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

and boredom; whereas the former includes more general measure (e.g., national survey of
student engagement).
Lori Simons systematically examines 21 quantitative measures of service learning and civic
engagement in Chapter 9, including measures of service impacts on community, faculty
perceptions of service, and service impacts on students. Along with distinguishing between
scales with and without psychometric evidence, Simons provides advice for educators
interested in measuring civic engagement as a student learning outcome.
Students’ epistemological beliefs are the focus of Chapter 10, written by Kelly Ku. By providing a
theoretical background as well as common measures to assess how students conceptualize the
nature of knowledge, Ku addresses questions such as: Do students believe knowledge is relative
and changeable or do they view it in absolute terms? How do they view the perspectives and
opinions or authorities and when are they able to see ambiguity in knowledge representations?
In Chapter 11, Kristin Layous, S. Katherine Nelson, and Angela M. Legg propose that students’
psychological well-being is an essential factor in understanding their experience in the
classroom. The authors provide an overview of scales that assess different aspects of wellbeing,
including both positive (e.g., life satisfaction, subjective well-being, meaning in life) and
negative (e.g., general and domain-specific stress and anxiety) aspects.
Professor-student relationships are the focus of Chapter 12, contributed by Jenna Meyerberg
and Angela M. Legg. These authors begin by providing a conceptual framework for
understanding the positive impact on student outcomes of immediacy behaviors, professorstudent
rapport, and the learning alliance, before reviewing measures of all three constructs.
In Chapter 13, Claire Kirk, Jessica Busler, Jared Keeley, and William Buskist review several
approaches to assessing professor efficacy, including by collecting student and peer feedback
and evaluating teaching materials, before providing an in-depth examination of the Teacher
Behaviors Checklist as an exemplar tool.
The e-book concludes with a thoughtful (and in our minds humorous) chapter by Aaron
Richmond, who highlights the types of scales the literature still needs (Chapter 14), including
measures of metacognition and learning strategies, scales to assess syllabi and model teaching
characteristics, as well as valid behavioral measures to accompany the many self-report SoTL
scales. Richmond concludes with a series of five recommendations that represent a call to
action for SoTL research.
By highlighting the most prominent scales on a range of topics, this e-book serves as an
important reference guide within the scholarship of teaching and learning. Furthermore, the
practical advice that each expert author has provided will surely enhance the rigor of scholarly
work to follow. We hope that this compendium provides a useful tool for early career
psychologist and seasoned researchers alike.
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