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The effect of technology on learning research trends: a bibliometric analysis over five decades

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Abstract

This study examines the effect of technology availability on traditional and evolving learning research output and trends by using bibliometric tools of analysis. Exponential growth in education and learning research output occurred as of the first half of the 1990s with the introduction of the World Wide Web. Rather than becoming an integral part of learning research, the support of network technologies for learning has grown into a research stream which is separate from traditional research areas such as formal and informal learning. It is affiliated with the sciences, including the medical field, more strongly than with the natural home of educational studies, the social sciences. Keyword analysis indicates terms of broad interest, yet their occurrence in the research publications shows the divergence between traditional learning and technology-based research streams. The community of technology-assisted learning research is undergoing evolution. We provide recommendations to promote a more cohesive research community to better navigate in a borderless digital world where learning occurs formally and informally.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the I-CORE Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee and the Israel Science Foundation 1716/12.

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Correspondence to Daphne R. Raban.

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

See Table 6 and 7.

Table 6 Growth trends of published papers on education and learning categories 1965–2014
Table 7 Accumulation of learning publishing trends by decades

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Raban, D.R., Gordon, A. The effect of technology on learning research trends: a bibliometric analysis over five decades. Scientometrics 105, 665–681 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1690-7

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