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Joining the dots: SoTL as part of institutional research

Published in one of the highest ranking Australian education journals, this text explored the scholarship of teaching and learning and its potential to add to the landscape of Institutional Research. Ideas were first presented at the 2nd Institutional Research Conference: Building a Community for Institutional Research in the UK and Ireland (Sheffield 2009). Building on this, Shreeve used creative arts examples to reflect on the way that the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) tends to be conducted at local levels in a university by academics who evaluate and question their own teaching practices with a view to improvement in their own students’ learning experience. Institutional Research (IR) however, has tended towards the use of statistics often generated through a university’s own procedures, to inform management and policy decisions at a higher managerial level. While both approaches can lead to improvement, an opportunity to maximise information available to the university is perhaps missed, as these two forms of research tend to remain within different spheres of influence, local practice and management information. This paper draws on different forms of scholarship and research in one of the UK’s Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning with a specific creative arts focus. It suggests that SoTL should be viewed as part of a wider approach to IR, though mediation may be required between different levels of university structures in order to maximise benefits to university improvement agendas. The use of creative arts examples helps to publicise the progressive approaches used by many art and design teachers in Higher Education in the UK, where experiential learning and imaginative use of resources are positive contributors to learning and teaching improvement agendas internationally.