Research and Trends for Educators, Staff and Administrators in Distance Education: Content Analysis of Distance Education Journals (2008-2018)

Abstract

This study examines the research trends and gaps of educators, staff, and administrators in distance education articles from 2008 to 2018. Ten peer-reviewed journals were selected from the SCImago Journal & Country Rank portal, and 3504 articles in the journals were scanned. Four hundred sixty-one of them were analyzed using document review methodology through content analysis concerning various criteria (keywords, role names, research variables, design, sample size, etc.). The analysis revealed the following: (i) few studies have focused on educators, staff, and administrators in the last decade, and there has been little focus on the experiences of administrators (ii) they have mainly focused on the role of the teacher, professional development, quality, and professional qualifications (iii) regional interest shows, that the USA, China, and the U.K. are the leading countries (iv) The qualitative research method was primarily used and interview, as a data collection method was most preferred qualitative data mainly, was analyzed using content analysis (vi) The research samples are generally small (< 50). The findings based on the increasing research trends related to educators, staff, and administrators lead to the emergence of potential research areas and the design of distance education strategies. The study also provides directions for future research.