British Journal of Educational Technology doi:10.1111/bjet.12753 Vol 0 No 0 2019 1–20 © 2019 British Educational Research Association Tracing research trends of 21st-century learning skills Vered Silber-Varod , Yoram Eshet-Alkalai and Nitza Geri Vered Silber-Varod serves as the Director of the Open Media and Information Lab (OmiLab) at The Open University of Israel. She is a former Research Fellow at the Research Center for Innovation in Learning Technologies. Her research interests focus on various aspects of speech sciences and speech and text analytics, with expertise in speech prosody, conversation intelligence and speech technologies. Yoram Eshet-Alkalai is a Full Professor at the Open University of Israel, Department of Education and Psychology, and Head of the MA program in Technology and Learning Systems. He is the founder and formerly Head of the Research Center for Innovation in Learning Technologies. His major research interests focus on digital literacy, cognitive aspects of working with digital technologies, academic dishonesty, online reading, digital games and design principles of computer-based learning environments. Nitza Geri is an Associate Professor at the Open University of Israel, Department of Management and Economics, and Head of Accounting studies. Formerly, she was the Head of the Research Center for Innovation in Learning Technologies. Her research interests focus on the value of information and knowledge: strategic information systems, information economics, attention economy, knowledge management, value creation, theory of constraints and effectiveness of e-learning. Address for correspondence: Vered Silber-Varod, The Open University of Israel, 1 University Road, Ra’anana, Israel, 4353701. Email: vereds@openu.ac.il, veredsilber@gmail.com Introduction Today, with the constant introduction of fast and ever-changing educational technologies, in- structors and learners alike are challenged with the need to master a wide range of competen- cies, collectively termed 21 st -century (21-C) learning skills (Hwang, Lai, & Wang, 2015; Voogt & Roblin, 2012). Due to the frequent changes in learning technologies and learning environments, Abstract Recently, learning technologies have become a pivotal constituent of teaching–learning processes. Contemporary studies indicate that in order to effectively utilize these technologies, instructors and learners alike must master a range of cognitive and socio- emotional competencies, commonly termed “digital literacy competencies” or “21 st century skills.” This study employs a content analysis methodology to trace trends of change in the research of core digital literacy competencies as reflected in the educational academic literature of the past 37 years (1980–2016). Based on well- established frameworks of digital literacy competencies, this research examined seven skills: Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Critical thinking, Information literacy, Problem-solving and Socio-emotional skills. Data were collected through advanced search queries of peer-reviewed publications in the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) database. Findings reveal that among the examined terms, Communication is the most prominent digital literacy skill, followed by Problem Solving and Collaboration. Furthermore, within the context of Skills, the most prominent terms are Information Literacy and Critical thinking; Technology and Collaboration are least mentioned. Our findings suggest that awareness of digital learning competencies in educational research literature is marginal, implying that educational research seems to lag behind the need to understand the ever-changing digital competencies that instructors and learners need.