Mohammed Islam, Reza Taheri, Sarah McBane, Rahmat Talukder
The 1990 publication of “Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate” by Ernest Boyer paved the way for the eventual birth of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Reflective of the ISSOTL 2018 conference threads, but most specifically to “An inclusive learning culture“ and ”A culture that learns”, this poster will focus on the faculty perceptions of SoTL, their engagement in SoTL, and recognition of SoTL in US colleges/schools of pharmacy. SoTL is gaining momentum within academic pharmacy, as pharmacy curricula evolve along with the profession, creating multiple opportunities for faculty to pursue scholarship (McLaughlin et al., 2013; Peeters, 2013; Mehvar 2017). The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education Standards 2016 expects that colleges/schools engage in research in the design and delivery of the curriculum. A survey instrument was developed to collect quantitative and qualitative information on the faculty attitude towards SoTL and its roles in faculty reward structure. An electronic hyperlink to the survey instrument was emailed to 6454 faculty members of 139 PharmD programs in the United States and its territories. SurveyMonkey (SurveyMonkey, Inc., Portland, OR) was used to collect responses. Survey data were analyzed using Chi-square test of independence, z-test, Mann-Whitney U test, and Kruskal-Wallis test. A total of 643 faculty representing 100% of US colleges/schools of pharmacy participated in the study. From a list of 11 scholarly activities, correct SoTL activities were identified by 78 ̶ 98% of participants with statistically significant differences between faculty disciplines. Over 94% of participants indicated that institutional policies should encourage SoTL. More than 70% of respondents strongly/agreed that SoTL should be incorporated into criteria for promotion and tenure. Majority of the respondents (83.5%) reported that their institutions accept SoTL as criteria for promotion and tenure. Only 40% of respondents reported that their colleges/schools considered SoTL for merit-based salary increase which was more prevalent in public versus private universities (p<.01). SoTL engagement was indicated by 74% of respondents. Competing faculty time commitments and lack of funding, faculty interest, institutional recognition and awareness of SoTL were identified as challenges to SoTL. In conclusion, our results show that US colleges/schools of pharmacy recognize and value SoTL. Majority of the respondents believe that institutional/school policies should encourage SoTL and incorporate into criteria for promotion and tenure. Findings from this study may serve as an impetus for inclusion of SoTL in institutional reward structure across pharmacy academy.
