Blended learning in higher education: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the past literature on blended learning in higher education and investigate the research trends on this subject. Thus, it aims to present a roadmap for future studies. In this context, bibliometric and descriptive analysis methods were used in the study carried out with the descriptive survey model. 1970 studies were accessed using the Web of Science (WoS) database to reach the data within the scope of the research. As a result of the filtering process on the database, the distribution of the relevant publications by year, document type, publication language, country and WoS indexes, the most influential institutions and research, cooperation between institutions and countries, the most cited authors, and the most studied topics were reviewed. According to the research results, the studies on blended learning in higher education were primarily published in the form of articles in English between the years 2002-2021. It is also deduced that Spain stands out, especially in producing publications, and these studies are generally published in the Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Science & Humanities (CPCI-SSH) index type. The most active journal with high citation density is Computers & Education, and the country that collaborates most is England. Regarding the keywords used in the articles, while the concepts of online learning, higher education, and student participation are prominent in the studies conducted in the first years, the concepts such as flipped classrooms, Edmodo, sustainability, gamification, mobile learning, and emotions came to the fore in the following years. In this context, discussions were conducted within the framework of the literature, and suggestions were made related to the findings obtained.