In this episode of 60-Second SoTL, Jessie explores Duane Knudson’s bibliometric study of SoTL publications, which documents the field’s growth and influence based on citations in 5 databases indexing peer-reviewed publications.
See our extended episode notes at https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/studying-the-growth-and-influence-of-sotl/.
In this episode of 60-Second SoTL, Jessie explores Duane Knudson’s bibliometric study of SoTL publications, which documents the field’s growth and influence based on citations in 5 databases indexing peer-reviewed publications:
Knudson, Duane. 2026. "Growth and Influence of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Publications." International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning 20 (1): Article 2.
https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2026.200102
This episode was hosted, edited, and produced by Jessie L. Moore, Director of the Center for Engaged Learning and Professor of Professional Writing & Rhetoric.
60-Second SoTL is produced by the Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University.
Music: “Cryptic” by AudioCoffee.
Image in show art is by kjpargeter on Magnific.
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Jessie L. Moore:
How much has the field of SoTL grown over the past three decades? 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 “The Growth and Influence of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Publications,” Duane Knudson reports on a bibliometric study of indexed SoTL research to measure the field’s growth and influence. His article appears in the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, an open-access journal.
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Knudson conducted a bibliometric study, searching multiple scholarly databases—including Google Scholar, Dimensions, OpenAlex, Scopus, and Web of Science—using a variety of SoTL-related search terms to examine the size, growth, and impact of SoTL publications.
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His findings illustrate the exponential growth in SoTL research since the early 2000s, with Google Scholar indexing as many as 110,000 SoTL-related articles, chapters, and books. Knudson notes that the number of results for each of his search terms varied widely across the databases, with Google Scholar consistently returning the most results.
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Three journals collectively account for 34% of the top 100 cited SoTL indexed articles. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, which began publishing in 2006, and Teaching & Learning Inquiry, which began publishing in 2013, each account for 12% of the top cited articles. Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, which began publishing in 2000, accounts for 10% of the top cited articles.
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Knudson also reports on the top 15 cited SoTL articles, chapters, and books indexed in Google Scholar and the top nine highly cited authors. However, his analysis does not account for dates of publication, and several of the publications listed benefit from having been published over one or two decades ago; they are enduring, foundational sources. It’s more difficult to discern from the analysis which more recent publications have had a proportionally significant influence on SoTL.
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Nevertheless, Knudson’s analysis both confirms that SoTL has grown as a field, becoming more influential and widely referenced—at least as measured by bibliometrics. His article also models a research method that scholars could use to document and analyze growth patterns in SoTL’s subfields—again, as measured by bibliometrics.
To learn more about this study, visit our show notes for a link to the open access article.
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Jessie L. Moore:
Join us for our next episode of 60-second SoTL from Elon University’s Center for Engaged Learning for another snapshot of recent scholarship of teaching and learning. Learn more about the Center at www.CenterForEngagedLearning.org.
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