What is the main takeaway for pharma teams?

The paper is not pharma-specific, but it shows how academic institutions inconsistently recognize educational scholarship in promotion and tenure, which can affect partnership, training, and faculty engagement decisions.

Who published this and why does it matter?

Lara Varpio and colleagues published this scoping review in Perspectives on Medical Education. It matters because it clarifies how SoTL is defined and why institutional recognition remains uneven across health professions education.

What should BD or regulatory teams do next?

Use it as background when evaluating academic collaborators, medical education partnerships, or faculty-development initiatives. It supports clearer expectations about whether an activity is scholarly teaching, SoTL, or educational research.

Whitepaper US Score 80/100

Institutional Recognition of SoTL in Health Professions Education: Scoping Review for Education

SoTL is inconsistently recognized in promotion and tenure decisions; this scoping review maps how it is defined, operationalized, and rewarded.

Publisher: Lara Varpio
Length: 20 pages
File: 0 B PDF

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High impact Lara Varpio 40 min read

Why this matters

SoTL is described with shared core concepts across health professions education literature, but operationalized in varied ways that often blur the distinction between scholarly teaching and SoTL itself.

Executive summary

SoTL is described with shared core concepts across health professions education literature, but operationalized in varied ways that often blur the distinction between scholarly teaching and SoTL itself.
Promotion and tenure recognition of SoTL activities is inconsistent across HPE institutions, with some organizations strongly supporting SoTL engagement while others largely fail to acknowledge it.
Institutional Logics framework explains the misalignment: recognition of SoTL varies with the degree of alignment between organizational logics that prioritize research versus teaching.
The review proposes strategies to increase alignment between institutional values and SoTL contributions, including literature-based distinctions between scholarly teaching, SoTL, and educational research.

AI research brief

SoTL is inconsistently recognized in promotion and tenure decisions; this scoping review maps how it is defined, operationalized, and rewarded.

Market Impact

Regulatory	high
Commercial	high
Competitive	medium
Investment	high

Who should read this

Regulatory professionals
Clinical operations
BD & strategy teams

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A scoping review of U.S. health professions education literature reveals that while the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) shares core conceptual foundations across institutions, its operationalization varies significantly—and promotion and tenure recognition remains inconsistent, driven by misalignment between institutional values placed on research versus teaching.

Key Takeaways

SoTL is described with shared core concepts across health professions education literature, but operationalized in varied ways that often blur the distinction between scholarly teaching and SoTL itself.
Promotion and tenure recognition of SoTL activities is inconsistent across HPE institutions, with some organizations strongly supporting SoTL engagement while others largely fail to acknowledge it.
Institutional Logics framework explains the misalignment: recognition of SoTL varies with the degree of alignment between organizational logics that prioritize research versus teaching.
The review proposes strategies to increase alignment between institutional values and SoTL contributions, including literature-based distinctions between scholarly teaching, SoTL, and educational research.

Study Scope and Methodology

Published in Perspectives on Medical Education by Lara Varpio and colleagues, this scoping review examined peer-reviewed U.S. health professions education literature to map how SoTL has been conceptualized, operationalized, and institutionally recognized in promotion and tenure decisions. The review followed Arksey & O'Malley's scoping review methodology and incorporated stakeholder feedback from experts in SoTL and health professions education.

What the Literature Reveals

The review identified that SoTL—defined as the practice of critically examining student learning to improve teaching and then disseminating insights for others to build upon—is grounded in foundational work by Boyer (1990), Glassick et al. (1997), and Hutchings & Shulman (1999). However, despite theoretical clarity, the operationalization of SoTL varies substantially across institutions. Articles in the corpus demonstrated that SoTL has been inconsistently recognized by promotion and tenure committees, with institutional support divided between those that strongly endorse SoTL engagement and those that do not acknowledge such activities as equivalent to traditional research.

Why Institutional Alignment Matters

The authors used Institutional Logics as an analytical framework to explain inconsistencies in SoTL recognition. The review found that recognition of SoTL in health professions education organizations varies with the degree of alignment between the logics of research and teaching. Where institutions maintain stronger alignment between these competing values, SoTL contributions are more likely to be formally recognized in advancement decisions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What distinguishes SoTL from scholarly teaching?

Scholarly teaching is evidence-informed teaching that draws on education literature to maximize an individual educator's effectiveness in their local context. SoTL, by contrast, requires intentional study of educational efforts and public dissemination of insights so that others can build on and critique the work. SoTL is designed to advance the field, whereas scholarly teaching focuses on improving individual teaching practice.

Why does SoTL recognition vary across health professions education institutions?

The review attributes variation in SoTL recognition to differences in institutional logics—the underlying assumptions, norms, and expectations that shape how organizations value different types of academic work. Institutions that align their logics of research and teaching more closely are more likely to recognize SoTL contributions in promotion and tenure decisions. Where research is prioritized over teaching, SoTL activities are less consistently acknowledged.

What strategies does the review propose to improve SoTL recognition?

The authors propose strategies to increase alignment between institutional recognition and SoTL contributions, including the use of literature-based distinctions between scholarly teaching, SoTL, and educational research. These distinctions are intended to help institutions clarify how SoTL fits within their promotion and tenure frameworks and to support more consistent evaluation of educational scholarship.

How does this review inform academic partnerships with health professions education institutions?

Organizations working with academic medical centers and health professions education institutions can use this review to understand why faculty incentives and recognition structures may differ across partner institutions. Awareness of these variations can inform expectations around educational collaborations, advisory participation, and how academic partners define and value scholarly contributions to teaching and learning.