Research Trends in English Education in Korea from 1996 to 2005: A Content Analysis of Journal Articles
This is an interdisciplinary study based on Library and Information Science and English Education through the examination of scholarly communication on English education objectively. For this study, three scholarly journals English Teaching, Journal of The Applied Linguistics Association of Korea, and Foreign Languages Education were selected through surveys. A total of 1,091 research articles were analyzed in terms of the pattern of article production and writers, research topics, research methodologies, and research participants. Content analysis was performed to clarify the distinction between these three journals. The results showed that topics on language skills were the most examined out of the 16 categories in ET and FLE. On the other hand, topics on SLA ranked first in AL. In terms of methodology, quantitative research was conducted more frequently than qualitative and mixed methods research from the three journals. And in terms of participants, college students, including graduate students ranked first from the three journals. The findings suggest that scholarly communication needs to be extended to a broader context including students, classroom teachers and more researchers from the public and private sectors.