How Learning Has Been Personalised: A Review of Literature from 2009 to 2018

This paper presents a comprehensive study of the literature related to personalised learning in the past decade, summarising how, and in what aspects, learning has been personalised. The study covers a total of 179 relevant articles collected from the Web-of-Science and Scopus databases. The results show that, between 2009–13 and 2014–18, there was a clear upward trend—a 120% increase in the number of relevant publications over the years. The research and practice have become more diversified in terms of the target learners, research issues, and objectives. The means to achieve personalised learning mainly involve educational technologies, where emerging technologies such as learning analytics, massive open online courses and augmented/virtual reality have been increasingly used. The results reveal the areas for further investigation, such as the challenges arising from the adoption of emerging technology, the aspects of learning receiving little attention, and the changing role of teachers in the move to student-centred personalised learning.