5.1 Conducting a literature review

Literature reviews in SoTL can be particularly challenging because they take you out of the known disciplinary publications and databases that you normally encounter in your teaching and research. A process that is familiar and easy in one’s home discipline can feel dismayingly difficult in SoTL, as most SoTL practitioners will have to step outside their disciplinary comfort zones (MacMillan, 2019).

A SoTL literature review connects diverse disciplines, past and present SoTL inquiries and theory and practice. The literature review often draws from several bodies of knowledge for the proposed inquiry’s aim and research questions in your area of interest, such as:

• SoTL literature
• the academic discipline
• educational technology, if you are aiming to design and/or evaluate a technological intervention in your inquiry
• pedagogical theories and conceptual frameworks in education
• teaching and learning more generally.