Abstract
Background
As scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is an interdisciplinary area of research, psychology SoTL authors need to draw on literature not only from their own discipline of psychology but also from outside it.
Objective
We investigate the disciplinary breadth of citations in psychology SoTL articles.
Method
From three psychology SoTL journals, including Teaching of Psychology, and three multidisciplinary SoTL journals, we sampled 831 citations (483 from psychology) published in 2024. We coded citations by source (e.g., journal title), discipline or area, and whether they were related to SoTL.
Results
Citations from the Psychology SoTL sample included 236 different journals from psychology, education, and 32 additional disciplines or areas. Authors cited Teaching of Psychology most often. The Psychology SoTL sample also included 82 citations from psychology SoTL-related sources, 108 from education SoTL-related sources, and 45 from other disciplines.
Conclusion
Psychology SoTL authors cite from a broad range of disciplines.
Teaching Implications
Instructors supervising research projects can use information in this article to demonstrate the breadth of disciplines represented in citations in the psychology SoTL literature.
As an interdisciplinary field, the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is relevant to all disciplines in higher education (Miller-Young et al., 2025), as all are involved in teaching their discipline and helping their students learn. Many SoTL experts see SoTL as a “big tent” area of study (Huber & Hutchings, 2005), allowing a diverse array of methods and traditions. Interdisciplinary conversations are a strength of SoTL research (Yeo et al., 2024), and citation practices are key to these conversations (Cappello & Miller-Young, 2020).
Citational practices are foundational to the discourse between past, present, and future scholarship (Goodman et al., 2014). Citations inform readers of the literature that influenced the article. Authors have a choice about which citations to include and, by doing so, provide information on the norms and values of their disciplines (Chick et al., 2021), as well as which voices are heard and which are minimized (Healey & Healey, 2023a).
Analysis of citation practices has been used to investigate other interdisciplinary areas, including information science (Huang & Chang, 2011) and intercultural relations (Hart, 1999). In both cases, the authors used citations to better understand which disciplines influence each interdisciplinary area. Researchers have also studied citation practices in SoTL. For example, Cappello and Miller-Young (2020) examined 18 articles from the journal Teaching & Learning Inquiry and found that out of 514 unique references, authors cited 159 different academic journals. Further, they examined how those references were used in the text. In another study, Chick et al. (2021) did not analyze citations directly; instead, they surveyed the citation practices of 121 SoTL researchers.
This article examines citation practices in SoTL, specifically examining which disciplines influence the work found in psychology SoTL journals. Recommendations from SoTL experts include the need to look broadly for literature that crosses disciplines (Bishop-Clark & Dietz-Uhler, 2012; Weimer, 2006); however, finding SoTL literature outside of one's home discipline can be challenging (MacMillan, 2018). Terminology is varied (MacMillan, 2018; McClurg et al., 2019), and some disciplines may not use the term scholarship of teaching and learning (Yeo et al., 2024). In addition, there is no database devoted to SoTL and no subject classification system for SoTL scholarship (Healey & Healey, 2023a). Aside from Google Scholar, no single database has all or almost all SoTL publications, and Google Scholar can produce racist and sexist results (e.g., Noble, 2018). Even searching for terms like SoTL often yields results on the topic rather than on a specific study of teaching and learning (Chick et al., 2019).
SoTL authors will likely need to examine the intersecting categories of education research, general SoTL research, and discipline-based educational research (DBER; Yeo et al., 2024). Arguably, the discipline that is most closely aligned with SoTL is education. In fact, there is much discussion about the similarities and differences between SoTL and education research (Healey & Healey, 2023b). Given its overlap, it would not be surprising to find education research cited in SoTL products.
However, information about teaching and learning in higher education can come from other disciplines, and authors can find SoTL research in a variety of places (Weimer, 2006). SoTL is often associated with DBER (Yeo et al., 2024), and most disciplines have their own SoTL outlets, such as Teaching and Learning in Nursing, Journal of Chemical Education, and Teaching Sociology.
Psychology SoTL authors can examine not only DBER from other disciplines, but also DBER from psychology. The discipline of psychology has a strong presence in SoTL literature. Facets of psychology overlap with educational research, including the intersecting subarea of educational psychology. Research questions and methodologies can be similar between psychology and education, and basic psychological research informs many aspects of teaching and learning, including areas in cognitive psychology such as memory and thinking (e.g., Soderstrom et al., 2016) and areas in social psychology such as self-efficacy and belongingness (e.g., van Dinther et al., 2011). Psychology has several journals that publish SoTL work, either generally (e.g., Teaching of Psychology [ToP] and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology) or for a specific area in psychology (e.g., Training and Education in Professional Psychology).
Unfortunately, often there is a lack of overlap between DBER and multidisciplinary SoTL journals (Healey & Healey, 2023b). Given the amount of SoTL literature in psychology journals and the extra effort required to locate literature outside of psychology, it would be relatively easy for psychology SoTL authors to cite exclusively from psychology. Given that disciplines can inform one another about what works in teaching and learning (Yeo et al., 2024), psychological researchers need to cast a wide net when searching for SoTL literature. At the same time, given the proximity of psychology to education, it would be interesting to see whether authors outside of psychology are citing SoTL literature in psychology in their work.
Research Question
Yeo et al. (2024, p. 23) recommend that SoTL authors examine DBER, general education research, and general SoTL literature. We are not familiar with any systematic exploration of which disciplines psychology SoTL authors use in their work. Therefore, our research question is whether citations in psychology SoTL journals (with multidisciplinary SoTL journals as a comparison) are primarily from psychology or more varied, including other disciplines beyond psychology and education? Answering this question will help determine whether psychology SoTL authors incorporate not just psychology into their articles, but also information from education and other nonpsychology SoTL work. We approach this question from several directions. First, we examine the journals that are cited in psychology SoTL articles. Second, we use the Library of Congress (LOC), Journal of Citation Reports, and source titles to classify the discipline of the citations. Third, we classify citations as SoTL-related or not and examine the intersection of SoTL works and disciplines. From these three overlapping perspectives, we can get a more complete view of the disciplinary breadth of citations from psychology SoTL journals.
Method
Sample
We sampled all articles published in 2024 from three psychology SoTL journals and three multidisciplinary SoTL journals. These journals included ToP, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, Psychology Learning and Teaching, International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and Teaching and Learning Inquiry. The three psychology journals spotlight SoTL research and cover all areas of psychology. Two journals are published in the United States and one in the United Kingdom. The three multidisciplinary journals have been used before in research as examples of general multidisciplinary SoTL journals (Manarin et al., 2021). Two journals are published in the United States and one in Canada.
We coded a total of 216 articles from the six journals. For each article, we looked at the reference section and coded every 10th citation. If an article had fewer than 10 citations, we coded the last citation. This sampling process yielded a total of 831 citations, with an average of 3.7 citations per psychology article (total citations = 483) and 4.0 citations per multidisciplinary article (total citations = 348). Table 1 lists the journals and the number of articles and citations we coded from each. The number of citations from each journal was unequal due to differences in the number of published articles over the year and the number of citations per article.
Number of Articles and Citations Coded from Psychology and Multidisciplinary Journals.
Data and Coding
Data Extraction and Storage
For each citation, we first listed whether it was an academic journal article (Psychology, n = 358; Multidisciplinary, n = 232), an academic book including edited books (Psychology, n = 59; Multidisciplinary, n = 76), or other source type such as a novel, website, conference presentation, or technical report (Psychology, n = 66; Multidisciplinary, n = 40).
We then extracted the title of the specific work, and if it was part of a larger work, the title of the larger work. For example, if the citation was a journal article, we noted the title of the specific article and the journal title. If the citation was from a book, we just noted the name of the book, and if the citation was from an edited book, we noted the chapter title and the name of the book.
We entered information from the 831 citations (483 from the Psychology SoTL sample and 348 from the Multidisciplinary SoTL sample) into an Excel file and later uploaded it to SPSS (see doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.30025681 for the raw data).
Discipline Categorization
Next, we wanted to categorize citations into their home discipline. Unfortunately, there is no single source that categorizes citations by discipline. Therefore, we used several methods to determine the discipline of a particular source. The Library of Congress (LOC; www.loc.gov) categorizes many journals and books by subject area, especially those published in the United States. The LOC classification includes “Library of Congress subjects” and “other subjects.” For each article and book in our sample, we attempted to find them in the LOC. Out of 590 cited articles, we found 500 entries (85%), and out of 135 books, we found 100 (74%). From these, we coded the first three subject areas listed, starting with the LOC subjects and, if needed, continuing with the listings in the other subject categories. We ignored subject areas (or parts of subject areas) that indicated the source was a periodical, or that stated a place (e.g., United States), but we did include subject areas that were not disciplines (e.g., memory).
If we did not find an LOC listing for the citation, we consulted a different database, Journal Citation Reports (JCR; Clarivate, 2026). JCR provides information on over 22,000 journals. For the journals from the citations that were not in the LOC, we found 60 out of 90 listed in JCR. JCR classifies journals into 254 categories (i.e., subject areas), and journals can belong to more than one category. For the 60 citations, we coded the subject area(s) listed for the journal.
From these subject areas, we then made three codes: whether psychology was part of the subject area, whether education was part of the subject area, and whether another discipline or area of study (e.g., social sciences) was part of a subject area. Some subject areas did not include any discipline or area of study. For both psychology and education, we also coded whether a subarea was mentioned (e.g., personality and social psychology). For other disciplines, we coded the first specific discipline outside of psychology and education, given in a subject area. For all three codes, we combined similar codes into a single group (e.g., developmental, child, and adolescent were combined into developmental). Subject areas could be placed into more than one code. For example, we coded educational psychology both in psychology and education.
To code for disciplines or areas of study in other sources (i.e., neither articles nor books), we examined the titles of the source, and if the title included psychology, we coded it under psychology along with any stated subarea. If the title included education, we coded it under education along with any stated subarea, and if the title included another discipline or area of study, we coded it in the other discipline category. This allowed us to classify the discipline/area of study for 34 of 66 other sources in the Psychology SoTL sample and 15 of 40 in the Multidisciplinary SoTL sample.
Across the LOC, JCR, and examination of disciplines/areas of study in titles from the other sources, we coded subject area indicating information about disciplines or areas of study from 560 out of 590 (95%) articles, 100 out of 135 (74%) books, and 49 of 106 (46%) other sources for a total of 709 out of 831 (85%) of citations.
SoTL Research
Finally, we wanted to code whether citations were related or not to SoTL. In examining the cited journal articles, we first checked whether they were broadly related to SoTL by whether they were listed on Kennesaw State University's Teaching Journals in Higher Education website (https://www.kennesaw.edu/cetl/scholarship-teaching-learning/journals/index.php). However, this database only includes journals. Additionally, although this website lists hundreds of SoTL journals, some journals, such as Psychology Teaching Review and Training and Education in Professional Psychology, are not listed but are likely related to SoTL. Therefore, we created a second SoTL category in the database to note journals that, based on their names, appear to be related to SoTL research. Additionally, we used this category to code books and other sources based on their titles that related to SoTL.
Results
Cited Journals
First, we examined which journals were cited. Out of the 590 journal articles coded, authors cited 364 different journals. Citations from the Psychology SoTL sample came from 236 journals, and 179 from the Multidisciplinary SoTL sample, representing a very broad range of journals across both samples.
In terms of the journals authors cited most, ToP was the outlier, with 31 citations. All other journals had fewer than 10 citations. Table 2 lists the most cited journals for the Psychology SoTL sample and the Multidisciplinary SoTL sample. There was no overlap between the most commonly cited journals in the Psychology SoTL sample and the Multidisciplinary SoTL sample, indicating that the authors in these two samples are drawing on different sources. The eight most cited journals from the Psychology SoTL sample included the three psychology SoTL journals sampled for this study, three general psychology journals, one journal from a specific psychology subarea, and one journal from education. The nine most-cited journals in the Multidisciplinary SoTL sample were all related to SoTL. Two were multidisciplinary SoTL journals sampled for this study; one was another multidisciplinary journal with an SoTL focus; five were from the field of education; and one was from chemistry. So, common sources for psychology SoTL authors were psychology SoTL journals and general psychology journals. In contrast, common sources for multidisciplinary SoTL authors were general SoTL journals and education-specific SoTL journals. However, each sample used a wide range of journals.
Journals With the Highest Number of Citations in Psychology and Multidisciplinary Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Articles.
Note. *This journal was one of the six sampled in this study.
Disciplines Represented
Overall, we coded 240 citations from the discipline of psychology (see Table 3). From the Psychology SoTL sample, we classified 195 citations from the discipline of psychology. The most common psychology subareas included teaching and learning, general psychology, and educational psychology. Teaching and learning, as well as educational psychology, directly relate to SoTL. Other prominent but less common subareas of psychology included personality and social psychology, mental health (including both clinical and counseling), research methods, and psychophysiology. Not surprisingly, the Multidisciplinary SoTL sample had fewer citations (n = 45) from the discipline of psychology. Common subareas of psychology for the Multidisciplinary SoTL sample included teaching & learning, general psychology, educational psychology, and mental health.
Number of Citations From Psychology Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and Multidisciplinary SoTL Samples in Subareas of Psychology and Education.
We coded 253 citations from the discipline of education. There were a similar number of citations from the Psychology SoTL sample (n = 134) and the Multidisciplinary SoTL sample (n = 119). The most common subareas of education from the Psychology SoTL sample included higher education, general education, education in another discipline (e.g., educational sociology), and educational psychology. The most frequent subarea of education from the Multidisciplinary SoTL sample was higher education, with general education and education in another discipline also being common.
Across the entire sample, we coded 182 citations that came from a total of 47 disciplines or areas outside of psychology and education. From the Psychology SoTL sample, we classified 93 citations from 32 different disciplines or areas. The most common disciplines cited in the Psychology SoTL sample (other than psychology or education) included medicine (n = 20), social sciences (n = 10), sociology (n = 5), psychiatry (n = 5), nursing (n = 4), and anthropology (n = 4). Other disciplines and areas included: arts, biology, business, chemistry, cognitive science, communications, computer science, English, dance, disability studies, economics, finance, gerontology, law, library science, linguistics, management, management information systems, marketing, music, neurosciences, philosophy, science, social work, and writing. Some codes were interdisciplinary areas that are adjacent to psychology, such as cognitive science and neuroscience. Some areas coded were more general, such as the social sciences. The breadth was similar for the Multidisciplinary SoTL sample. Besides education, the most common discipline found in the Multidisciplinary SoTL sample was psychology, with 45 citations. Outside of education and psychology, we coded 89 citations from 37 different disciplines or areas of study.
Cited SoTL Research
We next investigated whether the citations from the Psychology SoTL sample were related to SoTL. Out of the total 483 citations, 132 (27%) were in the SoTL database sponsored by Kennesaw State University, 99 (21%) were related to SoTL but not in the database, and 252 (52%) as not related to SoTL. For the Multidisciplinary SoTL sample, out of the total 348 citations, 107 (31%) were in the SoTL database, 101 (29%) were related to SoTL but not in the database, and 140 (40%) were not related to SoTL.
For the Psychology SoTL sample, we also examined how many citations that were classified as from the discipline of psychology were also related to SoTL (i.e., either listed in the Kennesaw State University database or not). Out of the 195 citations coded as being from the discipline of psychology, 82 (42%) were related to SoTL. Psychology subareas with the highest number of citations included teaching and learning (n = 55) and educational psychology (n = 20). Only 7 citations indicating a relation to SoTL were in other subareas of psychology.
Furthermore, for the Psychology SoTL sample, we examined how many citations from education were related to SoTL. Out of the 134 coded as being from the discipline of education, 108 (81%) were related to SoTL. Consistently across the most common subareas of the field of education, a large majority of citations were related to SoTL. Additionally, we found that examining the 93 citations from other disciplines, 45 (48%) were related to SoTL.
Discussion
Based on the results, we claim the psychology SoTL articles meet the recommendation from Yeo et al. (2024) that literature should include DBER, general educational research, and general SoTL literature. Citations from psychology included SoTL-related projects from the subareas of teaching and learning and educational psychology. These included the three psychology SoTL journals sampled, but only 9% of the citations came from these three journals. In addition, not only did the psychology SoTL authors use discipline-based educational (i.e., psychology SoTL) research, but also a majority of citations from psychology were from non-SoTL psychology subareas, including social and personality psychology and psychophysiology. This pattern showcases authors reaching out to psychology SoTL literature as well as from the discipline of psychology as a whole.
SoTL psychology articles also included citations from other disciplines. Citations from the field of education contained sources from higher education, educational psychology, research methods, and education linked to other disciplines. Most of these were related to SoTL because of the close ties between education and SoTL. Psychology authors also used products from 32 other disciplines or areas. The citations from other disciplines and areas included approximately equal numbers of SoTL-related and non-SoTL-related sources. Some of the items from other disciplines that were not SoTL-related covered methodological and statistical techniques useful, but not explicitly for, SoTL research.
Additionally, we found it impressive that, across the 483 sampled citations, authors cited 236 different journals. This large number is similar to a citation analysis by Cappello and Miller-Young (2020), who found 159 journals cited out of 514 unique references from a sample of Teaching & Learning Inquiry articles.
Given the diversity of disciplines used in the Psychology SoTL sample citations, we believe that at a surface level, the range of citations Psychology SoTL authors use is appropriate. Psychology SoTL authors do not appear to restrict their work to psychology alone. Rather, these authors are participating in an active, multidisciplinary SoTL conversation. Additionally, although far behind education, psychology appears to be the second-most-cited discipline in multidisciplinary SoTL journals. Therefore, the scientific conversation is occurring in both directions between psychology SoTL and other SoTL areas.
Implications for ToP
ToP was the most cited journal with over three times the citations of the next highest journal. One reason why the citation count was higher is likely due to ToP being one of the journals in the sample. However, ToP still had many more citations than the other two psychology SoTL journals sampled. One possibility for its high number is that ToP is the most established publication of both the psychology and multidisciplinary journals sampled. In fact, ToP was the only journal of the six sampled to appear on Weimer's 2006 list of SoTL journals. With more history, the journal may include more classic works and become better known. Additionally, an analysis by Tomcho et al. (2015) demonstrated that various teaching activities in ToP were cited as often as, or more often than, those in other fields.
Two of the multidisciplinary journals, Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, may have had fewer citations because they had less connection between authors, their sponsoring organization, and their readers. Whereas ToP is sponsored by the Society for the Teaching of Psychology and is often referenced at conferences such as the Annual Conference on Teaching. Similarly, Teaching and Learning Inquiry is the journal of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL), which also hosts an annual conference, and therefore, Teaching and Learning Inquiry also has an established audience in discourse with each other about articles published in that journal.
Limitations and Future Directions
One limitation is that, although we investigated the range of disciplines cited in psychological SoTL studies and concluded that the breadth we found is appropriate, we did not specify how much breadth is needed to be acceptable, good, or ideal. Yergos-Yergos et al. (2015) operationalized multidisciplinarity into three parts: variety, the number of different disciplines; balance, equal representation across the disciplines; and disparity, how different the disciplines are. They found that variety had a positive relationship with citational impact, whereas balance and disparity were negatively related. In addition, all three characteristics also had an inverted-U curvilinear relationship. In other words, interdisciplinary articles that had the most citational impact were those that represented more disciplines, were unbalanced such that the article cited a few similar disciplines, and the citations were not extreme on variety, balance, or disparity. This pattern for higher citation impact appears (admittedly, post hoc) to match with our data. Most psychology SoTL articles were primarily from psychology and education, two close disciplines, but there was a sprinkling of many other disciplines. However, citation impact is just one way to measure impact from a research product (Liu et al., 2023), and Yergos-Yergos et al. (2015) did not examine SoTL or psychology articles. However, this analysis leads to an important question the Society of ToP could examine: what should multidisciplinarity or interdisciplinarity look like in psychology SoTL research?
Another key limitation of our study is that our analysis was only at the surface level and did not examine how authors used the citations (e.g., Cappello & Miller-Young, 2020; Zhao et al., 2017). Although we feel our analysis showed a good disciplinary range of citations, we are not sure if citations from other disciplines were substantive and needed for the study, indicated by the applied, contrastive, or supportive levels of Cappello and Miller-Young's (2020) classification, or were citations not substantive, indicated by the reviewed or perfunctory levels.
Additionally, our analysis did not examine beyond titles which voices, or individuals representing different points of view, were in the citations. Beyond participating in scientific dialogue, citations are important in giving credit to authors (Kwon, 2022). Unfortunately, a typical citation process can lead to an emphasis on traditional work and points of view, thereby reducing the visibility of nontraditional and newer voices (Ahmed et al., 2022).
Therefore, for future studies, psychology SoTL researchers could replicate the examination of the context and use of individual citations, as in Cappello and Miller-Young's (2020) study in Teaching and Learning Inquiry. Second, researchers can explore who is cited in terms of different points of view, including gender, race/ethnicity, type of institution, and region of institution. For example, one could examine which countries and areas of the world citations in SoTL products come from (Healey & Healey, 2023b). Third, one could replicate, focusing on psychology SoTL authors, a study by Chick et al. (2021), who surveyed why authors cited certain works. This investigation could also include what strategies researchers used to find SoTL literature. Finally, with these 2024 data, replications can be conducted in future years (or even past years) to examine trends in SoTL citation practices in psychology journals.
Recommendations
First, we encourage psychology SoTL authors to continue doing what they have been doing: reaching out not just to the psychology and psychology SoTL literature, but also to other SoTL products in education and other disciplines.
For beginning SoTL researchers unsure where to start, expert scholars recommend using a combination of disciplinary databases (e.g., APA PsycARTICLES) to find literature, as well as databases from outside the discipline (MacMillan, 2018). Similarly, one can look at SoTL sources both inside and outside of psychology (Bishop-Clark & Dietz-UIher, 2012). SoTL journals outside of psychology include multidisciplinary SoTL journals on specific topics such as Computers & Education and Active Learning in Higher Education. Additionally, several SoTL experts offer recommendations for conducting SoTL literature reviews (e.g., see Chick et al., 2021; Healey & Healey, 2023a; MacMillan, 2018; Yeo et al., 2024). As a final thought for beginning authors conducting a psychology SoTL literature search, we appreciate Chick et al.'s (2021) suggestion that the goal should be to cite purposefully rather than reflexively. For example, simple searches, such as looking only at the first few pages of Google Scholar, can lead to bias due to a lack of coverage of less well-known authors (Healey & Healey, 2023a; Noble, 2018).
Finally, as SoTL is a conversation across disciplines and areas of study, we encourage potential psychology SoTL authors to consider publishing in multidisciplinary journals and attending SoTL conferences such as the ISSOTL to allow psychology's voice to play a greater role and have findings from SoTL psychology products spread to more disciplines. Looking at our data, psychology is already well cited in multidisciplinary journals, and many products of psychology SoTL authors could find a home in SoTL journals outside of psychology.
Teaching Implications
Instructors teaching students about writing research projects can use information in this article to demonstrate the importance of citations in scientific discussions as well as typical amounts and breadth of citations. Our data also include an example of how many journals and other types of sources researchers cite in writing their articles. This article can also be used as a gateway to discuss how to conduct literature searches with deliberate citation practices.
Conclusion
Our citational evidence indicates that, at least at a surface level, psychology SoTL authors are part of the multidisciplinary SoTL conversation. Citations include scholarly products from not just psychology, but also, education and other disciplines. In fact, the breadth of cited sources is very large. Psychology SoTL authors have not segregated themselves from other disciplines. However, given we only examined whether something was cited, rather than how it was used, we recommend further research on this topic. We also encourage psychology SoTL authors to continue to engage purposefully with the SoTL literature both inside and outside of psychology.
Footnotes
Authors’ Note
The second and third authors completed this work as part of an independent study and did an equal amount of work on this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.