Conceptualizing SoTL: a Framework for the Field
Janice Miller-Young and Michelle Yeo, Mount Royal University
ABSTRACT
The emerging field of SoTL is an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor, embracing a diverse
range of research methods. It desires to be hospitable to a range of disciplinary differences in
world views. However, the field lacks coherence in its conceptualization and communication.
Ongoing debates in the community concern the use of theory, as well as definitional questions of
what constitutes SoTL and the nature of its purpose. This article offers a framework for
conceptualizing the field, which attempts to broadly delineate the available theories underlying
and methodologies appropriate to studying teaching and learning, while intending to be
hospitable to a broad range of diverse disciplines. Further, the framework illustrates the tacit links
between learning theories and methodologies, serving as a guide to potential approaches to SoTL
work. The framework is illustrated with example SoTL studies. It is hoped that the framework
will help to broaden the types of questions being investigated in the field, ground those
investigations in appropriate theories and methodologies, and build interdisciplinary
communication and understanding in the “trading zone” that is SoTL.
KEYWORDS
SoTL, field, methodology, learning theory, framework
INTRODUCTION
As an emerging and developing interdisciplinary field, the Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning (SoTL) is rich with debate about its nature and purpose (Poole, 2013a). In order to
define the field and communicate guidelines for good practice, many leaders in the field have
developed criteria or taxonomies for defining and evaluating SoTL. Some criteria are written
very generally, such as “clear goals, adequate preparation, appropriate methods” (Glassick et al,
	
  
	
  

	
  
1997, p. 36) or “methodologically sound” (Felten, 2013, p. 122). Others have developed
taxonomies based on levels of analysis. For example, Nelson (2003) divides the field into reports
on particular classes, reflections on many years of teaching experience, comparisons of courses or
students across time, learning science, and summaries and analyses of sets of prior studies, while
Hutchings (2000) delineates the oft referred to “what is,” “what works,” “visions of the possible,”
and “formulation of new conceptual frameworks” (pp. 4-5). While simple enough to be inclusive
of various disciplinary perspectives and methods, these descriptions do not help members of one
discipline understand the perspective and methods of another, nor how “soundness” or “rigor” of
method is evaluated. The lack of theory included in published work leads to an impression that
the field is somewhat a-theoretical, which may make it quickly accessible to practitioners steeped
in their own disciplines, but who may be less familiar with available theories and methodologies
in researching teaching and learning. However, inquiry always flows out of a particular stance
and worldview about, for example, how learning works, as well as methodological assumptions.
Neglecting articulation of these weakens the work in the effort to make it more accessible, and
suggests that a lack of rigour is acceptable in SoTL.
In this paper, we broadly outline existing categories of learning theories and research
methodologies, and from these develop a framework for the field based on the intersections of
different research approaches and perspectives on learning. The framework is then explored using
a variety of published SoTL studies.
What is SoTL? The Problem of Definition
Some definitions of SoTL acknowledge the importance of theory but have a more narrow
perspective on the nature of SoTL. Dickson and Treml (2013) state that a SoTL practitioner must
“integrate findings into relevant pedagogical theory and research” (p. 9); however their definition
of SoTL is a quantitative, empirical one of measuring the impact of a teaching intervention. In
	
  
	
  

	
  
fact, in a 9-chapter special issue on “Measuring Systematic Changes to Teaching and
Improvements in Learning” (Gurung and Wilson, 2013), containing 3 chapters on experimental
research design and one on statistics, there is only a brief, one-paragraph acknowledgement that
“qualitative studies are complementary and just as useful” (p. 31). If a new practitioner were to
come upon this resource early in their exposure to SoTL, they might have a very narrow
understanding of the field and might never “enjoy the benefits of studying learning and teaching
from diverse research and theoretical perspectives” (Poole, 2013b, p. 140).
In contrast to the experimental view of SoTL described above, some contend that
questions about what works and generalizability are simply not answerable empirically in SoTL
(Barrow, 2006; Grauerholz and Main, 2013). While not impossible, control group studies are also
difficult to design ethically in a SoTL context (Healey et al., 2013). However, as the field begins
to embrace increasingly diverse research methods (eg. Hubball and Clarke, 2010), the question of
“what is SoTL” is still alive. Recently, Grauerholz and Main (2013) worry that the SoTL
movement will be “shaped by (hegemonic) standards that privilege certain types of
methodologies over others” (p.152), and yet McKinney (2013), in describing the increasing
interdisciplinarity of SoTL, wonders “at what point – if any – does such work become something
other than SoTL?” (p. 3) We argue, as does Poole (2013b), that by embracing a broader definition
of research for the field, we can get past our disciplinary debates and focus on understanding
student learning. In fact, in bringing forward a range of disciplinary approaches to methodology,
the work is strengthened and diversified and may provide additional perspectives and entry
points. However, those approaches should be explained and justified for a wide SoTL audience.
We propose that SoTL should be defined by the goals of deepening our understanding of student
learning and, as Kreber (2013) advocates, exploring not only the “effectiveness but also the
desirability of what we do in and through higher education” (p. 858).
	
  
	
  

	
  
Given the definitional and theoretical debates within SoTL, it is surprising to us that the
field does not draw more often upon educational research literature, which uses many lenses for
examining learning. When comparing SoTL to “traditional educational research” and arguing for
the value of rich description versus generalizability, SoTL authors often seem to be referring to
educational research within a quantitative social science framework (eg. Bernstein, 2010), but do
not make this explicit. For example, in arguing for the “fallacy of control groups in classroom
research”, Grauerholz and Main (2013) incorrectly reference Kanuka (2011) when they decry that
“many SoTL researchers continue to define SoTL as an extension of educational research, with
methodologies consistent with those in traditional disciplines” (p. 156). In fact, Kanuka’s article
is more focused on the need for theoretical frameworks and building on existing literature in
SoTL and less on methodology. However, in a brief discussion of typical methodologies in the
field of education, she does mention not only scientific and positivistic methodologies, but also
naturalistic and interpretive methodologies as well as critical theory (please see below for
descriptions). In other words, Kanuka does not argue that SoTL should be experimental or
empirical in design at all. In response, we argue that the field of SoTL could benefit from a better
understanding of the range of lenses and methodologies used in educational research.
We know from learning science that organization of knowledge into schema is key to
learning a discipline (Ambrose, 2010; Leamson, 1999; Zull, 2002) and we believe is key to
understanding the field of SoTL. Lack of a coherent and systematic way of conceptualizing SoTL
can be confusing, especially for relatively new practitioners in the field (Simmons et al., 2013)
and is limiting the advancement and/or acceptance of the field (Boshier, 2009). In summary, we
agree with McKinney’s claim (2013) that:
We need more resources that offer examples, applications and discussions of critical issues
of SoTL in disciplines beyond our own and in interdisciplinary SoTL efforts. Such
	
  
	
  

	
  
resources help broaden our horizons and encourage cross-disciplinary collaborations by
sharing conceptual frameworks, methodologies, key results and practical applications that
may be useful in our own classrooms and SoTL research. (p. 3)
Therefore, the purposes of this article are to provide an inclusive definition and framework to
conceptualize the field, to raise awareness of theories and methodologies suited to particular
investigations, to illustrate the diversity of types of questions being investigated in the field, and
to help build interdisciplinary communication and understanding in the “trading zone” that is
SoTL.
THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES FROM THE FIELD OF
EDUCATION RESEARCH
The field of education research draws upon a range of learning theories and
methodologies, which are mostly absent in SoTL discourse. If SoTL is an inquiry about
deepening our understanding of student learning and development, rather than only measuring
changes in learning due to a teaching intervention, then a range of methodologies and theoretical
frameworks becomes available to us.
SoTL has been described as different from the field of education because it is a
“methodological and theoretical mutt” (Felten, 2013, p. 121) in that it reaches across disciplines,
methods and perspectives rather than being “siloed” in one particular discipline, field, or
methodology. We find this misleading since the same could be said of the field of education
research and of qualitative research in general. While it is true that there are siloed areas of work
in education research ranging from that of quantitative researchers to critical theorists, other
researchers in the field also use mixed methods and multiple theoretical frameworks. Yet in
educational research using mixed methods, there is still an understanding that different
methodologies align with certain theoretical perspectives and methods of collecting data, and are
	
  
	
  

	
  
determined by the kinds of research questions one wishes to ask about learning. In other words,
methodological choices are not entirely separate from choices of theoretical perspective and
world view, so while the field as a whole may be a mutt, any individual SoTL study still needs to
be consistent in its methodology, method, and perspective. SoTL researchers can benefit from
being aware of their philosophical approach and theoretical assumptions because it will help them
design better studies and also more strongly articulate their findings, especially to colleagues with
different world views. This will also benefit the field, as theoretically grounded work is also a
way for SoTL to achieve broader impact across studies and make new contributions to
knowledge about teaching and learning beyond single classrooms.
Finally, the role of theory is very different in quantitative and qualitative research. In a
quantitative study, theory is identified early and informs the research design by helping to
identify a hypothesis and to select appropriate measurements. In contrast, in qualitative research,
theory may be used much later as a lens through which to interpret the findings. One of the
strengths of qualitative research is that its open, emergent approach allows for the identification
of new phenomena that may not have been anticipated. Hence, a qualitative or mixed methods
study might start out with the intent to better understand students’ stages of cognitive
development related to a particular disciplinary concept, but end up uncovering an unanticipated
finding related to gender or motivation. For this reason, as SoTL continues to embrace more
qualitative research approaches, we expect that it will become more and more important for
practitioners to be aware of different theoretical frameworks within which to place their findings.
Learning Theories
According to Kanuka (2011), two facets of theory are necessary to identify in SoTL
studies. The first is the theoretical framework, usually a learning theory, upon which the
researchers are basing their assumptions, either explicitly or tacitly. The second is methodology.
	
  
	
  

	
  
In terms of learning theory, Kanuka notes that typically, SoTL studies rely on a superficial
mention and application of deep and surface learning (p. 4). In contrast, the body of learning
theories available is enormous. These may be divided broadly into behaviorist, cognitivist,
constructivist, and humanist approaches. It is useful, when reading a SoTL study, to understand
the basic assumptions of the researcher in terms of how learning works. If it is not specifically
stated, the assumptions of the researchers can often be inferred by the type of evidence collected
as well as the research question. In what follows, we briefly outline the major categories of
learning theories and methodologies before providing examples of SoTL studies in this
framework. We have deliberately oversimplified to provide an introduction to those who may be
new to learning theory and methodology; we also offer references for more information.
Behaviourism
This perspective on learning developed in the early 20th century, and suggests that all
behavior is based upon external stimuli – or the idea that environmental changes lead to
behavioral change as evidence of learning (Gurung & Schwartz, 2013, p. 35). Behaviour is seen
as being shaped by positive and negative reinforcement. “Pavlov’s dog” is a well-known example
demonstrating classical conditioning, leading to a physiological response (Gurung & Schwartz, p.
35). B.F.Skinner further developed the theory of operant conditioning, which is more applicable
in classroom settings as it focuses on the shaping of behaviour (rather than physiological
responses) through reinforcement, “if the reinforcer is contingent upon the learner’s behaviour”
(Naested, Potvin, & Waldron, 2004, p. 74). While behaviourism is currently less ‘fashionable’ in
educational research circles, we see many vestiges of the approach in our schooling systems, such
as the reward of grades for student work. Many studies in fact, particularly those that take
approaches borrowed from the field of Psychology often take a more behavioural approach. In

	
  
	
  

	
  
these studies, learning is defined in behavioural terms, for example, how students might be
motivated to study more frequently.
Cognitivism
This theory considers learning as a mental process, involving the creation of schema,
structures, and models. The mind is seen as a “black box” or information processor, with “a focus
on a person’s own mental activities rather than on the environment” (Gurung & Swartz, 2013, p.
35). It replaced behaviourism as the dominant paradigm in the 1960s. Cognitivist theories
prioritize memory, thinking, and problem-solving, and “directed psychologists to examine the
determinants of learning and memory, with an emphasis on understanding the acquisition of
knowledge in humans” (Gurung & Schwartz, 2013, p. 36). Learning is defined as a change in a
learner’s schemata. Benjamin Bloom’s (1956) well known taxonomy of educational goals
(knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation), or the current work
in Decoding the Disciplines (Middendorf & Pace, 2004) are examples of cognitivist perspectives
in practice.
Constructivism
Constructivism builds on cognitivism, viewing learning as an active, “constructive”
process. New information is linked to prior knowledge, and that subjective representations of
reality are created. Past experience and cultural factors influence learning. Important early work
in constructivism was done by Vygotsky, Piaget, and Dewey, often considered the father of
experiential learning (Naested et al., 2004, p. 85). This paradigm is dominant in the K-12
educational system in terms of espoused philosophy, although not always evident in practice.
Social constructivism, which recognizes the impact of interaction with others on learning, is a
further development. Notions such as ‘active learning’ and “communities of practice” (Lave and
Wenger, 1991) are rooted in constructivist and socially constructivist principles.
	
  
	
  

	
  
Humanism
Humanism, a paradigm that also emerged in the 1960s, is based upon ideas of freedom, dignity,
and potential of human beings. Maslow’s hierarchy is the well-known model (Maslow, 1970,
cited by Naested et al., 2004, p. 94). The worldview here is that people act with intentionality
according to their core values. Focusing on the whole learner, rather than only the thinking aspect
of the person, is key. Humanist approaches are most common in the caring professions such as
social work.
Methodology
The second theoretical element that needs articulation is the methodology of the study.
This should be seen as distinct from method, which is simply a description of how the
participants were selected, the data collected and analyzed. Methods are what were done in the
study. Methodology explains why it was done this way, and again articulates the assumptions and
epistemology (world view) of the researchers (Burton, 2002, p. 4). For example, while many
SoTL studies may collect work samples or interview students, what is done with this data and
what is looked for depends largely upon the methodology. If a more empirical approach is taken,
measurement of change will be sought, whereas in a critical study the researcher is attuned to
questions of privilege and power. However in most qualitative approaches, generalizability is
typically not an aim of the research but rather, a rich, contextual (“thick”) description to ensure
trustworthiness. The onus is then on the reader to determine whether the findings are transferable
to other contexts. Broad categories of methodological approaches are briefly described below.
Quantitative
Quantitative studies typically take a positivist perspective, which assumes that there is a
single truth or knowable world, which is independent of context, observer, or the observed
(Chism, 2010). This type of research is hypothesis-driven and its purpose is to find relationships
	
  
	
  

	
  
among variables and/or to define cause-and-effect. The methods and variables are defined in
advance, and the research design must address validity, reliability, and generalizability (Gurung
& Wilson, 2013). A more recent development can be considered post-positivist, whereby the
influence of the researcher’s assumptions is recognized, and in which “one can only say that
current data is consistent with an assumed truth” (Chism, 2010, p. 2). Objectivity is still sought.
Qualitative Empirical
Some research uses qualitative data sources and does not have an experimental design,
but is still empirical in its approach; its underlying goal is to discover aspects of an observable
reality, and it attempts to be as objective as possible in its approach. In a SoTL study, the
emphasis in data collection is on observing learning as demonstrated rather than inferring that
learning has occurred or asking to students to describe their perception or reflection upon
learning.
Naturalistic
Naturalistic studies reject the notion that controlling for variables is desirable or even
possible in research, but rather pose that each research situation is unique and that data should be
gathered from their situated context (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Anchored in anthropology,
research approaches such as ethnographies are used to study a given culture, with an emphasis on
fieldwork and participant observation. These approaches can be fruitfully applied to teaching and
learning contexts.
Interpretive
Interpretive approaches derive knowledge claims from the interpretation of experiences,
and thus do not try to prove generalizability at all, but instead assume that social reality is locally
and specifically constructed (Lincoln and Guba, 1985), and that the knowledge produced is
idiographic in nature. In other word, multiple subjective realities are possible. In interpretive
	
  
	
  

	
  
methodologies, methods and approaches emerge and are adjusted during the study. Rather than
judging interpretive research on generalizability, quality in interpretive research must be judged
through the worth of the study’s findings to others in different contexts. Using Hutchings’ (2000)
taxonomy, interpretive approaches would be considered a “what is” type of approach. Theories of
learning that align with this methodology tend to be constructivist and social constructivist
perspectives. Hermeneutic, narrative inquiry, phenomenographic and phenomenological
approaches are examples of interpretive methodologies.
Critical Theory
The critical perspective examines power relationships present in society, and therefore
recognizes truth in multiple subjective realities, since truth defined by those in power is different
than for those who are marginalized. Kreber (2013) suggests that discourse in SoTL has been so
oriented to “what works” that it tacitly ignores questions of social justice and ethical
considerations. She argues that such questions are inseparable from “what we think we are
committed to in the scholarship of teaching and what we consider its purpose to be” (p.858). She
fruitfully draws upon the work of Hannah Arendt and frames SoTL as action rather than work.
This perspective then leads us towards a critical approach, which is designed to illuminate
inequities, and could ask questions about race, class and gender and how they play out in a
pedagogical space.
Postmodern
Postmodern analyses include diverse and contradictory critiques that “resist, subvert, and
refuse any structural formation” (Denzin and Lincoln, 2013, p. 455). Its discourses are
deconstructive in that they seek to make us skeptical about beliefs concerning truth, knowledge,
power, the self, and language that are often taken for granted. Their purpose is to deconstruct

	
  
	
  

	
  
existing ‘grand narratives’ or theoretical frameworks that describe social behavior, and the
outcome is a reconceptualized description of a phenomenon.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR SoTL
To address the issue of the lack of an inclusive conceptualization of the field of SoTL,
and to demonstrate how methodological and theoretical perspectives can be aligned, we used the
two spectrums described above to create a two-dimensional framework, grounded in the current
and diverse methodological practices of the field. Therefore, to demonstrate and test the
framework, we began by mapping to the framework a selection of recent publications from SoTL
scholars in various disciplines at Mount Royal University (Figure 1), chosen to demonstrate
variety in methodology and perspectives on learning. To fully illustrate the framework, we also
describe two more studies to fill in the gaps. All studies are briefly summarized below, with
references provided, and are described in order starting from the top left of the framework,
moving down and to the right. Readers are encouraged to examine each publication in more
detail if they desire to gain a full appreciation of the nature of these studies and their approaches
and outcomes.

<insert Figure 1 here>

A. McGrath, A. (2014) Just checking in: The effect of an office hour meeting and learning
reflection in an introductory statistics course. Teaching of Psychology, 41(1), 83-87.
McGrath’s (2014) study of students’ learning in a psychology statistics course took a
quantitative, experimental approach. Recognizing the value of professor-student rapport as well
as asking students to reflect on their learning, McGrath devised an intervention which she called
a learning check-in, where students were required to have an individual meeting with her
	
  
	
  

	
  
followed by completing a reflection form which asked them to assess their own learning and
behaviours, and to develop a plan to succeed in the course. Students were randomly assigned into
two groups that had the learning check-in at different times in the semester. The effect of the
intervention was measured by performance on several tests, which also allowed for checking the
equivalency of the two randomly assigned groups.
We place this study primarily in the behavioural category since the intervention was
largely targeted to improving students’ study habits. The researcher hypothesized that based upon
previous research, the opportunity to build professor-student rapport would improve learning
outcomes – in this way rapport becomes a motivator for changes in behaviour. In the reflection,
students were asked “to (1) assess their learning to date; (2) consider behaviours that help and
interfere with their learning; (3) identify three behaviours to adopt, change, continue, or stop to
succeed in the course; and (4) develop a study plan for the upcoming test” (p. 84). The study had
a controls built in, including measures to control for instructor bias and “expectancy effects”.
This kind of approach is common in Psychology and is a good example of a quantitative
methodology, where statistics are used to demonstrate results. Cognitivist assumptions are also
intrinsic to the study, since demonstration of the effectiveness of the learning intervention was
measured by test performance.
B. Miller-Young, J.E. (2013) Calculations and expectations: How engineering students describe
three-dimensional forces. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning,
4(1).
Taking an empirical and qualitative approach to methodology and cognitivist learning
perspective, Miller-Young (2013) was interested in the difficulties first-year engineering students
experienced when learning to visualize the three-dimensional structures in their textbooks.
Interested in capturing the students’ thinking processes early in the semester, Miller-Young asked
	
  
	
  

	
  
students to participate in a think-aloud interview, a protocol from cognitive psychology where
participants are asked to talk out loud about what they are thinking while working on a task
(Streveler et al, 2008). By thematizing the think-aloud transcripts, Miller-Young was able to
identify three major difficulties students experienced when learning to visualize the drawings in
their text, and also found evidence of these difficulties in the students’ coursework. The intent of
the study was not to test a teaching intervention, but simply to identify typical challenges students
encounter when learning the skill, so that instructors can be more responsive to these difficulties.
With this cognitivist approach, the researcher was primarily interested in gaining better
access to and understanding of learning processes as they occur – how students “think through” a
complicated problem. The study is empirical because the data collected were observations of
students, while the data collected was qualitative in nature and analyzed through a coding rather
than statistical process.
C. Seitz, D. (2004) Who can afford critical consciousness? : practicing a pedagogy of humility.
Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
As a socially conscious middle-class writing teacher, Seitz (2004) wondered how much
he might have misread some students’ motives and social meanings in their critical writing work
because of his own upbringing and educational training. After analyzing his own students’ work
in terms of instrumentalism, difference and resistance, and questioning his own persuasive
authority, he subsequently conducted ethnographic research with working class, minority and
immigrant students in a colleague’s class about women in the third world. Seitz used classroom
(field) observation and student interviews, and also met regularly with his colleague to discuss
her views of particular students and classroom dynamics. The book chronicles not only the
findings of the research but also Seitz’s pedagogical responses to and reflections on the issues
raised.
	
  
	
  

	
  
Because students were asked to write individually in the courses, and the main focus of
study was how students did or did not integrate ideas and values from the course into their lives,
we place this study in the constructivist realm. The methodology is primarily naturalistic since
Seitz describes himself as “an anthropologist studying culture that develops in the class” (p. 45),
although as one might surmise from the topic and title of the study, there are critical perspectives
as well. Seitz explicitly describes his research as ethnographic and discusses the importance of
“membership role” (p. 45), and being a participant-observer, which are important aspects of
research in anthropology. He also argues that the ethnographic methodology’s emphasis on
inductive theorizing helps him as a teacher to remain attentive to the complex and varying
situations in his classroom and students.
D. MacMillan, M. (in press) Student connections with academic texts: A phenomenographic
study of reading. Teaching in Higher Education.
As librarian teaching a research methods class for Public Relations, MacMillan (in press)
was interested in ways to help students read scholarly materials at a deeper level by encouraging
them to make connections with prior knowledge. She designed an assignment where students
were required to make and record such connections as part of an in-class reading activity, and
used a phenomenographic approach to analyze the variation in what sparked connections and
what kinds of connections students made, in terms of both content and depth. The outcome of this
study was a deeper understanding of students’ reading processes, and suggestions for ways of
improving students’ ability to engage more deeply with academic texts.
Phenomenography is an interpretive approach, but one that does not start with any preset
categories in mind. MacMillan explicitly states that phenomenography’s emphasis on variation
was congruent with the goals of the study, and its focus on relationships was congruent with her
constructivist understanding of learning. These connections result in a coherence to her study.
	
  
	
  

	
  
E. Manarin, K. (2012) Reading value: Student choice in reading strategies. Pedagogy, 12(2),
281-297.
In a study of students’ choice in reading strategies, Manarin (2012) also took an
interpretive approach, but with a more constructivist perspective, to examining students’
reflective reading logs. In a course on critical writing and reading where she provided direction,
prompts and feedback, Manarin had students write ten reflective log entries where they described
how they read different essays, and reflected on the choices they made. Using her own
disciplinary method of close reading and an open coding and re-coding process, she identified
five categories of actions students took in reading, and use patterns based on purpose of the
reading and whether the content was something students could personally connect with. She
reports that she purposefully did not try to track patterns of change in strategies by the students as
an objective observer, which would have been a more empirical approach, but deliberately
intervened when she found students’ strategies to be lacking and selected readings that would
“force students away from some of their habitual choices” (p. 287).
We placed this study in the constructivist/social constructivist space, because of the
recognition that learning, learning about reading in this case, is done contextually and in
conversation with others (in this case, mainly through feedback from the instructor on the reading
logs). The importance of the students’ prior learning experiences is acknowledged. A dialogical
process in the reading logs is described. The researcher also writes consciously from her own
vantage point, recognizing the importance of her perspectives, assumptions, and in a sense,
participation in the study – her assumptions are explored but not controlled out, and she
intervened when she felt it was pedagogically necessary. This then, is an interpretive approach.
F. Carey, M. (2012) In the valley of the giants: cultivating intentionality and integration.
International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6(1).
	
  
	
  

	
  
In a first year General Education Communities and Societies course, Carey (2012)
investigated whether student intentionality and integrative learning could be cultivated by
reflective journal writing and instructor prompts. Over the course of the term, students responded
to questions such as: “What do you bring to this learning experience?”; “What grade do you
expect to get from this course – why?”; and “Are you a deep or a surface learner – why?” (p. 5).
A constant comparison coding approach was used, looking in the journal reflections for themes
of self-awareness, what works, and affect as indicators of intentionality, and commentary on
connections to school and life as evidence of integration. From her findings, Carey concludes that
prompts did cultivate intentionality in students and also suggests that students are well aware of
their movement between deep and surface approaches to learning to achieve different goals in
different courses across their academic careers.
While the prompt “What do you bring to this learning experience?” also has constructivist
elements, the focus in this study was on the values of the learners and how that influenced their
approach to learning. The researcher was interested in self-awareness, and the goals and needs of
the learner. She articulated insights about her own growth as a teacher through the experience of
conducting the study. Because of the focus on intentionality and the whole learner, and the
context-dependent telling of individual stories or “many truths”, we place this study in the
humanist and interpretive realm.
G. Helberg, N., Heyes, C., & Rohel, J. (2009) Thinking through the body: Yoga, philosophy, and
physical education. Teaching Philosophy, 32(3), 263-284.
This article describes an experimental course cross-listed between Philosophy and
Education, entitled “Thinking through the body: Philosophy and Yoga” and the experiences of its
professor and students. The course was designed to address a perceived gap between teaching
theory and practice in teaching philosophy of the body, which was the oft-neglected idea that
	
  
	
  

	
  
movement could be philosophical, and that philosophy could be learned through movement. The
course consisted of lectures and discussions of various readings, and also a weekly yoga practice.
Students were encouraged to approach the texts, as well as their experience, as embodied
subjects. The writing of the paper was a collaborative undertaking resulting from a small group
discussion of both the professor’s and students’ experiences of the course. Through description
and reflection on these experiences, the article demonstrates how what was learned by reading
texts transferred to embodied knowledge, and vice versa. The article discusses both the
professor’s and the students’ unease with evaluating the yoga practice, since students were being
asked to “refrain from judging themselves while nevertheless being judged” (p. 271). Another
tension inherent in the course was that students were asked to reflect and write about their
practice experience, while immersion in meditative practice demands that the mind be still and
detached.
This paper was chosen as another exemplar of a humanistic perspective because of its
whole learner orientation, focusing not only on intellectual development, but also on spiritual and
physical knowledge. The course itself introduced students to a phenomenological study, Leder’s
The Absent Body. This text is used as an important foundational literature both for the course and
the study. Phenomenology is oriented towards embodiment and creating meaning from sensory
experiences, and the breaking down of the Cartesian dualism between mind and body.
Phenomenology is also a research methodology concerned with describing the “essence” of
phenomena, and locates within an interpretive frame.
H. Easton, L. and Hewson, K. (2010) Reflections on the interplay of race, whiteness and
Canadian identity in a film studies classroom. Reception: texts, readers, audiences, history, 2,
116-148.

	
  
	
  

	
  
In a film studies class with a focus on race and representation in Hollywood films, Easton
and Hewson set out to encourage, engage with and better understand students’ readings of several
films. Students’ readings were made evident through journals, group discussion, on-line
discussions and focus groups. After discovering that the students were indeed attuned to critical
discourses of race but have negotiated these into a form of liberal tolerance with underlying
values of individualism, the authors argue that in order for cultural studies’ approaches to have
power in the classroom, more attention must be given to the way students’ pre-existing
experiences of race can readily produce performances of critical readings of film texts (p. 119).
They discovered that students were able to take a critical perspective when discussing blackwhite stereotypes and racism after watching Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (2000), but remained
critical and were unable to move to a reparative reading of Marc Forster’s Monster’s Ball (2001).
They also noticed a double spectatorship in that their Canadian students were able to perform a
critical reading of race and representation when talking about “other people’s” (American)
racism, but were unwilling to connect to personal investments or to recognize the problems of
race in their own country. Thus, they criticize the “model of outcomes-based education where
students learn to become adept at performing outcomes at a cognitive level without necessarily
integrating those outcomes within affective frameworks” (p 143). Finally, they came to realize
that their goals for student reparative reading were more about their own wish for white repair.
This kind of study is unusual in the SoTL realm, and yet important as Kreber asserts to
get beneath “what works” and to ask questions about why, why not, and who decides. Questions
of power and privilege in the classroom largely go unasked, so far, in the SoTL landscape. This
study is an example of a radicalized critical stance, which means that it asks deconstructive
questions about power, in this case in relation to race. The researchers consciously pursue a

	
  
	
  

	
  
“transformative critical pedagogy” (p. 118), while their analysis deconstructs and asks unsettling
questions of themselves and the reader.
These eight very different SoTL studies demonstrate a range of research approaches and
(often implicit) perspectives on learning, and are used to illustrate a conceptual framework for the
field. We hope that this framework might engender better communication, understanding, and
appreciation between disciplines and research traditions. It may serve as a resource for new
practitioners to understand the field, and where their own research tradition can find a point of
entry into the SoTL landscape. Finally, we suggest that this framework might serve as a starting
point to map changes in the field over time.

CONCLUSIONS
This article has broadly outlined existing categories of learning theories and research
methodologies, and has demonstrated that they are useful to conceptualize the field of SoTL. To
address questions in the field about generalizability in SoTL, we have described many qualitative
research methodologies which can be used in SoTL, which are well-established and which make
no claim to achieve generalizability in their findings. We implore SoTL researchers to move
beyond the generalizability debate and broaden the range of perspectives they draw from in their
research methodologies.
The example studies provide evidence that SoTL does, in fact, reach across multiple
methodologies and theoretical perspectives. The examples not only illustrate our proposed
framework but also demonstrate the limitations of the “mutt” metaphor in that methodologies and
theories must be internally compatible. For example, a study that seeks to understand the
development of professional identity would benefit from an interpretive approach rather than a
quantitative instrument.
	
  
	
  

	
  
We argue that in expanding understanding of underlying theories and methodological
ranges we can expand the kinds of questions that can be addressed in SoTL. SoTL researchers
might begin to wrestle with and address Kreber’s criticism (2013) that “the discourse of
evidence-based practice does not leave room for questions about the purposes and goals of our
educational endeavours,” arguing that “our understanding of evidence could be broadened so as
to intentionally encourage a wider range of questions for enquiry” (p. 858).
Methodologies and exemplars that have been highlighted here only scratch the surface of
possibilities for further development of SoTL. The purpose of this paper is not to provide
everything one needs to know about teaching and learning research methodologies and
theoretical frameworks of learning. Rather, it is our hope that we can advance the discussion of
scholarship of teaching and learning past definitional and epistemological debates by describing
the current context and practice of this emerging field, and by placing it within existing
frameworks for research on teaching and learning. Considering that consensus can be an indicator
of the degree of development of a field (Pfeffer, 1993), we argue that it is important to
communicate and generate understanding of different assumptions about knowledge and
learning, which necessitate particular research questions and methodologies in SoTL. Not only
will our framework help SoTL practitioners identify theory and methods which are appropriate
for their questions, but it will also facilitate the explicit communication of such to both our SoTL
and our disciplinary colleagues.

	
  
	
  

	
  
Author Biographies
Janice Miller-Young is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Institute for Scholarship of
Teaching and Learning at Mount Royal University.
Michelle Yeo is a faculty developer and Associate Professor in Mount Royal University’s
Academic Development Centre.

Acknowledgements
We wish to thank members of our SoTL community of practice, Miriam Carey, Sally Haney,
Margy MacMillan, April McGrath, and Melanie Rathburn, where our discussions about
methodology, theory, and orienting scholars to the field first germinated, and Mount Royal
University’s Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning for supporting this work.

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Figure 1. A methodological and theoretical framework to conceptualize the field of SoTL,
illustrated with example studies.