This week’s episode features an article from the open-access journal, Teaching & Learning Inquiry, and examines strategies for conducting a literature search for scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects.
See our extended show notes at https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/searching-for-sotl-literature/
This week’s episode features an article from the open-access journal, Teaching & Learning Inquiry, and examines strategies for conducting a literature search for scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects:
Healey, Mick, and Ruth L. Healey. 2023. “Searching the Literature on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL): An Academic Literacies Perspective: Part 1.” Teaching and Learning Inquiry 11. https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.11.4.
60-Second SoTL
Episode 35 – Searching for SoTL Literature
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Jessie L. Moore:
What strategies can scholars use to conduct a literature search for scholarship of teaching and learning projects? That’s the focus of this week’s 60-second SoTL from Elon University’s Center for Engaged Learning. I’m Jessie Moore.
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In “Searching the Literature on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL): An Academic Literacies Perspective—Part 1,” published in the open-access journal, Teaching and Learning Inquiry, Mick Healey and Ruth Healey provide practical strategies for SoTL literature searches and advocate for extending SoTL citation practices.
Healey and Healey first note that the purpose for undertaking a literature search will shape the scope of the review. For example, identifying key sources on a topic might necessitate a less thorough search than highlighting historically excluded voices or developing a comprehensive, freestanding literature review.
0:52
While they emphasize that literature review processes can be non-linear, messy, and recursive, Healey and Healey also illustrate key process steps with their own search process for literature related to the article—searching and reviewing the literature on SoTL. Their process includes identifying key search terms and inclusion and exclusion criteria, as well as using a comprehensive array of search tools.
The authors share strategies for searching in library discovery searches—like those often embedded in library websites to search across library resources, in online databases, and in web search engines. Yet they also include a helpful discussion about using selective sources like reference lists, professional networks, and what they call grey literature—which could include conference proceedings, institutional websites, working papers, policy documents, online bibliographies, social media posts, and blogs.
1:45
Extending this discussion of literature search strategies, Healey and Healey challenge readers to broaden their citation practices to include discipline-based educational research, authors from other geographic regions, and authors from underrepresented and marginalized demographic groups. They also include links to resources that facilitate these goals.
2:05
To learn more about their literature search strategies, follow the link in our show notes to read the article and to review our supplemental resources for this episode. Stay tuned for our next episode, which will focus on Healey and Healey’s second article in this two-part pairing, in which they discuss strategies for critically reviewing scholarship found as a result of a literature search.
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Join us next week for another snapshot of recent scholarship of teaching and learning on 60-second SoTL from Elon University’s Center for Engaged Learning. Learn more about the Center at www.CenterForEngagedLearning.org.
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