Research in Distance Education: Identification of the Most Explored and Neglected Themes in Papers Published from 2002 to 2021

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Leandro de Oliveira
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Moraes, Juliana Lopes, Paes, Deise Ferreira Fernandes
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: EAD em Foco
• Texto Completo: https://eademfoco.cecierj.edu.br/index.php/Revista/article/view/1860

With the enactment of the Law of Directives and Bases of National Education, distance education was regulated. Since then, the offer of courses in this modality has grown significantly. This growth is reflected in the articles published over the last twenty years, which discuss the most different aspects of distance education. Here we present the results of a quantitative research, which investigated publications of 13 specialized journals in distance education and 78 non-specialized journals, from 2002 to 2021. We identified 1266 articles from specialized journals and 100 articles from non-specialized journals with topics directly related to distance education, classified into 45 different categories. After categorizing the entire sample space, we decided to focus our attention on articles from specialized journals, since these journals are dedicated to publishing specific research in the area. Considering these journals, the ten categories with the most articles were: Course/Program; Tutor/Tutoring; Material/Instructional Design; Discipline; Subjects; Information and Communication Technologies; Digital tools; Revision; Distance Education x classroom, and Inclusion/Accessibility. The ten categories with the fewest published articles were: Feedback; Innovation in Distance Education; Student conception; Public Policies and Distance Education; Skills; Learning styles; Active methodologies in Distance Education; Flipped classroom; Motivation, and Virtual Silence. We hope that the results obtained will help researchers to take a new look at distance education, suggesting aspects that still need further investigation and, in this way, contributing to the development of future research. Keywords: Distance education. DE. Integrative review.