Supporting Faculty with SoTL Through an Intensive SoTL Scholars Program
This article provides valuable context for the UVA SoTL Programming Resources in this collection (Resource #3). These findings provide one of the first integrations of theory into studying the impact of SoTL and can support educational developers with SoTL initiatives at their own institutions.
The systematic study of teaching and learning made public—Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)—has become an important scholarly endeavor in higher education (How, 2020). As such, Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs) play an important role in developing programs and support structures that enable faculty to conduct SoTL (Fukuzawa et al., 2020; Schwartz & Haynie, 2013). While a plethora of SoTL-related literature exists (see How, 2020), clear gaps remain regarding the impact of an intensive SoTL program on faculty and the integration of theory into the study of SoTL impact.
We examined, through self-determination theory, how engagement in an intensive SoTL Scholars program impacted faculty's competence, autonomy, and relatedness in conducting SoTL and the components of the program that were most influential. We first review two main areas to which the present study contributes: (1) SoTL programs and impact, and (2) conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of SoTL.