Enforcing L2 Learner Autonomy in Higher Education: The Top 50 Cited Articles

Learner autonomy as both a pre-condition of self-efficacy and higher achievements in learning and an essential learning outcome has been in the highlight in the higher education domain for many years. This review aims to single out the most influential publications (with 10 citations or more) on foreign language and L2 learner autonomy in tertiary education in the highly reputed journals indexed with the Scopus database, with the publication period limited to the last ten years (2011-2020). The key findings show that the top 50 cited articles on learner autonomy broadly cover conceptual development; self-efficacy and motivation within the learner autonomy concept; educational technologies and web-based activities in fostering learner autonomy; country-specific issues of learner autonomy as the prevailing directions of study in the field of learner autonomy.


Introduction Learner Autonomy in Learning Languages
In the recent years, several concepts have become or developed into the backbone constructs in higher education. In the 1980s-1990s, learner autonomy came into the limelight. Then it led to greater focus on selfregulation, self-efficacy, learning strategies, learner-centered education, and self-regulated learning. Every five or ten years the mainstream research takes a bend or faces new challenges.
In modern higher education, knowledge building has shifted from "the ready-made knowledge" transferred by the teacher to the knowledge acquisition by the learner on their own. Learning follows the needs of the societies that are transforming (Reigeluth & Joseph, 2002). The superfluous information settings with shorter life cycles for the new knowledge demand that the learner manage to build it independently. "Education has laid great stress on individual acquiring knowledge" (Lin & Reigeluth, 2019). Thus, the learner autonomy concept has turned into the essential outcome of higher education. National curricula in many countries even identify learner autonomy as one of the key learning outcomes (Pu, 2020). Education at large aims to support students in thriving in the digital age and providing them with a more individualised and customised learning experience (Ozer & Yukselir, 2021).
When it comes to foreign language learning, learner autonomy is still among the top themes for researchers and academics. The concept of learner autonomy (LA) was first defined in 1981 by Henri Holec. Though he coined the name of the concept in his book "Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning" (Holec, 1981), its gist and importance were previously discussed by the EU institutions in their major projects in modern languages in the period between 1964 and 1974 as language learning was considered a crucial factor in the successful promotion of European integration.

Learner Autonomy and Autonomous Learner Definitions and Attributes
Year Researcher(s) Definition or Attributes 1981 Holec, H. the ability to take charge of one's own learning (Holec, 1981) 1991 Candy, P.C. knowledge is … built by the learner (Candy, 1991) 1997 Nunan, D. fully autonomous learning exists only as an ideal concept; most beginner EFL learners are not autonomous (Nunan, 1997) 2007 Little, D. LA involves critical reflection, decision-making and independent action (Little, 2007, p.30) 2010 Benson, P. "a testable construct in foreign language education contexts" (Benson, 2010, p.95) 2021 Khaerudin, T. & Chik, A. a "fully autonomous language learner can manage their learning in the absence of the classroom, teacher, or textbooks"; "LA is not synonymous with learning without teachers" (Khaerudin & Chik, 2021, p.39)

Self-Regulated Learning and Other Concepts
Self-regulation occupies an important niche in education. This construct, affecting academic achievements at all levels of education, was consequently translated into self-regulated learning. Boekaerts, Maes & Karoly (2005) describe self-regulation as multi-component, iterative, self-steering processes in the service of one's own goals. The salient trait of self-regulated learning is attributed to self-control. Adaptive strategies of learners who are engaged into this kind of learning are multiple and include cognitive, meta-cognitive, motivation and other strategies.
All learners are self-regulated to a degree. But to distinguish self-regulated learners, Zimmerman also features their awareness of relations between regulatory process and learning outcomes and their use of strategies in learning (Zimmerman, 1990).
Self-regulated learning and closely related concepts of self-directed learning and independent learning, all in all, do with fostering learner autonomy. The basic difference lies in the focus of the activities. With selfregulation as the psychological backbone of autonomy, self-directed learning and independent learning have become paths for learners to greater autonomy and educational achievements.
In considering the self-regulation structure, researchers map various subprocesses, including motivation and self-efficacy along with task analysis, self-control, self-observation, self-evaluation and others. In studying learner autonomy, those processes and features are also tackled. On its own, motivation forms an educational field of study, helping to facilitate self-acquisition of knowledge.
To map the most essential themes and directions of research on language learner autonomy, we are to answer the following research questions: 1. What are the trend-setters in the field of language learner autonomy? 2. How influential are the relevant concepts (motivation; self-efficacy; self-regulated learning) in the topcited research on language learner autonomy?

Methodology Search Strategy
As the Scopus database encompasses the most reputed peer-reviewed journals in the education domain, the search strategy was focussed primarily on the sources indexed there. The initial search was conducted for all the documents relating to "learner autonomy". Then, the search results were refined and limited to the criteria of years (2016-2021); subject area (Social Sciences): document type (article, review), and keywords (higher education; independent learning; teacher autonomy; self-efficacy; foreign language learning; self-regulated learning; autonomous learner).
The period covers ten years that is wide enough to detect the new directions and shifts in the learner autonomy research.
As educational research is part of Social Sciences, the latter were singled out as the primary inclusion criterion. Many peer-reviewed journals focus on several closely related areas. Thus, their publications may be considered as attributed to more than one subject area. Anyway, it presumably agrees with the chosen subject area criterion.
Then, all the results were listed based on their citation scores (from the highest to the lowest).
Based on our questionnaire conducted among 20 experts (educators; academics; researchers) from three Russian universities (MGIMO University; RUDN University; Moscow State University of Food Production), we singled out the following extra keywords relevant to the learner autonomy phenomenon: higher education; independent learning; teacher autonomy; self-efficacy; foreign language learning; self-regulated learning; autonomous learner.

Questionnaire on Learner Autonomy in Higher Education
To reach more objectivity in selecting the literature for our review on learner autonomy, we turned to twenty experts in the domain with a short questionnaire.
The participants included five university professors of linguistics, and education; five researchers; ten faculty members and lecturers of foreign languages.
The questionnaire encompassed the following questions: Question 1. Enumerate up to five keywords relevant to learner autonomy in higher education.
Question 2. What are the most essential concepts closely connected with learner autonomy?
Based on Question 1, the prevailing answers formed the extra keyword pool that we used in limiting our search (See Table 2).

Scope of the Review
The review was limited to 50 publications, with the citation scores starting with 10. When we got down to our review, we agreed that we would include only the publications with citations of 10 and higher. Influential publications in different subject areas may score various numbers of citations. For Social Sciences (Education) as well as Arts & Humanities (Language and Linguistics) reviews tend to single out documents starting approximately with 10 citations.

Supporting Publications
To support the understanding and give a broader conceptual view of the topical clusters based on the autonomyrelated concepts, we selected the documents, relevant to LA and the concepts outlined in the questionnaire from the top journals (mainly highly cited Scopus-indexed articles and reviews). The time span for the extra sources was not limited as some of them were published when the concept of learner autonomy was worded (1981) or a little later.
Though having served as a theoretical basis for the review, the associated extra sources did not enter the Top 50 Most Cited Publications.

Procedure
The initial search with "learner autonomy" in the category covering document titles, abstracts, and keywords brought 1,131 results, including 869 documents indexed between 2016 and 2021. Out of 869 results, 589 publications were attributed to Social Sciences. Limitation to the extra keywords boiled down the results to 335.

ENFORCING L2 LEARNER AUTONOMY IN HIGHER EDUCATION
The results were sorted on the citation (from the highest to the lowest). The highest citation score hit 345. Then, each author was to select the 50 top cited results in compliance with the inclusion criteria. There were only a few (three) documents which caused doubt. General nature of research was combined with some miscompliance with the inclusion criteria (e.g. . Having discussed the final list, we singled out 50 articles and reviews (See Appendix 1) out of the first 65 selected documents.
While filtering the search results through the inclusion criteria, upon mutual agreement, we excluded 15 documents being beyond compliance. The excluded publications are given in Table 3 below with our reasoning for their elimination explained.

Table 3
The Excluded Documents: Rationales  Language learner autonomy in secondary school (kanji-learning task; kanji, the name for Japanese written characters). Web-based informal foreign language learning of adults in their spare time.
12 Ting, Y. (2015). Tapping into students' digital literacy and designing negotiated learning to promote learner autonomy.
Web-based activities in secondary school.
Self-regulation in language learning in secondary school.
14 Yasmin, M., Sarkar, M., & Sohail, A. (2016). Exploring English language needs in the hotel industry in Pakistan: An evaluation of existing teaching material.
Language learning in the workplace.
Self-assessment of learner autonomy in English language learning in secondary school.
The top 50 most cited documents were broken down into thematic clusters. Each author labelled the documents, then, the breakdowns were checked for consistency. On the whole, no contradictions in the rationales were found.
Before the content analysis, the following six clusters were hypothesized: learner autonomy: theory and conceptualization; self-efficacy and motivation in the LA concept; self-regulated learning; educational technologies and LA; web-based activities in fostering LA; country-specific issues of LA development.

Results and Discussion
The top 50 publications range from the highest 345 citations  to the lowest of 12 citations . By the type of publication (the review was limited to articles and reviews), there were 47 articles, and 3 reviews.

Thematic Clusters
The thematic clusters essentially proved the above hypothesis and totalled five. We failed to find stand-alone publications on self-regulated learning in the search for "LA". The ultimate clusters were as follows: learner autonomy: theory and conceptualization; self-efficacy and motivation within the LA concept; educational technologies and LA; web-based activities in fostering LA; country-specific issues of LA development (See Table 4).
The top 50 cited publications were distributed among the clusters with some overlappings. Essential part of publications entered two or more clusters due to the complex nature of the research.

Table 4
Thematic Clusters on Foreign Language Learner Autonomy

Thematic Clusters Number of Publications out of Top 50 Brief Cluster Description
Language Learner Autonomy: Theory and Conceptualization

12
The cluster focuses on the learner autonomy theory development.
There are articles on perception of the phenomenon and some insights into the general understanding of the field.
Self-Efficacy and Motivation within the LA Concept 9 The theoretical and empirical publications relating to the concepts of self-efficacy and motivation. The publications in this cluster give a glimpse of countryrelated experiences in learner autonomy practice in the tertiary education.

Language Learner Autonomy: Theory and Conceptualization
This cluster ranges from theoretical aspects of LA to the LA perceptions of the educational process participants (teachers and students).  found that learner autonomy was promoted through awareness as a result of implemented models as well as multiliteracy skills development based on social networking tools. Awareness was also found the key factor in fostering teachers' autonomy.  analyzed and proved a crucial link between reflexive and reflective thinking and autonomy .
LA is thoroughly analyzed in various contexts, including the technologies in current use by L2 learners  and the technologies outside the classroom ; the self-directed learning ; Reinders & White (2016) outlined LA as "an assumed goal of language education" throughout the world. The focused on the close relationship between Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and LA, informing each other.
We found that there were some theoretical research that gave insights into the role constructivism played in L2 learner autonomy  and self-determination theory as a theoretical rationale for learner autonomy .

Self-Efficacy and Motivation
Self-efficacy as an integral part of LA has taken its stake in the research on LA for years. In the review, a few highly cited articles dealt with various aspects of self-efficacy.  conducted their casestudy research to determine the links between self-efficacy andLA, and find the relationship between selfefficacy and academic success.
The articles on motivation in language learning gives a glimpse of its relationships with LA .

Educational Technologies
Interrelations between autonomy and technology have been studied since the term "learner autonomy" became an integral part of the educational discourse.  gave an overview of 20 years of the field development. Though five years have passed ever since, many issues they outlined are still high on the agenda, with some new swathes of topics coming into the highlight. More to this end,  charted the evolution of technologies prevailing in language learning.
One of the most highly cited sub-topics in the cluster (the first three publications on the list) deals with MOOCs, including learning experiences and challenges ; issues of participant support ; massiveness, openness, and design of MOOCs .
Other themes cover autonomous learning through task-based instruction ; multiliteracy skills development. There were publications on LA in L2 university students' writing and automated evaluation technologies ; LA in blended learning; computer-assisted language learning (CALL); collaborative learning; Skype-based computer mediated communication; interaction in distance education; mobile assisted language learning; flipped classroom; and videoconferencing.

Web-Based Activities
Web-based activities developing LA included in this cluster feature web-based projects ; blogging ; digital gaming ; corpus-building and concordancing; digital storytelling ; Web 2.0 tools, including social networking ; wikis , and some others.

Country-Specific Issues
The cluster encompasses research conducted in Hong Kong -a digital video project in English for science ; technologies in autonomous language learning outside the classroom ; managing self-access language learning; in Vietnam -strategy-based instruction on the promotion of LA (Nguyen & Gu, 2013); LA in foreign language policies; in Australia -the technologies in use by L2 learners ; learning support in flipped classroom ; in Thailand; in Turkey; in Japan -motivational self-system; blended learning in a CALL environment, etc.; in Saudi Arabia -perceptions of LA; the impact of mobile assisted language learning on LA; in Pakistan -socio-cultural barriers in LA ; and in China.
The research in international settings (Germany, Poland, the UK, and the USA) helped to receive empirical findings relating to LA in a task-based telecollaborative learning format .

Conclusion Research Question One
The review did not find any strikingly new and unexpected directions of study. The trend-setters met the hypothesis and included country-specific issues of LA development (18 publications); educational technologies and LA (16 publications); theory and conceptualization of learner autonomy (12 publications); web-based activities in fostering LA (12 publications); self-efficacy and motivation within the LA concept (9 publications).

Research Question Two
The relevant concepts of motivation; self-efficacy; and self-regulated learning are influential, but to a degree. The relationships between LA and motivation; LA and self-efficacy were studied in nine publications out of 50. Self-regulated and self-directed learning as a stand-alone direction was not the case with only one publication in the review.
The limitations of the review are connected with the search strategy applied. Other databases might be sought to double-check the findings of the present study. More sources and publications are certain to refine or adjust the results.