Visualizing ASLA Conference Education Session Content, 2011, 2013–2023

Abstract

This study documents an inventory and analysis of ASLA conference education session learning objectives to understand content changes over a 12‐year period. To date, no studies have investigated ASLA conference education session content. The dataset included learning objectives extracted from ASLA conference documents and created by featured speakers for 1,229 ASLA conference education sessions from 2011 and between 2013 and 2023. Text‐mining software that constructs and visualizes term networks, VOSviewer, mapped term frequencies, co‐occurrence, and clusters for three quadrennial periods: 2011–2015, excluding 2012, for which learning objectives were not publicly available; 2016–2019; and 2020–2023. Voyant, a web‐based text reading and analysis software, supplemented VOSviewer output by displaying term contexts, collocations, and frequencies. Term clusters that emerged across quadrennial periods varied in quantity and topic. Common clusters pertained to sustainability; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and construction, though not consistently across time. Participation in multiple sessions by some featured speakers, as well as frequent representation by some institutions within and across sessions, likely influenced results. Session content appears aligned with professional interests, with at least one exception: no evidence emerged about residential landscape architecture, a Professional Practice Network with a relatively large membership. Suggestions for future research and the conference format, including session proposal content, selection, focus, accessibility after conferences, and delivery mode, are presented.