Research Trends in Liberal Arts Studies Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic Using LDA Topic Modeling

Abstract

This study analyzes the changing trends of research topics in liberal arts studies before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to investigate the impact of the pandemic on research trends in liberal arts studies, identify changes and new trends in recent years with the pandemic, and contribute to the search for the future direction of liberal arts studies in the post-COVID-19 era. To achieve these objectives, we applied keyword frequency analysis and LDA topic modeling analysis as text mining technologies to analyze the keywords and topics of research papers in liberal arts education before and after the pandemic. Our findings revealed meaningful differences in the topics and keywords of papers in liberal arts education studies before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. We interpret these results as reflecting the changes and directions of liberal arts education in the actual field. We also analyzed individual papers on extracted topics and keywords to more elaborately interpret the results and the meaning of the analyses. The results showed that new topics, such as COVID-19 and untact, emerged after the pandemic. The frequency of topics related to online education also increased after the pandemic. We also found an expansion of convergence and integration related to research topics in liberal arts education, as well as a considerable increase of interest in topics regarding artificial intelligence, literacy, and PBL after the pandemic. Based on the interests of researchers and trends in liberal arts education research, this study contributes to ongoing efforts to learn more about the impact of COVID-19 on the actual educational practices of liberal arts education. It is also significant in that it enables the observation and prediction of changes and trends in the research and actual fields of liberal arts education in the future.