How will you collect evidence of relevant student thinking and learning (i.e., data) that will answer your specific question(s)? First, consider how you know what your students are learning.

• Does doing well on a test mean they’ve really learned the material?
• How do you measure and make sense of what they’re really learning?
• How can you gather evidence of their thinking at earlier stages of their learning process, not just in the final, summative assessments like essays and exams?

Now is the time to start thinking about the details of your SoTL project. The purpose of these prompts is to walk you through determining the sources needed for data collection.

Part I: Operationalizing Your Variables

Based on your research questions, list the variables/constructs in your project. State in detail how you will operationalize or measure each variable/construct. After you have defined your constructs, indicate the type of evidence (i.e., direct or indirect; see Gathering Evidence) and source of evidence (e.g., survey, observation, interview) next to each.

The method of survey research is familiar and accessible, but this familiarity can obscure the careful decision-making required to design effective surveys. This guide identifies the key decisions involved with designing surveys for research purposes. Answering these questions will help to ensure that your survey collects the data you need.

The 2015 Early Career Psychologists Committee created this e-book to encourage and support Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) research in pscyhology. Very few resources exist that provide an evaluative review of a variety of measurement tools, especially within the SoTL literature. Organized by topic, this compendium contains scale descriptions, validation information (if available), and marked references so scholars can examine past research that used each scale. In addition, the authors—each well established within their area of focus—provide advice on choosing appropriate scales, developing scales, and the types of scales the SoTL literature still needs. The e-book is divided into two sections, 1) choosing, using, developing, and validating scales, and 2) scales for use in SoTL including a broad range of topics such as critical thinking, learning and self-efficacy, professor-student relationships, well-being, service learning, and student perceptions of learning and teaching. Although this e-book will clearly be helpful to those just getting started in SoTL, it will be equally valuable to seasoned researchers or could serve as an excellent supplementary text for courses such as tests and measurements, research methods, and educational assessment.