Trends of mobile learning researches: A content analysis

The rapid development of technology and the change of the world has affected all areas of life as well as educational environments. Every new technological tools, along with innovations, bring up the question "Can they benefit in educational environments?". Increasingly shrinking devices and technological tools that we do not separate from us are indicators of a mobile age. Educational environments have also taken their share from the mobile technologies that affect almost every field. Studies on the use and effectiveness of mobile devices in education have diversified and developed in this context. With the increasing number of researches on mobile learning, there is a need to carry out studies examining these researches. With this research, it is aimed to determine the methodological dimensions, descriptive features and general tendencies of mobile learning research. A total of 47 master's and doctoral theses and 180 articles were analyzed by content analysis method. As a result of this study, it is aimed to present the current situation in general terms and to be a guide for future researches. As a result of the findings obtained, it was provided to reveal the subject distributions, imprint information, the tendencies of the methodological tools used and the suggestions developed in the thesis and articles written in this field. As a result of the research, it has been concluded that the academic studies performed according to the years have increased. In terms of subject distribution, it can be said that mobile gamification and attitude, perception and vision oriented mobile learning studies are more prominent than other studies. When the field is considered, it is found that more studies are produced in language and medical education compared to other fields. In the context of the countries where the researches are conducted, it is concluded that the USA and the United Kingdom produce more in the field of mobile learning compared to other countries. When the research method trends are considered, it is concluded that quantitative research is preferred more than mixed and qualitative research. The findings obtained in terms of the research sample indicate that small sample studies were conducted more frequently and that the most studied group was undergraduate students. It is concluded that descriptive analysis is more preferred in terms of statistical dimension of tendencies and t-test is the most used statistical analysis among parametric analyzes. By examining the suggestions developed, it is seen that the suggestions for diversification by focusing on different dimensions of the studies and the suggestions for application improvement and content improvement are the most presented. As a result, proposals were presented to the researchers who want to study in the field of mobile learning.