Mapping the Landscape of Micro Learning Research in Education: A Bibliometric Review

The aim of this study is to determine trends, development trajectories, and structural features in the field by studying the academic publications on micro learning through bibliometric mapping methods. Within the scope of this study, a total of 139 publications that were reviewed in the Web of Science Core Collection between 2015-2025 through the keyword “micro learning” and that were found in the categories of “Educational Research” and “Education Scientific Disciplines” were analyzed. The analysis was carried out through a multi-stage bibliometric mapping process, including data extraction, data cleaning and standardization, network construction, and visualization of relationships across different bibliometric dimensions. In this study, bibliometric data such as co-authorship-countries, co-occurrence-author keyword, citation-documents, bibliographic coupling-documents, bibliographic coupling-organizations, and co-citation – cited authors were mapped. The findings show that publications on micro learning intensified between 2016-2020 but have shown a relative decline in recent years. In the co-authorship analysis, it was determined that China and the USA stand out, while the keyword analysis reveals that concepts of “e-learning”, “online learning”, “flipped classroom”, and “higher education” are frequently used in connection with micro learning. However, the findings should be interpreted in light of certain limitations, including the conceptual ambiguity of micro learning in the literature and the reliance on a single database and quantitative bibliometric indicators. Overall, the findings indicate that micro learning research has developed around a limited number of influential countries, institutions, and authors, with a strong thematic connection to mobile and online learning, highlighting both the growing global interest in the field and the need for more diversified and theory-driven research.