
Conclusion: The corpus demonstrates continuing scholarly attention to CoI and technology-mediated learning, highlighting influential contributions and interconnected themes. These findings provide a descriptive foundation for further research. Interpretation and generalization require consideration of database coverage, open-access selection, source-title restrictions, and the predefined search strategy, which delimit the literature’s scope and representativeness.
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