Mapping Lifelong Learning Research: A Holistic Text Mining Analysis of Educational Trends and Gaps (1980–2024)

Education for lifelong learning (LLL) has become increasingly complex due to recent global crises and social inequalities. This study reviews 3,237 educational articles on LLL in the Web of Science Database, using text-mining techniques such as bibliometric analysis, topic modeling, and trend analysis to identify emerging research trends and gaps from 1980 to 2024. The results show a steady rise in LLL publications, particularly between 2020 and 2024, coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic, although citations per article have declined. The UK, US, and Australia contributed the most articles, while European universities exhibited higher publishing activity. Notably, artificial intelligence was mentioned in only 14 articles, indicating a limited focus. The least covered topic was “LLL education, inclusion, and sustainable development,” whereas “LLL, digital transformation, teacher training, and development” had the greatest upward trend. Conversely, “Global and regional LLL perspectives, policies and practices” declined, while “Innovative and self-directed LLL pedagogies” remained relatively stable.