Immersive technologies in health professions education: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Immersive technologies are playing an increasingly crucial role in revolutionizing health professions education, as they provide students with realistic and interactive learning experiences. These experiences better prepare them for the complexities and challenges they will encounter in real-world healthcare practice. To comprehensively explore the growth, trends, and patterns at the intersection of immersive technologies and health professions education, a bibliometric analysis was conducted in May 2023 using the Clarivate Analytics - Web of Science Core Collection database. Specifically, we conducted a thorough descriptive examination of various facets within the dataset of 956 bibliographic records, obtained through a systematic literature search. We presented descriptive insights from this scientific literature at multiple levels, including the article (e.g., most frequent words, important themes, trends of keywords), journal (most productive, and most cited journals), affiliation (most productive affiliations), and country (most productive, and most cited countries) levels. Furthermore, we explored the conceptual, intellectual, and social structures of this field of study, represented by the co-occurrence network, co-word network, and collaboration network, respectively. These analyses collectively painted a comprehensive picture of the research landscape within the realm of immersive technologies in health professions education. This study not only contributes to the identification of trends and gaps in the literature but also provides actionable insights for educators, researchers, and policymakers regarding influential players, resource allocation, and global collaboration.