Broadening Conceptions of What Constitutes Knowledge and Evidence in SoTL

• Main Author: Sharon Thomas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Georgia Southern University 2011-01-01
• Series: International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
• Subjects: SoTL; Epistemology; Knowledge; Higher education
• Online Access: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/ij-sotl/vol5/iss1/25

In the two decades since the publication of Boyer’s (1990) seminal work, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) has earned an increasingly venerable reputation as a legitimate area of scholarship. What remains contentious, however, is the form that such scholarship takes. Despite the publication of numerous books and articles lauding alternative epistemologies, SoTL advocates regularly have to defend their approaches. The purpose of this essay is to encourage higher education practitioners to broaden their conceptions of what constitutes knowledge and evidence in SoTL. An epistemological discussion, it aims to provide a strong theoretical framework within which SoTL practitioners can argue a case for alternative epistemologies.