An Assessment of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Public Administration from 2009-2013.

Abstract

s from 2009-2013 were chosen since the emphasis is on current trends. A total of 149 abstracts were published during this time period. The investigators categorized abstracts from 2009-2013 from The Journal of Public Affairs Education into the categories listed above (Instructional Approaches/Pedagogy, Learning Processes, Curricula, Learning Materials, Assessments, and Other). The investigators individually classified the subject matter of the abstracts, and they noted current trends in each area. The investigators then met to reconcile their findings. Their initial rate of agreement was 54%. The low level of initial agreement may be traced to a number of factors. One of the primary reasons is that the definitions for each category were not determined in advance, but evolved during the classification process. Additionally, the categories of learning processes and learning materials are connected to the implementation of instructional approaches/pedagogy. As a result, learning process and learning materials may be classified as subcategories of instructional approaches/pedagogy or collapsed into one instructional approaches/pedagogy category. Likewise, curriculum and assessment are difficult to separate in both definition and practice. Assessment and curriculum often go hand and hand, especially relative to accreditation, both driving, informing, and affecting one another. After discussion and debate, the investigators came to agreement on 100% of the abstracts. The results reflect this agreement. Finally, in an attempt to overcome the limitation of using one journal for the study, the researchers also reviewed the American Society of Public Administration National Conference Programs (2009-2013) to determine if trends regarding SoTL were evident in the presentation abstracts. These presentation abstracts were searched for the terms “teaching” and “learning.” Each program contained a maximum of two presentation abstracts containing these words. The vast majority of presentations did not have abstracts. Due to the small number of relevant abstracts, the researchers did not classify the articles using the categories listed above and did not include the findings. However, this examination of the conference abstracts does imply that SoTL may still be struggling for acceptance by academics and practitioners in the discipline.