Troublesome Knowledge of SoTL

This study explores the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) as a form of troublesome knowledge (Perkins 1999) that continues to trouble its practitioners. Forty-eight higher education professionals from six countries described their understanding of SoTL in an online survey; ten individuals participated in follow-up interviews to consider how SoTL experiences shape, support, or hinder academic identity and knowing. We categorize our findings according to the dynamic factors--personal, relational, and contextual--identified by Lieff et al (2012); we argue that SoTL serves to illuminate and expose tensions created by competing values and that these values can lead to, or create, a troublesome space wherein promoting SoTL can be enabling and disabling.