A Comprehensive Analysis of Teacher Professional Learning Communities: A Scopus Based Review (2019–2024)

Professional learning communities (PLCs) play a pivotal role in fostering continuous professional development for educators. However, the broad picture of PLCs has been under investigated in recent years. We filled this research gap by conducting a mixed systematic review of PLCs. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) model, 27 publications from Scopus between 2019 and 2024 were extracted and analyzed. Our analysis primarily focused on discerning the prominent research trends in this field, scrutinizing research article counts, and examining countries, authors citation counts, and keywords of the selected articles. The findings reveal the existence of 12 issues pertaining to recent teacher PLCs. Notably, the number of research articles addressing this topic exhibited an upward trajectory, with the journal Teaching and Teacher Education serving as the preferred publication outlet for authors. Among the influential contributors in this domain, the research conducted by Yin et al. (2019) from Hong Kong held the greatest sway. Commonly recurring keywords in the analyzed articles include learning, professional, community, and teacher. Consequently, this research review offers a comprehensive overview of teacher PLCs, thus providing valuable guidance for educational researchers and practitioners in shaping future research endeavors.