Scholar

Scholar

Designing Your SoTL Project

Now comes the interesting part: designing a SoTL project of your own.

The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO), the University of Guelph, and Western University provide useful links for planning a SoTL research projects:

Researching Teaching and Student Outcomes in Postsecondary Education: A Guide published by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.

University of Guelph: Engaging in SoTL

Western University: Resources for Preparing your Research Proposal

Each of these sites also discusses the types of data collection strategies you might consider, such as:

• Portfolios
• Interviews and focus groups
• Observational research
• Questionnaires
• Experiments and quasi- experiments
• Case studies
• Secondary analysis of analytical data that may already exist

It is up to you to select the method that best suits your problem and intent.

Ethics of SoTL Research

As you design your project remember that SoTL research primarily addresses the impact of one’s teaching practice upon learning. SoTL’s ethical challenges stem from the fact that this has the potential to create a power differential between the researchers and their learners. In situations where we conduct research in our own classrooms, these issues can be complicated by our dual responsibilities as both teacher and researcher and by the power differential inherent in the relationship between teacher and learner. Other potential issues may arise around the confidentiality of data, the use of instructional time for research and learners feeling compelled to participate in the research for fear of non-participation impacting their grades or course/certificate completion.

Institutions of higher learning throughout Canada have adopted the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS2) as the core human research ethics guideline. The information on the TCPS2 website covers the ethical conduct of all faculty (full- or part-time), post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, undergraduate students and staff ho conduct research with humans, including research on teaching, learning and student outcomes. The website provides considerable support materials.

SoTL researchers should contact their institutions’ research ethics offices early in the research design phase to ask for advice about how to address any ethics issues that might arise during their SoTL research.

Extend Activity

• Based on the Scholar moduleand its consideration and design links, continue to design and  build your own SoTL plan using the document created in the Refine Your SoTL activity (a copy of the template as a Google Doc or downloaded MS Word file).
• Include considerations of any ethical concerns with the research you are planning.
• If you are using a Google Doc, click the Sharebutton in the top right, then Get Sharable Link to find the web address for sharing your document for others to view. Use this address when you add your response to the Design Your SoTL Project activity or upload the current version of your MS Word document version.

As evidence of completion, please plan to enter the web address for your response in the Scholar badge submission form.