Conceptual transformation in distance education: Changes in the period 2006-2023 and future trends

Distance education stands out as one of the most rapidly changing sub-fields in the field of education with increasing technological innovations and changing social needs. In this context, the aim of this study is to examine the conceptual transformation of the field of distance education between 2006 and 2023. For this purpose, the full texts of 853 research and review articles published in the leading journals of the field, American Journal of Distance Education and Distance Education, were analyzed by semantic change detection and semantic network analysis methods. The semantic change detection analysis using the SciBERT model revealed that the terms “student”, “andragogy”, “knowledge”, “virtual” and “technology” were the most frequently changed terms. The results of the semantic network analysis conducted to reveal the macro-level structure of the field showed that the field of distance education was structured around the concepts of web-based learning and synchronous communication before 2010, MOOCs and learning analytics in the 2010s, and artificial intelligence and digital transformation in recent years. The findings reveal that distance education has evolved from a simple access model to a multidimensional learning ecosystem; especially in the post-COVID-19 period, it has evolved into a structure that includes AI-supported personalized learning, adaptive teaching and flexible programs.