Sara Marcketti, Ann Marie VanDerZanden, Joshua Mitchell
Much of the research published on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) has focused on one of the primary purposes of strengthening faculty teaching practices and improving student learning (Condone, Iverson, Manduca, Rutz, & Willett, 2016). While our Midwestern University values SoTL as indicated in its inclusion in the Faculty Handbook which governs faculty life, anecdotally, one often hears that those who conduct SoTL must do more to have their work “counted” towards promotion and tenure decisions. We sought to understand the association between engagement in SoTL activities and number of total outputs as counted in the promotion and tenure process.
Working with the Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost, a team evaluated the CVs of each faculty member who was successfully promoted to associate professor or professor between 2010 to 2017. Initially, data retrieved from each CV were entered into Excel and included the total number of peer-reviewed publications, academic presentations, external and internal grants awarded, and all other publications (e.g., extension pamphlets, technical documents), regardless of its classification as SoTL or non-SoTL. Then, the team documented and counted every occurrence of SoTL within these same categories. Data were then de-identified and analyzed for this study using SPSS (Version 24).
The sample consisted of data collected between 2010 and 2017 from the promotion and tenure curriculum vitas (CV) of 431 faculty members seeking promotion and tenure to the ranks of associate professor (57%, n = 247) and professor (43%, n = 184). Forty-seven percent of the faculty members included in the study were engaged in SoTL as part of their P&T activities. We used a one-way ANOVA to compare statistical differences based on SoTL engagement. The results indicated that faculty who do not engage in SoTL activities published more journal articles, while faculty who engaged in SoTL activities received more grants. However, no statistical or substantive differences were found in the total number of other publications or presentations. One possible explanation for the overall lower number publications despite the higher number of grants among faculty members who engage in SoTL may be the greater opportunities to engage in internal grants related to teaching and learning. Centers for Teaching and Learning could consider the importance of working with individuals who receive SoTL related grants to assist them with their data collection and analysis in order to effectively publish and disseminate their findings.
