“This has opened up doors”: University teachers’ experiences of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Abstract

In recent decades, universities have had to adapt to various policy changes and new demands. These demands have been explained by referring to changes in society, globalization, new technology and easier access to higher education studies, resulting in a much more diverse student population. One of these new demands has been to focus more on the quality of teaching, and teaching development within higher education institutions.

The research reported and discussed in this article was carried out with university teachers who participated in a higher education diploma programme, organised by the Centre of Teaching and Learning during the years 2014–2016. Data was collected through focus group interviews with two groups, one consisting of five participants who had finished their diploma, and the other a group of five participants, still studying in the module at the time when the interview took place.

A diploma in higher education pedagogy is a 30 ECTS line of study, located within the School of Education, at the University of Iceland. The diploma consists of three 10 ECTS modules and is organized for higher education academics. In the final module, participants design and carry out pedagogical research within their own disciplinary field. Based on the ideology of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), the aim of the module is to enhance disciplinary pedagogical research and scholarly practices within higher education teaching.

The findings of the research revealed that the participants in the SoTl module experienced both empowerment as teachers in their disciplinary field, and various challenges when entering what they described as a completely new disciplinary landscape. Thus, our interviewees felt empowered, not only in their role as teachers, but also as leaders, both in traditional administrative roles, as well as when taking on a leading role as educational developers within their discipline. On the other hand, the challenges of entering this foreign landscape were of various kinds; mostly they had to do with methodological and ethical issues, but in addition, the interviewees were concerned about their limited theoretical knowledge in the field, and expressed their worries about not being able to provide a solid theoretical background for their SoTL research. Thus, even though all the participants were experienced researchers within their disciplinary fields, educational research was to them both a theoretical and a methodological challenge.

From educational researchers’ point of view, the invasion of SoTL newcomers into their disciplinary field is also problematic. Educational experts may doubt both the integrity and the scholarship of these newcomers within the educational field of research. They ask questions, such as whether SoTL research should be welcomed as an important contribution to enhance the quality of learning and teaching in higher education, even bringing different disciplinary expertise and disciplinary lenses to the field of education; or, conversely, whether the invasion of SoTL research should be seen as a threat to the integrity of those doing “real” educational research.

The research sheds an important light on the value of SoTL for university teachers through which they become researchers of their own teaching. The findings show that organised pedagogical diploma programmes for university teachers, within which they study their own teaching, can serve as forces of change, not only empowering the individuals participating, but also enhancing curriculum and teaching development within schools and faculties. Therefore, it is of vital importance that administrators and policy-makers provide teachers with opportunities and support for such research, as well as using the results systematically for educational development within their institutions.