How we study what we study: A methodological review of 50 years of educational technology research

Research in educational technology has been extensively mapped in terms of what has been studied, but far less attention has been paid to how it has been studied. This paper reports a methodological review of fifty years of research in Computers & Education, covering a corpus of 5516 articles published between 1976 and 2026, with the principal findings based on the post-1996 full-text corpus. Using an AI-assisted analysis, applied to full texts and abstracts, we traced the evolution of research paradigms, approaches, and methods across the journal's full publication history. Pre-1996, full-text machine-readable files were not available for analysis. Analysis of pre-1996 abstracts was possible and is included to provide context for trends observed post-1996. The findings show that quantitative approaches and questionnaire-based data collection have constituted the field's sustained methodological centre of gravity. Within this dominant pattern, two shifts stand out: 1) the rise of systematic reviews as a recognised approach, and 2) a computational turn. The range of methods used in research has grown steadily, suggesting a gradual broadening of the field's repertoire. These patterns are only visible across multiple decades. Findings reveal that quantitative dominance is not a recent development but a persistent structural feature, and that the computational surge is better understood as a second wave following a peak in the mid-2000s. These findings have implications for what kinds of knowledge educational technology research is equipped to produce. The study argues that understanding a field's methodological history is a prerequisite for extending it.