Who are we citing and how? A SoTL citation analysis

Abstract

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is continuing to develop as a multidisciplinary, international field of practice and a topic of study itself. As the field matures, one area of interest has been the SoTL literature review. However, there has not been an evidence-based study of SoTL citation practices. The purpose of this study was to analyze one year’s worth of articles from this journal to see how references and in-text citations are used. Overall, 514 references and 954 in-text citations were found across 18 articles. A diverse range of multidisciplinary and specialized academic journals were cited; 8 percent of in-text citations cited a source other than an academic journal. Each reference and in-text citation was coded as either substantive (Applied, Contrastive, or Supportive) or non-substantive (Reviewed or Perfunctory). A high rate of in-text citations (74 percent) were found to be non-substantive, with the majority of non-substantive in-text citations (71 percent) found in either the Introduction or Literature Review sections of the articles. Conversely, of the 26 percent of in-text citations considered substantive, 50 percent were found in either the Results & Discussion or Conclusion sections. We demonstrate the use of the coding scheme as a self-assessment tool and conclude by suggesting that SoTL authors and reviewers could use it to assess the depth and breadth of their literature reviews.