Distance Education (EaD) is a consolidated field of knowledge in educational research, and has an intense scientific production that accounts for the changes and continuities through which it runs. In order to explore the theoretical references, or more properly, the theoretical trends that define their validity, 144 articles have been recovered from the Web of Science, and from them, it has been identified that scientific production on EaD, in the decade From 2008-2017, it has concentrated on two Canadian journals (51%), and the transitions experienced by the modality have been described, based on the fields and subfields of knowledge that describe its validity. On the other hand, the thematic descriptors have been identified, as well as the reference authors for the construction of the themesthat underlie the EaD. In essence, this primary approach, from the theoretical tendencies, shows a field of research in constant renewal, marked by the theoretical referents that emerge from the research.