Arnesen, K. T., Hveem, J., Short, C. R., West, R., & Barbour, M. K. (2018, March). K-12 online learning: Trends from two decades of scholarship. A full paper presentation to the annual conference of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, Washington, DC.

1. K-12 ONLINE LEARNING:
TRENDS FROM TWO
DECADES OF
SCHOLARSHIP
Karen T. Arnesen, Joshua Hveem, Cecil R. Short,
Richard E. West – Brigham Young University
Michael K. Barbour – Touro University California

2. Methodology—Finding the Articles
Searched
sources
specific to
the field
(such as
Handbook
of K-12
Online and
Blended
Learning,
etc.)
Step
1
Searched
authors’
Google
Scholar and
faculty
profiles for
articles and
references in
the articles.
Step
2
Contacted 44
scholars and
two
organizations
to suggest
articles we
may have
overlooked.
Step
3
Found
356
articles
(from
1994 to
2016).
Step
4
An
outside
scholar
verified
process
and
results.
Step
5

3. Author Analysis
Author Analysis—384 distinct authors; ranked by number of articles and
position of authorship.
Top 11 authors: Michael K. Barbour (57), Cathy Cavanaugh (19), Ken
Stevens (18) Elizabeth Murphy (16), Charles Graham (15), Margaret
Roblyer (14), Jered Borup (14), Leanna Archambault (12), Diana Greer
(11), Dennis Beck (10), Niki Davis (10)
Of note: 276 authors (just under 75% of the authors) published only
one article; more than half of these articles were published from 2011
though 2016, perhaps indicating a growth in interest in K-12 online
learning and newer scholars.

4. Position of Authorship
The number of articles and the number of authors have grown over the years.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
NumberofArticles
Years
Positions of Authorship
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th

5. Top Publishing Journals
Top journal
published 7%
of the total
articles.
132 journals
published four
or fewer
articles.
102 journals
published one
article. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Journal of Online Learning Research
American Journal of Distance Education
International Journal of E-Learning & Distance…
Journal of Open Flexible and Distance Learning*
Journal of Technology and Teacher Education
TechTrends
The Morning Watch
Distance Learning
International Review of Research in Open and…
Quarterly Review of Distance Education
NUMBER OF ARTICLES
JOURNALS
Top 10 Journals

6. Top-cited Articles
486 479
432
364 350 344
302 298
245 241
222
170 170
150 149
134 121 110 107 107
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
CITATIONS
ARTICLE
Number of Citations

7. Top 3 Articles
1. Cathy Cavanaugh (2001). “Effectiveness of interactive distance
education technologies in K-12 learning: A meta-analysis.”
International Journal of Educational Telecommunications, 7(1), 73-88.
2. Archambault, L. M., & Crippen, K.J. (2009). Examining TPACK
among K-12 online distance educators in the United States.
Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1).
3. Barbour, M. K. & Reeves, T. C. (2009). The reality of virtual
schools: A review of the literature. Computers and Education, 52(2),
402-416.

8. Types of Top-20 Articles
4
5
2 2
7
DESCRIPTIVE INFERENTIAL INTERPRETIVE MIXED THEORETICAL
NumberofArticles
Article Type
Types of Articles

9. Top-cited Articles by Year
0 26 29 19 11
61
298
74
486
170
344
52
364 350
150
241
479
107 101
170
245
63
18 80
100
200
300
400
500
600
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
NUMBEROFCITATIONS
YEAR
Top Articles Cited by Year
Eleven articles from this list are also included in the top-20 cited articles.

10. Types of Articles Being Published
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
NumberofArticles
Years
Types of Articles
Theoretical Interpretive Descriptive Inferential Mixed

11. Articles Published per Year
1
3 3 4 3
7 6 6
9
11
5
14
12
16
22
33
25
20
23
31
40
27
35
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
NumberofArticles
Year
Articles per Year

12. Conclusions
 Although the field of distance education is large, we found the field of K-
12 online learning to be much narrower—but growing.
 Familiar names are frequent authors, but in the last few years there has
been a rapid growth of new articles and new authors.
 This infusion of new scholarship will lead to new ideas and trends in this
discipline.
 The field of K-12 online articles were at first primarily theoretical but is
now maturing and emphasizing increasingly more data-driven articles.
 We did not find just one journal dominating the discussion, but articles
are spread across a wide variety of journals. This provides rich publishing
opportunities but may make discerning trends across the discipline more
difficult. Thus, meta-analysis and literature reviews are valuable and
should be encouraged.

13. QUESTIONS

14. THANK YOU
Karen Arnesen, Joshua Hveem, Cecil Short, Richard West, Michael Barbour