Review – What Happens When You Fail at SoTL by Julia McSweeney

Jill McSweeney recently published a piece “What happens when you fail at SoTL?” (available here). Dr. McSweeney relays an instance when she attempted to conduct a SoTL research project but felt that she had failed due to low participant involvement. However after much reflection, her insight is profound, “the more I realized that my idea of effective SoTL is grounded in my own idea of what’s success in my disciplinary research, and that perhaps this experience wasn’t a dud”. Recognizing that all SoTL investigations have something to offer practice is an important insight into SoTL work. Helping to remove the barrier of preconceived disciplinary expectations, can also reduce anxiety around SoTL research and encourage budding SoTL scholars to attempt and share their findings with the wider SoTL community.