Özet:

The aim of this research was to conduct a bibliometric analysis of studies published on the concept of distance education. The study was conducted using a descriptive survey model, with VOSviewer software used to examine the publication outputs and the basic structure of the field, and the Bibliometrix R package used for information analysis. The study analyzed 3148 studies obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) database. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the structure of the concept of distance education, the distribution of publications by country, influential authors, articles, and journals. Co-author analyses were performed to reveal the social structure of the literature, while trend topic and word cloud analyses were used to reveal the conceptual structure. Results showed that the first study on distance education was conducted in 1980, and until 2004, studies were limited. However, there was a decrease in studies between 2005-2019, followed by an acceleration since 2019, with the number of publications reaching 315 in 2021. The United States of America was found to be the country that published the most in distance education. The study concluded that institutions emerge during times of turbulence or crisis, and that emergent distance education research is a field with a bright future. Suggestions were presented based on the data obtained within the scope of the research. While this study utilized the WoS database, it is important to note that other databases may also provide valuable information.

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