CFD CFD Research & Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Who is credited with originating the concept of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and distinguishing it from the scholarship of discovery?
- Lee Shulman
- Ernest Boyer (Correct answer)
- Parker Palmer
- Mary Taylor Huber
Correct answer: Ernest Boyer
Ernest Boyer's 1990 report Scholarship Reconsidered introduced four interconnected forms of scholarship, including the Scholarship of Teaching, challenging the primacy of research over teaching.
Question 2: Which characteristic most distinguishes SoTL from good teaching?
- SoTL uses only quantitative methods
- SoTL is made public and open to peer review and critique (Correct answer)
- SoTL focuses exclusively on graduate-level courses
- SoTL requires external grant funding
Correct answer: SoTL is made public and open to peer review and critique
According to Hutchings and Shulman, SoTL becomes scholarship only when the work is made public and subjected to critical review by the broader academic community.
Question 3: A faculty developer supports an instructor who wants to study whether collaborative note-taking improves student exam scores. Which research design is most appropriate for an introductory SoTL study?
- Randomized controlled trial across 50 institutions
- Quasi-experimental pre/post design within a single course section (Correct answer)
- Ethnographic fieldwork over three years
- Systematic literature review only
Correct answer: Quasi-experimental pre/post design within a single course section
A quasi-experimental pre/post design is feasible within one course, allows for before-and-after comparison, and is appropriately scaled for an introductory SoTL inquiry.
Question 4: When faculty conduct SoTL research in their own classrooms, which ethical obligation is most critical to address with an Institutional Review Board (IRB)?
- Ensuring all participants are US citizens
- Managing the inherent power differential between instructor-researcher and student-participant (Correct answer)
- Publishing results only in open-access journals
- Securing a minimum sample size of 200 students
Correct answer: Managing the inherent power differential between instructor-researcher and student-participant
Because students may feel coerced to participate given their grade dependency on the instructor, IRB review must address how voluntary participation and anonymity will be protected.
Question 5: Which SoTL framework uses the questions 'What works?', 'What is?', 'What could be?', and 'What is valued?' to help faculty frame their inquiry?
- Bass's Pedagogical Paradox
- Hutchings' Taxonomy of SoTL Questions (Correct answer)
- Felten's Five Principles of Good SoTL
- Angelo & Cross's Classroom Assessment Techniques
Correct answer: Hutchings' Taxonomy of SoTL Questions
Pat Hutchings' taxonomy categorizes SoTL questions into four types—what works, what is, visions of the possible, and formulating new conceptual frameworks—to help faculty identify their inquiry focus.
Question 6: Which outlet is most appropriate for disseminating SoTL findings to a broad audience of higher education faculty developers?
- A departmental memo circulated internally
- The Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning or Teaching & Learning Inquiry (Correct answer)
- A personal blog with no peer review
- Only presentations at discipline-specific conferences
Correct answer: The Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning or Teaching & Learning Inquiry
Peer-reviewed SoTL journals like the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (JoSoTL) and Teaching & Learning Inquiry are the primary venues for validated, discipline-spanning SoTL dissemination.
CFD CFD Research & Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 1
Who is credited with originating the concept of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and distinguishing it from the scholarship of discovery?