Teachers’ digital intelligence learning competence (TDILC): a literature map from Chinese and global perspectives

Under the global background of AI education, current research has focused on the static digital literacy or competence of teachers, while studies exploring the dynamic teachers' digital intelligence learning competence (TDILC) are relatively scarce. This study aims to conduct a cross-cultural comparison to reveal the current status of TDILC development and to explore the practical mechanisms for promoting TDILC development. By integrating policy frameworks, relevant academic literature, theoretical analyses, and the concept of teacher professional development, this study constructs a theoretical framework for TDILC. Using CiteSpace and VOSviewer software, a total of 4861 documents on TDILC from the CNKI (2205) and WOS (2656) databases covering the period 2000–2025 were analyzed. The results indicate that studies based on CNKI-indexed research mainly focus on teachers' human-machine interactive learning competence, while WOS-indexed research mainly focuses on teachers' personalized and ubiquitous learning competence based on artificial intelligence. The global common focus is on the ethical issues of AI applications. This study proposes the theoretical structure and practical mechanisms of TDILC and provides important academic references for global research on teachers' lifelong learning.