The Value of Articles Published in Journals Focused on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Use of Citations and Altmetrics as Indicators of Value

The value of articles published in journals devoted to the scholarship of teaching and learning constitutes a relatively unexplored topic of inquiry within the broader field of inquiry on the scholarship of teaching and learning. This article addresses this topic using citations and four types of altmetrics as indicators of value. We used a sample of 100 articles published in four SOTL focused journals: two high consensus journals (BioScience: Journal of College Biology Teaching and The Journal of Chemical Education) and two low consensus journals (Teaching History and Teaching Sociology). In addition to the level of consensus of the discipline of these journals, we also measured the institutional type of the first authors of these articles and the type of study of the article. We advanced three conclusions from our data analysis with the first one being of particular significance to SOTL work. This conclusion is that the pattern of findings of this study cry out fairly loudly that articles published in SOTL-focused journals hold value to users of the articles as expressed through citations of them, as well as mentions of them through various altmetrics. Moreover the similar magnitudes of this value transpires regardless of the institutional type of the article's first author and whether the article recommended a practice or recommended content. However, the value ascribed to articles differ according to the level of consensus of the field of the SOTL journal, which show a difference in article views, Twitter mentions and Mendeley uses.