The scholarship of practice stands as a nascent topic in the literature of higher education. Bringing this topic to the forefront of consideration is the primary goal of this volume of New Directions for Higher Education.

How then might we define the scholarship of practice? In my 2005 article in The Review of Higher Education titled “Reflections on a Scholarship of Practice,” I stated that the two primary goals of a scholarship of practice are (1) the improvement of administrative practice in higher education, and (2) the development of a knowledge base worthy of professional status for administrative work. I add to this first goal of the improvement of administrative practice in higher education by asserting that the attainment of this particular goal entails the use of findings of empirical research as a foundation for the development of institutional policy and practice (Braxton, 2005).

Together, these assertions lead to a revised definition of the scholarship of practice as the improvement of administrative practice in higher education through the development of a knowledge base to guide such practice and the use of the findings of empirical research as a basis for the development of institutional policy and practice. This revised definition can be extended to other academic fields that serve communities of practice such as medicine, nursing, occupational therapy, and pharmacy, as well as others. This revised definition provides an organizing framework for the chapters of this volume.

The volume consists of eight chapters arrayed across three parts: Part I: The Development of Knowledge Bases for Practice; Part II: The Uses of Research Findings to Guide Practice; and Part III: Graduate Preparation and the Scholarship of Practice as Stewardship.

Part I: The Development of Knowledge Bases for Practice

This part includes two chapters that focus attention on the development of a knowledge base to guide administrative practice both in higher education and in occupational fields served by higher education. In Chapter 1, Jenna Kramer and I present our findings from a content analysis of articles published between 1996 and 2016 in The Journal of Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, and Research in Higher Education. We classify the articles according to the forms of professional knowledge they produce and consider the implications and distribution of knowledge production over the two decades of this review. The goal of this analysis is to determine the degree to which articles published in the core journals of higher education address three types of professional knowledge delineated by Eraut (1988): replicative, applicatory, and interpretative. From our analysis, we advance conclusions about the development of a knowledge base for administrative practice in higher education.

In Chapter 2, Dawn Lyken-Segosebe examines how the scholarship of practice is being used to increase the knowledge base within hard-applied disciplines such as pharmacy and soft-applied disciplines such as nursing and occupational therapy. She also examines how the scholarship of practice is conceptualized within these disciplines and describes features that distinguish it from traditional research. Drawing from practice within these three applied disciplines, Lyken-Segosebe presents recommendations for colleges and universities regarding the implementation and recognition of the scholarship of practice for the field of higher education.

Part II: The Uses of Research Findings to Guide Practice

This part consists of three chapters that address the use of empirical research to guide the development of policy and practice as a variant of the scholarship of practice. Empirical research frequently yields findings concerning abstract concepts derived from theory. As a consequence, a conversion process is necessary to render empirically supported theoretical concepts in a form amenable to use in practice. Maureen E. Wilson and Amy S. Hirschy in Chapter 3 address this conversion process by reviewing models to translate theory into practice. In their chapter, they review process models for translating scholarship into practice and offer suggestions for choosing among those models. Administrators can apply these theories and models across disciplines. Wilson and Hirschy conclude with suggestions for interpreting and acting on research and detail implications for administrative practice.

The other two chapters of Part II provide examples of the use of the findings of empirical research to guide practice. In Chapter 4, Jillian Kinzie centers her attention on the 17-year-old assessment project known as the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) to explore evidence-based practice. This chapter focuses on NSSE's emphasis on assessment to inform practice and guide institutional improvement, the crux of the scholarship of practice. Kinzie describes two categories of scholarship of practice using NSSE results—the use of results to inform and improve practice and the development of a knowledge base grounded in evidence and practitioner inquiry. In the conclusion to this chapter, Kinzie posits that administrators and faculty demonstrate their participation in the scholarship of practice by using research and assessment results as they make decisions related to institutional policy and practice.

General education provides another organizational setting for engagement in the scholarship of practice. In Chapter 5, Cynthia A. Wells asserts that general education constitutes a higher education context in which a scholarship of practice is both necessary and generative. She gives consideration to the realization of a scholarship of practice focused on general education buttressed by specific illustrations. Wells also delineates the challenges faced in such an endeavor. Thus, she presents a prototype of a scholarship of practice through specific application to general education.

Part III: Graduate Preparation and the Scholarship of Practice as Stewardship

This part includes the three remaining chapters of this volume. Chapters 6 and 7 attend to the topic of graduate preparation for engagement in the scholarship of practice. In Chapter 6, Melissa McDaniels and Erik Skogsberg call for administrators, faculty, and doctoral students to take immediate action to prepare more dynamic transdisciplinary professionals by leveraging the scholarship of practice. They discuss practices in the form of strategies that faculty and administrators can implement to compel graduate student awareness of the scholarship of practice. In Chapter 7, Amy S. Hirschy and Maureen E. Wilson highlight one professional field—college student affairs administration—as a model for inculcating the value of integrating theory and empirically based research into professional practice.

In Chapter 8, the final chapter in the volume, Todd Ream and I assert that engagement in the scholarship of practice functions as a steward for the welfare of higher education at the level of the individual college and university and at the level of higher education as a social institution. We also posit that scholars of practice and public intellectuals share some commonalities.

This volume of New Direction for Higher Education should be of interest to both the scholarly and practice communities of higher education. Members of these communities include institutional policy makers such as presidents, chief academic affairs officers, and academic deans. Members of tenure and promotion committees and scholars of higher education should also find the chapters of this volume valuable to their work. Scholarly and professional associations will also find the chapters provocative for the consideration and development of association activities.

References

1. Braxton, J. M. (2005). Reflections on a scholarship of practice. The Review of Higher Education, 28(2), 285–293.
2. Eraut, M. (1988). Knowledge creation and knowledge use in professional contexts. Studies in Higher Education, 10, 117–132.