Pedagogy in Health Promotion: Our Focus Is The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

With this volume, Pedagogy in Health Promotion proudly enters its eighth year of publication. As noted by founding Editor Emeritus, Stephen Gambescia, the journal was created to fill a major gap in the dissemination of scholarly teaching practice in health promotion and public health (Gambescia, 2015a). The journal’s goal is to advance pedagogical research and practice by “catalyze[ing] professional and scientific exchange among education scholars and practitioners in public health and health promotion” (Auld & Bishop, 2015, p. 5). I underscore this purpose by reminding our readers and contributors of the journal’s subtitle: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. In short, Pedagogy in Health Promotion aims to improve teaching practice and its outcomes by means of pedagogical scholarship. This focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning (known as SoTL) in health promotion and public health guides the journal’s review and selection of submissions. We aim to publish high quality scholarly papers that inform teaching research and practice and provide replicable lessons for the community of health promotion and public health educators. A question many would-be SoTL scholars ask is: Where and how to start? Over the years, Pedagogy in Health Promotion has published a number of editorials and commentaries that offer perspectives for shifting teaching endeavors into the scholarly domain. I encourage would-be contributors to investigate this helpful archive. A good place to start is the piece summarizing the history and evolution of SoTL by McBride and Kanekar (2015) who provide a succinct characterization of the how and why of SoTL: “To be scholarly, good teaching must also include assessment and evidence gathering, be informed not only by the latest ideas in the field but also by current ideas about teaching the field, and be open to peer collaboration and review” (p. 10). They suggest that those new to SoTL can begin by incorporating results of pedagogical research into their courses and program curricula. For ideas on pursuing pedagogical scholarship to help advance the field of health promotion, read Glanz’s thoughtful commentary (Glanz, 2017). A defining element of all scholarship is the ability to make meaningful contributions to the existing knowledge base. This presents particular challenges for pedagogical scholarship, which often is based on (very) small numbers of students, courses, and institutions and relies on observational designs. We can look to qualitative research as a guide for surmounting some of these methodological hurdles. As discussed by Gambescia (2015b) and Cavalcanti de Aguiar (2017), rich qualitative descriptions of pedagogical contexts, settings, and processes are essential for helping other educators understand and master good teaching practice. Indeed, explanatory qualitative scholarship may be of greater relevance and utility than research focused mainly on measuring a narrow set of outcomes in a limited study population. This issue of Pedagogy in Health Promotion aims to contribute to the advancement of pedagogical scholarship in health promotion and public health by providing additional inspiration for engaging in SoTL. We lead the issue with an editorial by Henderson and Sendall (2022) from the Pedagogy in Health Promotion Editorial Board. They encourage us to think of ourselves as educational scholars and to recognize that most of us are already applying some form of scholarship in our teaching practice. They emphasize the importance of grounding pedagogical scholarship in existing theory, frameworks, and evidence, and exploring other disciplines to expand our worldview of how to engage in SoTL. The authors of the editorial describe the scope of pedagogical scholarship and provide references to examples previously published in Pedagogy in Health Promotion. They offer scholarly guidance to prospective authors on how to approach the journal’s various submission categories comprising Original Research, Descriptive Best Practices, and Perspectives on Pedagogy. The editorial is essential reading for educators in health promotion and public health who aim to advance their pedagogical scholarship to the next level. 1070207 PHPXXX10.1177/23733799211070207Pedagogy in Health PromotionMerzel research-article2022