Data obtained by means of keystroke logging software, which records all writing events, i.e., all keypresses with their time stamps, are widely used in different research fields and practical applications – from early detection of cognitive impairments to user authentication. Keystroke logging software have become especially popular in writing studies since it allows researchers to observe writing processes unobtrusively and increases their understanding of what happens “behind the scenes” of text production. This methodology has been used in writing studies since the advent of affordable computers in the 1990s, however, there has still been no bibliometric review that would provide a holistic picture of this field and identify hot topics and trends, perform citation analysis and identify the most productive authors and countries in the field of writing research using keystroke data. This paper is pioneer research to conducting a bibliometric analysis on the field “keystroke analysis to study writing” aimed at filling in the gap. A search was conducted in the bibliographic database Scopus on July 11, 2024. We included studies published in English post-2000 that discuss the use of keystroke data and methodology to study writing process. This review followed the guidelines of the PRISMA protocol to perform the study search and selection. The search yielded 336 documents of which 273 met out inclusion criteria. The records retrieved were analysed using the bibliometrix R-package and VOSviewer software. Using these tools in combinations, we implemented both performance analysis which examines the contributions of research constituents to a given field and science mapping which is aimed at revealing the relationships between research constituents. The contribution of this study is twofold. Firstly, it provides an in-depth bibliometric analysis of an actively developing field of research which is rather limited in terms osf the countries and institutions involved (and the languages of the texts analysed), hopefully saving time and effort for researchers new to the field. Secondly, we provide an example of using bibliometrix and VOSviewer for a bibliometric analysis which could be easily replicated in further research.
Data obtained by means of keystroke logging software, which records all writing events, i.e., all keypresses with their time stamps, are widely used in different research fields and practical applications – from early detection of cognitive impairments to user authentication. Keystroke logging software have become especially popular in writing studies since it allows researchers to observe writing processes unobtrusively and increases their understanding of what happens “behind the scenes” of text production. This methodology has been used in writing studies since the advent of affordable computers in the 1990s, however, there has still been no bibliometric review that would provide a holistic picture of this field and identify hot topics and trends, perform citation analysis and identify the most productive authors and countries in the field of writing research using keystroke data. This paper is pioneer research to conducting a bibliometric analysis on the field “keystroke analysis to study writing” aimed at filling in the gap. A search was conducted in the bibliographic database Scopus on July 11, 2024. We included studies published in English post-2000 that discuss the use of keystroke data and methodology to study writing process. This review followed the guidelines of the PRISMA protocol to perform the study search and selection. The search yielded 336 documents of which 273 met out inclusion criteria. The records retrieved were analysed using the bibliometrix R-package and VOSviewer software. Using these tools in combinations, we implemented both performance analysis which examines the contributions of research constituents to a given field and science mapping which is aimed at revealing the relationships between research constituents. The contribution of this study is twofold. Firstly, it provides an in-depth bibliometric analysis of an actively developing field of research which is rather limited in terms osf the countries and institutions involved (and the languages of the texts analysed), hopefully saving time and effort for researchers new to the field. Secondly, we provide an example of using bibliometrix and VOSviewer for a bibliometric analysis which could be easily replicated in further research.
Tatiana A. Litvinova acknowledges the support of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation (the research was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation within the framework of the state task in the field of science, topic number QRPK-2024-0011). Olga V. Dekhnich received no financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article.