Moving SoTL Projects Forward: Methodologies and Literature Searches

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Moving SoTL Projects ForwardMethodologies and
Literature Searches

• Mary E. Burman
• Dean and Professor
• Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing
• University of Wyoming

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Outline

• Sources of literature for SoTL
• Inquiry methods to evaluate teaching and student
  learning
• Ethical issues in SoTL
• Case studies
• Lots of discussion and questions

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SoTL defined

• The systematic reflection/study of teaching and
  learning made public

McKinney, 2007
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Inquiry Process

• What is the problem?
• Refining the question(s)
• Searching the literature
• Consider ethical issues
• Design the study
• Collect and analyze the data
• Disseminate the findings

McKinney (2007) is a good primer on SoTL
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SoTL Starts with questions.

• Thinking about teaching begins where all
  intellectual inquiry begins, with questions about
  what is going on and how to explain, support, and
  replicate answers that satisfy us.

Bender Gray, 1999
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Searching the literature.

• Practitioner pedagogical literature
• vs.
• Educational literature
• Separate and distinct, but related

Weimer (2006)
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Sources of literature

• Disciplinary-based pedagogical journals, e.g,
  Journal of Nursing Education
• SoTL Journals, e.g., International Journal for
  the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
• Educational journals, e.g., The Journal of Higher
  Education
• Focused educational journals, e.g., Active
  Learning in Higher Education

McKinney, 2007
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SoTL Journals

• MountainRise
• Journal of Cognitive and Affecting Learning
• International Journal for the Scholarship of
  Teaching and Learning
• International Journal of Teaching and Learning in
  Higher Education
• Inventio
• The Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and
  Learning

Available on-line
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Other sources

• Knowledge Media Lab (Carnegie Foundation for
  Advancement Teaching)
• Visible Knowledge Project (Georgetown University)

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Bibliographic Search Engines

• ERIC
• EBSCO Academic Search Premier
• Others, e.g., PubMed
• But none of these is comprehensive of journals
  focusing on education and/or SoTL
• Key words?? SoTL. College Teaching

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• The key to successful literature reviews
  involves combining traditional techniques with
  mining information compiled by researchers
  familiar with the literature.
• Naylor as cited in McKinney (2007)

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Types of SoTL literature

• Wisdom of practice
• Personal accounts of change
• Recommended practices
• Recommended content
• Research Scholarship
• Quantitative
• Qualitative
• Descriptive

Weimer (2006)
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Inquiry Methods

• Interviews and focus groups
• Observational research
• Questionnaires
• Content analysis
• Secondary analysis
• Experiments and quasi-experiments
• Case studies
• Multimethod studies
• Portfolios

McKinney (2007)
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Disciplines and Methodologies

• Clearly, disciplinary styles empower the
  scholarship of teaching, not only by giving
  scholars a ready made way to imagine and present
  their work but also by giving shape to the
  problems they choose and the methods of inquiry
  they use (pg. 32).

Huber (2002)
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Rigor in SoTL

• Clear goals
• Adequate preparation
• Appropriate methods
• Significant results
• Effective presentation
• Reflective critique

Glassick, Huber Maeroff (1997)
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Ethical issues

• Use of student work
• How to obtain permission
• Is informed consent really possible
• Student role in SoTL
• Choice of research design
• Harm to participants
• Going public with research
• Damage to reputation of institution
• Role of Institutional Review Board (IRB)
• Overlapping roles of researcher and teacher

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Principles for Ethical Decision-making in SoTL

• Identify SoTL projects as inquiry or research
  projects
• Projects need to be planned
• Design an informed consent process
• Seek external review
• Inform students at regular junctures of project

Burman Kleinsasser (2004)
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Principles (cont.)

• Acknowledge that students control way their work
  is used
• Proceed very carefully if using data from
  previous classes without student consent
• Consider ways to involve students
• Share findings with students.

Burman Kleinsasser (2004)
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Case Studies

• What is the question?
• What sources of literature were used?
• What methods were employed?
• How were ethical issues handled?

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References

• Boyer, EL (1990). Scholarship Reconsidered
  Priorities for the professoriate. San Francisco
  Jossey-Bass.
• Burman, M. E., Kleinsasser, A. (2004). Ethical
  guidelines for the use of student work Moving
  from teachings invisibility to inquirys
  visibility in the scholarship of teaching and
  learning. The Journal of General Education, 53,
  59-79.
• Glassick, CE, Huber, M T, Maeroff, GI (1997).
  Scholarship Assessed Evaluation of the
  professoriate. San Francisco Jossey-Bass.
• Huber, MT Morreale, SP (Eds.) (2002).
  Disciplinary styles in the scholarship of
  teaching and learning. Washington DC American
  Associate of Higher Education and the Carnegie
  Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
• Huber, MT Hutchings, P (2005). The advancement
  of learning Building the teaching commons. San
  Francisco Jossey-Bass.
• Hutchings, P (Ed.) (2000). Opening lines
  Approaches to the scholarship of teaching and
  learning. Menlo Park, CA The Carnegie
  Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
• Hutchings, P (Ed.) (2002). Ethics of inquiry
  Issues in the scholarship of teaching and
  learning. Menlo Park, CA The Carnegie Foundation
  for the Advancement of Teaching.
• McKinney, K (2007). Enhancing learning through
  the scholarship of teaching and learning. San
  Francisco Jossey-Bass.
• Weimer, M (2006). Enhancing scholarly work on
  teaching learning Professional literature that
  makes a difference. San Francisco Jossey-Bass.

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Questions

• Mary E. Burman
• mburman_at_uwyo.edu
• 307-766-4291