Getting Started

Getting Started with SoTL

The goal of SoTL is to inform practice through two central avenues: 1) enhancing the teaching and learning process through improvements in methods, materials, or assessments; and 2) inspiring or changing teacher perspectives (Walvoord, 2002).

Effective SoTL research starts with a specific goal or inquiry question. Questions generally stem from academic curiousity and the desire to understand the dynamics that drive student learning. For most faculty, this emerges as a natural function of their own classroom experiences. SoTL questions examine factors such as:

  • teaching strategies
  • types of learners
  • assessment approaches 
  • classroom dynamics
  • factors that impact teaching and/or learning

SoTL investigations may focus a single classroom or may encompass a range of classroom settings. Regardless of the topic or research approach, the key for an effective SoTL study is to start with a specific goal in mind (Huber & Hutchings, 2005).

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Step 1: Preparation

Links are embedded in the step. Please select link to be taken to article, form or resource. You may need to login to the GCU Library to view articles.

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Step 2: Outline the Research

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Step 3: Permissions

Follow these links to the processes that provide authorization for research at GCU

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Step 4: Unleash the writer within!

There are resources linked to these steps that may be used as writing guides.

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Step 5: Be seriously proud of yourself... and conduct your study

You are still going strong and nearly there! If you have gone through the Site Approval process, we will have worked out a plan for creating and administering a survey, receiving a data set or collecting a data set.

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Step 6: Analyze data (qualitative or quantitative)

You have access to NVivo software within GCU. There are also links within the steps as guides that may help you with this process.

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Step 7: Write

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Step 8: Manuscript Review

Let those keys cool down for a bit. Send your manuscript over to CIRT and we will review it for you.

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Step 9: Share what you learned with the world!

Once you have completed revisions based on your manuscript feedback, it is time to get the word out there.

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Step 10: Report Scholarship

Do not forget to share your scholarship with GCU!

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SoTL Process

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