Boyer's Model of Scholarship


In 1990, Ernest Boyer presented an argument that traditional models of scholarship should be broadened to include additional scholarly elements. His work has even been adopted as tenure policy at one university. For Peru State faculty, Boyer's model may provide a useful way to frame their scholarly work. His model includes the following domains:

  • Scholarship of Discovery: This is what is typically referred to as research. Boyer wrote that "No tenets in the academy are held to higher regard than the commitment to knowledge for its own sake, to freedom of inquiry and to following, in a disciplined fashion, an investigation wherever it may lead" (Boyer, 1990, p. 17).
  • Scholarship of Integration: This type of scholarship gives meaning to isolated facts and puts them in perspective (Boyer, 1990). This scholarship answers the question about what the findings of discovery mean.
  • Scholarship of Application: This type of scholarship asks, "How can knowledge be responsibly applied to consequential problems?" (Boyer, 1990, p. 21).
  • Scholarship of Teaching: This type of scholarship examines how teaching "both educates and entices future scholars" (Boyer, 1990, p. 23).


You can read more about Boyer's perspective in his work, " Enlarging the Perspective " in Scholarship Reconsidered (Boyer, 1990).

 

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