Skip to content
Learning Research

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: What, Why, & How

By Kathy Quardokus Fisher and Alex Ambrose

What is the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning?

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (often abbreviated as SoTL and pronounced so that it rhymes with ‘total’) is a systematic approach to collecting and analyzing data related to your teaching practice and sharing that work with others. SoTL follows these general steps:

  • Identifying scholarly questions
  • Designing investigations based upon prior literature
  • Collecting and analyzing teaching and learning data
  • Using findings to improve one’s teaching practice
  • Disseminating findings to build collective SoTL knowledge 

Note: At Notre Dame, we use SoTL as an inclusive term for all the related disciplinary education translational research. Similar practices are sometimes labeled as Discipline-Based Education Research, or DBER.

Why add scholarship to your teaching practice?

The original justification for SoTL was based upon the culture of research institutions. Academics are trained as scholars who are often curious about the world around them, develop questions instinctively, and wish to find answers that are supported by evidence. Furthermore, research institutions value scholarly contributions and knowledge creation across disciplines. SoTL aligns with these research worldviews and also serves the purpose of improving faculty teaching practices based upon evidence in order to benefit students (Kern et al., 2015). Whether faculty hope to align their teaching work with their research identity, to be recognized for their knowledge creation, or to improve the student experience in their course, SoTL is often a challenging and rewarding professional experience.

Note: Before you embark on your first SoTL project, be sure to get clarification from your department chair or unit lead to understand if and how that scholarship is valued for promotion and reappointment. According to ACPET Guidelines, SoTL research could support promotion and evidence of  “Additional Contributions to Teaching.” Especially for TPAC faculty (Teaching, Professor of the Practice, Advising, and Clinical) with teaching responsibility, publishing and presenting SoTL work demonstrates impact beyond your department and campus. 

How to get started in SoTL?

Faculty who conduct SoTL projects often originate as experts in other disciplines. If you are new to this transition, a good place to start is the SoTL literature, introductory professional development, and/or SoTL process-oriented books (e.g., Bishop-Clark & Dietz-Uhler, 2012). It is of utmost importance to ensure ethical research is conducted by completing human subjects research training and receiving approval from Notre Dame’s Institutional Review Board prior to beginning any SoTL project. There is a current, IRB-approved protocol for studies of low-risk, pedagogical innovation that may be aligned with your goals. Use this link to learn more.

A SoTL project can take many forms. Inspiration for scholarly questions may come from a variety of experiences: perhaps a puzzling experience happened in your class or a teaching challenge caught you by surprise. On the other hand, perhaps you have envisioned a restructuring of your class that no one else has done before. One way to frame your SoTL questions is to consider three categories: What is, What works, and What could be (Dewar et al., 2018). What is questions are descriptive and the scholar is seeking to describe a puzzling phenomenon. What works questions are testing a hypothesis or intervention and/or investigating a mechanism that supports learning. What could be questions ask about how teaching and learning might be structured in new ways. 

Example: A teacher may notice that students are not engaging in discussions in their class and wonder why. They may pose these types of questions, although a single study would only address approximately one to three of them.

  • What is: What is the form that discussions take in my classroom? Who engages and who does not? How long does engagement last? What reason do students provide to explain their participation?
  • What works: Does requiring pre-class reflection increase student participation in discussion? What do students report about pre-class reflection that connects them to discussion participation?
  • What could be: Are students able to design their own discussion process that is more accessible and inclusive as evidenced by greater participation?

Once questions are developed, the next step is to explore prior literature within the area of interest. It is first important to know not only what else has been previously studied, but also to take note of norms within the literature and to use literature to deepen or expand scholarly questions. For example, a teacher who is interested in exploring discussions will first want to begin reading about educational theory that guides understanding of classroom discussions (e.g., Brookfield, 2015; O’Connor et al., 2017; White, 2011) . They also should identify previous SoTL projects that have studied similar topics to revise or refine questions to fill gaps in the literature. A challenge in this step is narrowing questions such that they are novel to the literature and are achievable within the logistical constraints of the scholar’s professional role. 

Example: A SoTL study (Hsu et al., 2021) on campus was led by Brian Mulholland, Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Department of Mathematics, and supported by Notre Dame Learning. To identify relevant research questions, the team began by exploring how course delivery changed due to COVID-19 and how these changes impacted student learning. Their discussion led them to realize that the alternative assessments that were implemented because of the nature of remote learning also resulted in removing the traditional, high-stakes assessments that were used in the course. This realization was influenced by a recent special issue on mastery-based grading in mathematics (e.g., Harsy et al., 2020). Ultimately, the study explored these two research questions: 1) What’s the impact of the flexible assessment (mastery-based grading approach with low-stakes assessments) on student academic achievement in an undergraduate mathematics course during the pandemic semester? 2) What were the perceptions of students regarding the use of low-stakes assessments and mastery-based grading approaches? 

The questions and guiding literature will impact the data collection instruments and analysis techniques. Instrument selection and/or development can be a daunting task. The Kaneb Center has people and resources to support you through the entire process. While many instruments exist, they are not all of the same caliber or necessarily aligned with the goals of the SoTL project. Some basic choices that guide instrument selection include:

  • Does my question lend itself to qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods approaches?
  • Will I use a previously developed instrument or develop my own? 
  • How will I judge the appropriateness of the instrument to my study? (e.g., alignment with questions and theoretical frameworks, reliability and validity)
  • What analysis procedures will I use once data are collected?

Once a SoTL project has identified claims, findings, or answers to questions, then it is important to complete the final two steps of the process. SoTL is meant to lead to teaching improvement, and the scholar should apply what they learned to their own classroom. In addition, the SoTL findings should be disseminated to the community to build knowledge around the focus of the study. This may take traditional forms of dissemination through presentations or papers (including SoTL-focused conferences and journals). It also could include sharing findings at local seminars, faculty meetings, or events on campus.

A variety of campus resources are available to start your SoTL journey:

We encourage you to reach out for a consultation to see how we can support you in your SoTL endeavors. Below is a list of some of the ways that we can help you complete your project.

Summary of Learning Research & Assessment Services: 

  • Conference proposal, presentation, poster and manuscript assistance
  • IRB & consent form access
  • Research design, data collection & analysis services
  • Funding and undergraduate/graduate research assistantships
  • Learning analytics with data access, analysis, & visualization
  • Survey design, administration, analysis, & visualization 
  • SoTL literature reviews & lib guides 
  • Video observations & rubric development consultations
  • Focus group & interview support
  • Course/college assessment and program/grant evaluation support
  • Research and assessment design consultations and workshops

Contact us at kaneb@nd.edu

References

Bishop-Clark, C., & Dietz-Uhler, B. (2012). Engaging in the scholarship of teaching and learning: A guide to the process, and how to develop a project from start to finish. Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Brookfield, S. D. (2015). The skillful teacher: On technique, trust, and responsiveness in the classroom. John Wiley & Sons.

Dewar, J. M., Bennett, C. D., & Fisher, M. A. (2018). The scholarship of teaching and learning: A guide for scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Oxford University Press.

Harsy, A., Carlson, C., & Klamerus, L. (2020). An Analysis of the Impact of Mastery-Based Testing in Mathematics Courses. PRIMUS, 1-18.

Hsu, K. C. K., Mulholland, B., Ambrose, G. A., Szekelyhidi, S. M., & Craker, A. Flexible Assessment in Math During (and After) COVID. Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) Conference.

Hutchings, P. (2000). Opening Lines: Approaches to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Carnegie Publications, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 555 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025.

Kern, Beth, et al. (2015) The role of SoTL in the academy: Upon the 25th anniversary of Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 15.3, 1-14.

O’Connor, C., Michaels, S., Chapin, S., & Harbaugh, A. G. (2017). The silent and the vocal: Participation and learning in whole-class discussion. Learning and instruction, 48, 5-13.

White, J. W. (2011). Resistance to classroom participation: Minority students, academic discourse, cultural conflicts, and issues of representation in whole class discussions. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 10(4), 250-265.