What Makes SoTL Literature Searching Different from Disciplinary Literature Searching

Faculty who are new to SoTL may have to search in unfamiliar ways to find the information they seek. Reasons for this are as follows:

  • SoTL literature is published in a variety of locations. Some journals will be indexed in the database ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) and many articles can be found searching Google Scholar. Some journals are fully available from an institution’s journal platform. For example, Teaching and Learning Inquiry is hosted by the University of Calgary and can be found on Google Scholar, ERIC, and other databases.
  • There is not a list of subject terms that are specifically related to SoTL. As such, researchers need to think widely and creatively about the terms that could be used to capture their topic.

Overall, faculty, who are experts in their own field, may feel like novice researchers again as they learn the SoTL information landscape.

To assist with the unfamiliarity that researchers may have with SoTL, we have compiled a list of resources below that we feel are a good place to start.

Prominent Journals in SoTL

Disciplinary Education Journals

Examples include (subscription – access through your institution):

For a more robust list of disciplinary education journals presented by discipline, see this guide from Dalhousie University https://dal.ca.libguides.com/clt/sotl/disciplines

Databases

  • ERIC
  • Education Research Complete

General Search Engines and Indexes

  • Google Scholar
  • Scopus
  • Web of Science
  • JSTOR

Terminology to use when searching

  • Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
  • Teaching
  • Learning
  • Higher education
  • Curriculum
  • Pedagogy
  • Education
  • Faculty development
  • Academic development
  • Educational development
  • Evidence-based teaching
  • Additional keywords can be found here

SoTL Scholar Experiences

However, as Janice Miller-Young highlights in her interview, not all faculty experience discomfort, surprise, or disorientation when beginning to research in SoTL. Depending on their background and experiences, faculty may find SoTL research similar to the processes they use within their own discipline. But it is important to note that even if SoTL research feels comfortable from the beginning, all new SoTL scholars will need to learn the information landscape in order to effectively maneuver it.

SoTL scholar Olivia Choplin describes her early experience with SoTL literature searching when prompted by a desire to write about something she had experienced in her classroom. She describes SoTL keyword searching as a similar process to the one she uses in her disciplinary work but highlights the challenge of following the conversation across many different possible spaces.