This paper summarizes research on instructional design and technology by analyzing over 41,000 papers published in 65 journals indexed in the Scopus database between 2007-2017. The authors identified the most prolific authors, cited works, and originating institutions and countries. They found that authors from Taiwan, China, and the Netherlands were among the most published. Limitations included not all relevant journals being indexed in Scopus and limited analysis to the past 10 years. This study provided a comprehensive overview of trends in the field to help guide its future research directions.

1. SUMMARY OF RESEARCH TRENDS IN
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND
TECHNOLOGY JOURNALS
A PAPER PUBLISHED BY :
ROBERT BODILY , HEATHER LEARY AND RICHARD E. WEST
ASMAA ALBASOOS, AZEER AL_ZADJALI

2. “If you do not know history, then you do not know
anything. You are a leaf that does not know it is part
of a tree” (Crichton, 1999, p. 73).

3. INTRODUCTION
• Broad and Meta field
• Embedded in many other disciplines
• Define the field by its scholarship

4. PRACTITIONER NOTES
WHAT IS ALREADY KNOWN
ABOUT THIS TOPIC?

5. Previous
trends studies
have
retrieved
papers by
hand. This
limits their
scope.
The field of
instructional
design and
technology
(IDT) is
broad and
diverse.
It is difficult to
understand the
breadth of
scholarship in
IDT due to its
interdisciplinary
nature.

6. WHAT THIS
PAPER ADDS
.

7. • The IDT field has a
large international
presence.
1
• Understanding the
research trends
within IDT is
essential to know
where to go in the
future.
2
• There is a large
focus on hard,
computer-based
technologies in the
published
scholarship.
3

8. • There appeared to
be a lack of recent
scholarship on
learning theories
and design
frameworks.
4
• Author
collaboration and
co-authorship is
related to an
increase in paper
citations.
5
• Scopus and Google
Scholar h5 citation
metrics seem to be
related, and reliable
with each other.
6

9. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
AND/OR POLICY
.

10. Triangulating
journal metrics
can reduce the
individual
biases of any
single metric.
International
events and
collaborations
can continue
to strengthen
the IDT field.
IDT
scholarship is
very disparate
and
unconnected.

11. LITERATURE REVIEW
• Interdisciplinary
• Perkins and Lowenthall (2016) identified 23 open access journals
in the field of educational technology and created a list of 247
potential journals in our field
• Veletsianos compiled his own list of 68 open access education
technology journals

12. LITERATURE REVIEW
• Single-Journal Analyses (21 papers)
• Journal of Distance Education, Instructional Science, Journal of
the Learning Sciences, Educational Technology Research and
Development
• insight into the trends, authorship, topics and methods being
researched

13. ANALYSES ACROSS JOURNALS

14. THREE PAPERS IN THE LAST 5 YEARS HAVE
EXPLORED IDT RESEARCH AREAS ACROSS MULTIPLE
JOURNALS
Hung, and Ching (2013) explored six educational
technology journals covering 2000–2010
In 2014, West and Borup analyzed data from 10 of the
papers published in the Educational Technology series,
covering 2001–2010
Baydas et al.(2015) also explored the research trends in
educational technology in two journals, this time
covering 2002–2014

15. They summarized previous studies exploring IDT scholarship, focused
on the
• Methodologies used
• Topics
• Authors
• Citation trends.
They report the top subjects as:
• Learning approaches/theories
• Learning environments
• Most common methodologies in order of quantitative, qualitative,
review or meta-analysis, and mixed methods.

16. OTHER ANALYSES OF IDT SCHOLARSHIP
OTHER RECENT PUBLICATIONS HAVE REFINED THEIR FOCUS OF UNDERSTANDING IDT
SCHOLARSHIP.

17. . .
One focused on the
research trends in
instructional design
models
Another publication
focused on the academic
productivity of 20
instructional design
departments in the field
Yet another aimed to
understand the influence
of scholars on each other
by doing a citation
analysis
They found
system-based
models are most
common
This work aimed to
be more
comprehensive in
the data collected.
They found the
10 most
influential
scholars in the
field

18. WHAT IS MISSING: THE GAP IN
UNDERSTANDING OUR SCHOLARSHIP

19. WHAT WE STILL NEED TO KNOW
• To understand the historical and current trends of the
entire field. Being too broad or too narrow in the definition
of inclusion is a gap the field is wrestling with.
• Gathering historical data from Scopus is difficult because it
often does not exist and current data depends on journals
being indexed by the database

20. METHODS
expansive analysis of the literature
published in the Scopus database

21. METHODS
• Database (Scopus) Selection why ?
• Larger data
• API access

22. METHODS
• Journal Inclusion Criteria
Manual search of the following keywords:
• technology AND (learning OR education OR school OR instruction)
• computer AND (learning OR education OR school OR instruction)
• online AND (learning OR education OR school OR instruction)
• distance AND (learning OR education OR school OR instruction)
• media AND (learning OR education OR school OR instruction)
• learning, instruction and e-learning

23. METHODS
Total number of journals = 144 journal + journals from other analyses
Total number of journals = 144 journals + 11 journal
Total number of journals = 155
Total number of journals = 155 – journals does not fit IDT
Total number of journals = 65

24. METHODS
• Data Retrieval
• Python programming language
• 41 969 papers retrieved

25. DATA ANALYSIS
Once they retrieved the data and made it accessible in a
spreadsheet, they analyzed it by sorting to determine:
• The top authors
• Cited works,
• Originating institutions and countries.
Because a large portion of journals were not indexed in Scopus
before 2007, they limited their analysis to the previous 10
years (2007–2017).

26. RESEARCH
LIMITATIONS
THIS STUDY HAS SEVERAL
LIMITATIONS TO CONSIDER

27. • First, not all papers and journals focused on the
topic of IDT are indexed within Scopus.
• Second, the data set was limited by the search
terms used to extract the paper data.
• Third, the analysis does not take into account the
number of researchers within a department or
country.

28. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Top Authors
• Dr Gwo-Jen Hwang is Professor of Graduate Institute of Digital Learning and Education at the
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Research interests include mobile learning,
ubiquitous learning, digital game-based learning and artificial intelligence in education.
• Dr Chin-Chung Tsai is Chair Professor of the Program of Learning Sciences at National Taiwan
Normal University. Research interests include science education, computers & education, and
educational technology.
• Dr Yueh Min Huang is professor at National Cheng Kung University. Research interests include
e-learning multimedia systems.
• Dr Nian-Shing Chen is chair professor at National Sun Yat-sen University. Research interests
include educational robots, gesture-based learning, game-based learning and synchronous
teaching & learning.

29. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Top Authors
• Dr Timothy Teo is Distinguished Professor of Education at University of Macau. Research interests
include structural equation modeling, educational psychology, psychometrics, technology
acceptance and quantitative Methods.
• Dr J.M. Voogt is Professor of Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Universiteit Van
Amsterdam. Research interests include teacher education and technology integration.
• Dr Wu-Yuin Hwang is a Distinguished Professor of Network Learning Technology at the National
Central University in Taiwan. Research interests include innovation in education, learning technology
and ergonomics.

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NUMBER OF PUBLICATIONS

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Number of Publications