{"id":311,"date":"2026-09-17T15:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.connectivism.ca\/2026\/09\/17\/what-is-the-scholarship-of-teaching-and-learning-and-how-does-it-work-in-elearning\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T15:57:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T15:57:16","slug":"what-is-the-scholarship-of-teaching-and-learning-and-how-does-it-work-in-elearning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.connectivism.ca\/2026\/09\/17\/what-is-the-scholarship-of-teaching-and-learning-and-how-does-it-work-in-elearning\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (and How Does It Work in eLearning)?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a systematic, research-based approach to understanding and improving teaching and learning through inquiry, evidence collection, and knowledge sharing. Unlike traditional teaching practice or informal reflection, SoTL transforms pedagogy into an object of rigorous study, asking meaningful questions about student learning, analyzing data to answer them, and contributing findings to the broader educational community.<\/p>\n

For learning and development professionals in 2026, this framework offers something corporate training has long needed: a disciplined methodology for proving what works. While higher education has championed SoTL for decades, its principles translate powerfully to workplace learning, where design thinking meets evidence-based practice. When you apply SoTL to corporate eLearning, you’re not just creating courses or tracking completion rates. You’re systematically investigating how adults learn in organizational contexts, testing interventions against measurable outcomes, and building a body of knowledge that elevates L&D from service function to strategic partner.<\/p>\n

The timing matters. Business leaders increasingly demand ROI data and learning analytics, not anecdotal success stories. SoTL provides the intellectual infrastructure to deliver that proof while simultaneously improving learner outcomes. It aligns naturally with Neurolearning principles, which rely on cognitive science research to inform instructional design. Both frameworks insist that teaching decisions should rest on evidence, not intuition or tradition.<\/p>\n

This article unpacks how SoTL works as a practical framework for corporate training professionals. You’ll discover what distinguishes scholarly inquiry from routine assessment, explore the core components that make SoTL investigations credible, and learn how to apply this methodology to real workplace challenges. The field operates under a “big tent” philosophy, welcoming diverse questions and methods, which makes it especially adaptable for organizations facing unique learning problems. Whether you’re redesigning onboarding programs or building leadership development pathways, SoTL gives you a repeatable process for turning teaching experiments into validated knowledge.<\/p>\n

Key Takeaway:<\/strong> SoTL’s three pillars, asking focused questions about learning, reflecting systematically on practice, and collecting rigorous evidence, create a feedback loop that continuously improves eLearning design through measurable insights rather than guesswork.<\/div>\n

What the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Means for eLearning<\/h2>\n
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A collaborative learning session highlights how inquiry and evidence-minded discussion fit naturally into corporate eLearning.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is a systematic, research-based approach to understanding and improving how people learn. Rather than relying on intuition or convention alone, SoTL practitioners ask meaningful questions about their learners, gather evidence about what works, and share what they discover with others. Think of it as treating your training programs like a laboratory, you design with intention, observe what happens, measure the results, and refine based on what you find.<\/p>\n

For corporate learning professionals, SoTL provides a practical framework for moving beyond “this is how we’ve always done it” toward “here’s what we tested, here’s what we learned, and here’s what we’re doing differently now.” It shifts the focus from simply delivering content to investigating whether that content actually drives the outcomes your organization needs. When you apply SoTL principles to eLearning design, you’re not just building courses, you’re conducting ongoing research into how your employees learn best and using that knowledge to improve every subsequent program.<\/p>\n

The field operates under what practitioners call a “big tent” philosophy, which means there’s room for inquiry at every level. You don’t need a PhD or a dedicated research team to practice SoTL. An onboarding manager who tests two versions of a compliance module and tracks completion rates is doing SoTL work. So is a leadership development specialist who interviews participants six months after a program to understand long-term behavior change. The big tent welcomes anyone willing to ask honest questions about learning and seek evidence for answers.<\/p>\n

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Systematic Inquiry<\/dt>\n
Approaching learning design with specific questions and structured investigation, rather than making assumptions about what works. In eLearning, this might mean testing whether microlearning bursts outperform traditional modules for your specific audience.<\/dd>\n
Evidence-Based Practice<\/dt>\n
Making design decisions grounded in data collected from your learners, not just industry trends or vendor promises. Your analytics, surveys, and performance metrics become the foundation for what you build next.<\/dd>\n
Dissemination<\/dt>\n
Sharing what you discover with colleagues, your organization, or the broader L&D community so others can benefit from your findings. This creates collective knowledge that lifts the entire field.<\/dd>\n
Scholarly Teaching vs. SoTL<\/dt>\n
Scholarly teaching means staying current with research and applying best practices. SoTL goes further: you generate new knowledge by investigating your own practice and contributing insights to the field.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

In corporate eLearning, SoTL becomes your path to demonstrating ROI with substance. Instead of pointing to completion rates, you can show how a specific instructional approach improved retention by 40 percent, or how redesigning onboarding based on learner feedback cut time-to-productivity. You’re building a body of evidence that proves your training programs work, and proving you know why they work.<\/p>\n

How the SoTL Framework Works in Practice<\/h2>\n

Asking the Right Questions About Learning<\/h3>\n

The foundation of effective SoTL work lies in asking meaningful questions that address genuine challenges in your learning environment. Rather than broad inquiries like “Is this training effective?”, focus on specific, actionable questions that can be answered through observable evidence.<\/p>\n

For employee onboarding, you might ask: “Do new hires who complete interactive scenario-based modules demonstrate higher retention of company policies at 30 days than those who complete text-based courses?” In compliance training contexts, consider: “Which microlearning format results in better procedural recall when employees encounter real-world situations three months after certification?” For skill development programs, try: “What specific design elements reduce the time employees need to apply new software skills independently on the job?”<\/p>\n

The best questions emerge from real frustrations and gaps you’ve noticed in your programs. They should be narrow enough to investigate with available resources yet significant enough to improve outcomes. Frame questions that focus on learner behavior and performance rather than satisfaction scores alone. When your question points directly to evidence you can collect and decisions you can make, you’ve found fertile ground for meaningful inquiry.<\/p>\n

Gathering and Analyzing Learning Evidence<\/h3>\n
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Learning evidence can come from digital signals and feedback, supporting data-informed improvements in eLearning design.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Evidence in corporate eLearning takes multiple forms, each revealing different aspects of the learning experience. Learning analytics provide quantitative data on completion rates, time on task, assessment scores, and navigation patterns through your LMS. These metrics show what is happening but rarely explain why. That’s where qualitative evidence becomes essential.<\/p>\n

Qualitative methods, surveys, focus groups, one-on-one interviews with learners, and observations of how employees apply new skills, capture the context analytics miss. A compliance module might show 95% completion, but exit interviews could reveal learners clicked through without genuine engagement or understanding.<\/p>\n

The analysis phase demands you look for patterns across both data types. When onboarding completion drops at module three, pair that metric with learner feedback. Are instructions unclear? Is the cognitive load too high? Does the content misalign with actual job tasks? Triangulating multiple evidence sources produces richer insights than any single method.<\/p>\n

Don’t analyze in isolation. Share preliminary findings with instructional designers, subject matter experts, and a sample of learners themselves. Their perspectives often surface explanations you hadn’t considered. The goal isn’t perfect data, it’s actionable understanding that drives specific improvements to how people learn in your organization.<\/p>\n

Sharing Insights to Build Learning Communities<\/h3>\n
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Sharing findings turns individual learning insights into community knowledge that can improve future practice.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sharing isn’t a courtesy in SoTL, it’s a defining feature. When you document what worked (or didn’t) in your onboarding redesign or compliance module, you contribute evidence the broader field can use. That’s how corporate learning evolves beyond guesswork.<\/p>\n

The dissemination component pushes you to move findings outside your team. Write a blog post summarizing your A\/B test results. Present at an internal L&D summit. Submit a case study to an industry publication or join a practitioner forum. The format matters less than making your work public and peer-reviewed, even informally. Sharing exposes your assumptions, invites challenge, and surfaces patterns you might miss in isolation.<\/p>\n

This communal exchange mirrors design thinking’s collaborative ethos. When multiple organizations test similar interventions and report outcomes, you build a shared knowledge base that strengthens everyone’s practice. You stop reinventing solutions and start refining proven approaches. It also fosters psychological safety, normalizing the reality that not every learning experiment succeeds, but every rigorous attempt teaches us something. Treat dissemination as integral to the inquiry cycle, not an optional final step, and you’ll accelerate improvement across your organization and beyond.<\/p>\n

Core Components of a SoTL Approach<\/h2>\n
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Close, hands-on reflection supports the idea that SoTL begins with noticing what\u2019s happening in learning experiences.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At its core, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning rests on three interconnected pillars that transform teaching from instinct-driven practice into disciplined inquiry. These components, inquiry-driven investigation, systematic reflection, evidence collection, and public dissemination, work together to create a framework that mirrors design thinking’s human-centered approach while grounding decisions in measurable outcomes.<\/p>\n

Inquiry-Driven Investigation<\/strong><\/p>\n

SoTL begins with curiosity translated into researchable questions. Rather than accepting conventional wisdom about “what works,” practitioners ask specific questions about their learners’ experiences: Why do some employees struggle with a particular module while others breeze through? What conditions enable knowledge transfer from training to workplace application? These questions aren’t abstract academic exercises, they’re focused investigations into real learning challenges your organization faces. The inquiry component aligns perfectly with design thinking’s empathy phase, where we seek to understand the learner’s actual needs rather than our assumptions about them.<\/p>\n

Reflection on Practice<\/strong><\/p>\n

The second pillar involves deliberate, structured reflection that goes beyond casual observation. SoTL practitioners examine their teaching decisions, learner responses, and outcomes through a critical lens. This means documenting what happened, analyzing why it happened, and considering alternative approaches. In corporate eLearning, this might involve reviewing completion rates alongside learner feedback to understand not just that a module performed poorly, but why it failed to engage. This reflective component parallels design thinking’s iterative prototyping, testing, learning, and refining based on real-world feedback.<\/p>\n

Systematic Evidence Collection<\/strong><\/p>\n

Effective SoTL work demands rigor in gathering data. This doesn’t require laboratory conditions, but it does mean moving beyond anecdotal impressions to collect meaningful evidence through learning analytics, pre- and post-assessments, qualitative interviews, or performance metrics. The key word is “systematic”, creating replicable methods that produce reliable insights about what’s genuinely improving learning outcomes versus what merely feels effective.<\/p>\n

Public Dissemination<\/strong><\/p>\n

The final component distinguishes SoTL from private professional development: sharing findings publicly so others can learn from your work. In corporate contexts, this might mean presenting at internal learning summits, contributing to L&D communities of practice, or publishing case studies. This dissemination builds collective knowledge, prevents others from repeating failed approaches, and invites feedback that strengthens your own practice. It embodies the “big tent” philosophy of SoTL, welcoming diverse voices and perspectives to advance the entire field of learning design.<\/p>\n

Together, these components create a continuous improvement cycle that transforms good training into evidence-based excellence.<\/p>\n

Where SoTL Applies in Corporate eLearning<\/h2>\n

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning framework transforms everyday corporate training challenges into systematic opportunities for improvement. Rather than relying on assumptions about what works, L&D professionals can apply SoTL principles to investigate, measure, and refine their programs across multiple domains.<\/p>\n

Consider employee onboarding<\/a> where most organizations struggle with information overload and early-stage disengagement. A SoTL approach starts with a specific question: “Does spacing onboarding content across the first 90 days improve retention compared to front-loading everything in week one?” By tracking completion rates, knowledge assessments at 30 and 90 days, and time-to-productivity metrics, you gather concrete evidence. One financial services firm discovered that their compressed onboarding led to 40% knowledge decay by month two, prompting a redesign that distributed learning touchpoints and reduced turnover by 18%.<\/p>\n