Review of smart learning: Patterns and trends in research and practice

Abstract

This article presents a review of the literature on smart learning in order to provide a comprehensive overview of its latest developments in research and practice. The review covered 90 studies published from 2010 to 2019, which were collected from three publication databases, namely Web of Science, Scopus and ProQuest. They were analysed for the patterns and trends in terms of publication years, sources of publication, countries or regions of publication, research purposes, research methods, educational levels of the studies, application domains, research issues, research participants, learning devices or tools, learning environments and learning features. Overall, the findings show that increasing global attention was given to smart learning from diverse disciplines and contexts of application. The results also reveal the areas which should be addressed in future work: development of pedagogies which make effective use of smart learning technologies in different learning environments; examination of smart learning to cope with learners’ needs in informal contexts; in-depth analysis of how smart learning could be tailored to fit the characteristics of various application domains; and investigation of the views and perceptions of teachers on smart learning technologies, their readiness to use these technologies and their challenges and needs for support.