Definition
Scholarship (as proposed by Boyer, 1990) has four separate but overlapping meanings:
- The scholarship of discovery (research): original research or the search for new knowledge
- The scholarship of integration: putting isolated facts into context
- The scholarship of application or engagement (service): goes beyond the service duties of a faculty member to those within or outside the University and involves the rigour and application of disciplinary expertise with results that can be shared with and/or evaluated by peers
- The scholarship of teaching and learning: involves the systematic study of teaching and learning processes
Boyer’s expanded conception of scholarship is an attempt to move beyond the teaching vs research debate in higher education and positions scholarly practice as a continuum between the two.
Context and background
Boyer was looking to move scholarship away from the binary of ‘teaching’ or ‘research’ but it was still in the context of academia. This definition firmly positions scholarship within the academy i.e. as part of the role of academics, researchers, and practitioners.
Distinctive characteristics
The scholarly method or scholarship is the body of principles and practices used by scholars to make their claims about the subject as valid and trustworthy as possible and to make them known to the scholarly public… Scholarship…is creative, can be documented, can be replicated or elaborated, and is peer-reviewed. - Wikipedia (2020)
This definition of scholarship does not address the question of quality of scholarly work.
Implications
We need a reward system that reflects the diversity of our institutions and the breadth of scholarship, as well. The challenge is to strike a balance among teaching, research, and service…We need better ways, besides publication, to evaluate scholarly performance… - Ernest Boyer (1990)
Sources
- Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
- Glassick, C. E. (2000). Boyer’s Expanded Definitions of Scholarship, the Standards for Assessing Scholarship, and the Elusiveness of the Scholarship of Teaching. Academic Medicine, 75(9), 4
- Wikipedia contributors. (2020, September 26). Scholarly method. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 09:02, December 8, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scholarly_method&oldid=980453952