Teaching Scholarship During The 1990s: A Study of Authorship in Teaching Sociology

Abstract

While the scholarship of teaching has risen in prominence in the past few decades, little is presently known about the structure of knowledge creation and dissemination in that area of scholarship. Such basic facts as the characteristics of programs that perform and publish the research (e.g., B.A., M.A., or Ph.D.), or the identities of specific schools that are leaders in teaching scholarship remain undocumented. This article explores the topic through counts of articles and notes published in a major outlet in the scholarship of teaching, Teaching Sociology, during the decade of the 1990s. We address the following: (1) Does publication of teaching scholarship vary by the type of degree program (e.g., B.A., M.A., and Ph.D.) or by other characteristics? (2) Are some institutions centers of teaching scholarship? (3) How wide is the scope of teaching scholarship across the nation's departments? Overall, we find that a variety of sociology departments have established records of teaching publishing. Yet, some departments are leaders and appear to create a climate favorable to teaching scholarship. Jonathan Marx is professor of sociology at Winthrop University where he teaches courses in research methods, education, sport, organizations, and health. His most recent publications vary from a social history of science fairs to an examination of final gift exchange among the elderly. Douglas Eckberg is professor of sociology and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Winthrop University. He teaches a variety of courses and is convinced that research methods is the most fundamental course for developing critical thinking in students. He will be taking a sabbatical from teaching next year to pursue his strongest research interest–historical (nineteenth-century) southern homicide.

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Teaching Sociology

“…These findings were confirmed by Marx and Eckberg (2005), who analyzed authorship in Teaching Sociology during the 1990s. They found that PhD programs outnumbered other types of programs and institutions in terms of publications in Teaching Sociology primarily because these programs employ such large numbers of graduate students.…”

“…Of our top schools, only 3 (Indiana, Purdue, Wisconsin) appeared in the top 30 most productive sociology programs reported by Marx and Eckberg (2005). Marx and Eckberg (2005) did use a slightly different rating system (for coauthors from different schools, credit was split among departments, and authors could be counted twice), but it is nonetheless interesting that so little overlap occurs. For example, the most productive program on our list (North Carolina State) did not make Marx and Eckberg's top 30.…”

“…In the latest period, there was a significant decline in publications from individuals at BA institutions (34 percent reported in Chin [2002] versus 19 percent). The percentage of authors from PhD-granting departments from the past decade is also higher than that for authors publishing during the 1990s (43.3 percent), as analyzed by Marx and Eckberg (2005). Unfortunately, it is difficult to make a direct comparison to Baker (1985), who does not indicate whether only the first author or all authors are calculated, but by either account, there are more publications by individuals at doctoral-granting institutions than others in the latest period.…”

Scholarly Productivity in Non-Ph.D. Departments

“…Following work about publishing patterns in sociology (Eckberg and Marx 2004; Marx and Eckberg 2005), we also added nine of the official journals of the APSA's organized sections. We excluded New Political Science and Party Politics , official subfield journals, from this list because of access problems from our university library.…”

The Integration of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning into the Discipline of Sociology

“…There is a decade-old chapter and more recent paper about the history of and what is known about teaching, learning, and SoTL in sociology (Howard 2010; McKinney and Howery 2007). There are articles about the extent to which papers in Teaching Sociology are SoTL and by what criteria (Baker 1985; Chin 2002) and others presenting data on who does sociology SoTL (and at what institutions) and the most common topics and methodologies of SoTL articles in sociology (Grauerholz and Zipp 2008; Howard 2010; Marx and Eckberg 2005; Paino et al 2012; Pike 2011; Sweet and Cardwell 2016; Weiss 2007). Finally, there are presentations and papers on ideas from our discipline that might be useful to SoTL researchers in other disciplines (e.g., McKinney, Atkinson, and Flockhart 2017; McKinney et al 2009).…”