A COMPENDIUM OF SCALES for use in the SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

Chapter 1: Introduction
Rajiv S. Jhangiani 1 , Jordan D. Troisi 2 , Bethany Fleck 3 , Angela M. Legg 4 , and Heather D.
Hussey 5
1 Kwantlen Polytechnic University, 2 Sewanee: The University of the South, 3 Metropolitan
State University of Denver, 4 Pace University, 5 Northcentral University
The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) has increased in both prevalence and profile
during the past decade (Bishop-Clark & Dietz-Uhler, 2012; Gurung & Landrum, 2015; Gurung &
Wilson, 2013). Over this time, SoTL work has become more methodologically rigorous and more
accepted by university administrators as valid and valuable products of scholarship. Given its
strong empirical foundation and long history of basic research such as cognitive, learning,
behavioral, and social, psychology as a discipline is especially well-positioned to lead
investigations into practices that enhance the effectiveness of teaching and learning. With a
stated mission to “promote excellence in the teaching and learning of psychology,” the Society
for the Teaching of Psychology (STP) has been at the forefront of this movement within our
discipline. STP has supported SoTL by awarding grants (e.g., the SoTL grant), developing
demonstrably effective teaching resources (e.g., instructional resource awards), organizing
conferences and meetings (e.g., the Annual Conference on Teaching), and effectively
disseminating research findings (e.g., publication in its flagship journal Teaching of Psychology).
This e-book is intended to further support these efforts by providing a valuable resource that
facilitates the location, evaluation, selection, and (where necessary) development of
psychometrically sound scales for the many traditional areas of focus within SoTL. In doing so,
this compendium will achieve the broader goal of raising the scientific standards of evidencebased
teaching and learning.
As editors of this e-book, we—the members of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology’s
Early Career Psychologists (ECP) committee—identified the relevant topic areas and invited
well-established SoTL researchers within those areas to contribute chapters. As ECPs, we
recognized the need to serve new faculty members and, in particular, the importance of
focusing on pedagogy while facilitating SoTL. However, although this e-book is clearly helpful to
those just getting started in this area of research, it will be equally valuable to seasoned
researchers. SoTL research covers a broad range of topics including critical thinking,
metacognition, professor-student relationships, and student perceptions of learning and
teaching. This compendium covers each of these topics, along with many others that are at the
forefront of SoTL research. Whereas a veteran researcher might be familiar with some of these
areas, they will still benefit from learning more about others, as well as potentially new SoTL
tools.
Organization of this E-Book
Organized by topic, this compendium contains scale descriptions, validation information (if
available), and references so scholars can examine past research that used each scale. In
addition, the authors—each well established within their area of focus—provide advice on
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