Interdisciplinary Higher Education Research Articles

Interdisciplinary education affects student learning: a focus group study

BackgroundIn order to best prepare medical students for their increasingly complex future career, interdisciplinary higher education is swiftly gaining popularity. However, the implementation of interdisciplinary learning in medical education is challenging. The present study deepens the understanding of the challenges and opportunities inherent to the implementation of an interdisciplinary course. We elucidated the attitudes and beliefs of students participating in a newly developed interdisciplinary minor, in which students of medicine (MS) and communication and information sciences (CISS) were involved.MethodsWe conducted four semi-structured focus group interviews, of which two were held before, and two were held after the course. Seven MS and six CISS participated voluntarily. A pre-arranged interview guide was used. The interviews were recorded and afterwards systematically analyzed with the ‘constant comparative analysis’ technique.ResultsThe focus group interviews revealed three differences in epistemics between students in terms of 1) curriculum content, 2) educational formats and 3) student’s competence perceptions. These factors influenced the way students evaluated themselves, each other and the interdisciplinary course.ConclusionsWe conclude that factors that influence interdisciplinary learning are personal epistemics, individual learning preferences, and the synergy that is achieved throughout interdisciplinary learning. Organizing the dialogue among students of different disciplines could make students aware of inequalities, implicated biases and assigned status of different student groups. These empirical results are crucial to tailor interdisciplinary education to each specific discipline and to take interdisciplinary learning to a higher level of maturity.

Improving interdisciplinary online course design through action learning: a chinese case study

ABSTRACT This case study draws a specific link to the practice of action learning (AL) in China. We organized ourselves into an AL set and used Revans’ AL, as interpreted by Marquardt (2004), to create a post-teaching dialog to examine the experience gained from delivering an interdisciplinary course online—a novice situation—in a Chinese transnational university. AL’s questioning insight occurred after conducting an evidence-based evaluation of online teaching in an interdisciplinary higher education course that used Debattista’s (2018) online teaching effectiveness rubric. The rubric offered rich ‘programed knowledge’ that triggered our question-based inquiry. We conclude that our AL approach is valuable for teacher professional development and offers our rationale for why this particular AL practice would be suitable for the Confucian culture, teaching of interdisciplinary courses, and in novice situations. By conducting AL, we identified a list of key findings, such as proactive communication among teachers in an interdisciplinary course, was vital when teaching to a large group of students. We offer recommendations to improve interdisciplinary online course design and delivery in the future based on reflections from the AL. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are presented at the end of this paper.

Creating interdisciplinary education within monodisciplinary structures: the art of managing interstitiality

ABSTRACTThe literature on interdisciplinary higher education is influenced by two overall trends: one looks at the institutional level of specially designed interdisciplinary institutions, while the other assesses individual interdisciplinary educational activities. Much less attention is given to the processes of creating interdisciplinary education initiatives within traditional monodisciplinary universities. In this study, we thus explore how interdisciplinary education and teaching emerge and develop within universities that have little or no established infrastructure to support interdisciplinarity. Using qualitative data from a multi-part case study, we examine the development of diverse interdisciplinary educational efforts within a traditional faculty-structured university in order to map the ways in which interdisciplinary educational elements have been created, supported, challenged or even strengthened by pre-existing monodisciplinary structures. Drawing on theories from economics, literature studies and sociology of education, we conclude that creating interdisciplinary education in such settings demands skills that we define as the ‘art of managing interstitiality’.

Constructively aligned teaching and learning in higher education in engineering: what do students perceive as contributing to the learning of interdisciplinary thinking?

Increased attention to the need for constructively aligned teaching and learning in interdisciplinary higher education in engineering is observed. By contrast, little research has been conducted on the implementation of the outcome-based pedagogical approach to interdisciplinary higher education in engineering. Therefore, the present design-based research was undertaken to develop, implement, and evaluate a constructively aligned learning environment in the interdisciplinary field of food quality management. The practical aims were to reduce the perception held by the students of choppiness and to prevent them floundering in the disciplines; the theoretical aim was to accumulate theory on learning environment aspects that would help students to learn interdisciplinary thinking. The design-focused evaluation among 26 students showed that the practical aims were met, and concerning the theoretical aim, eight learning environment aspects were identified such as learning within an interdisciplinary framework. Further research should validate these aspects to continue with tackling teacher challenges on teaching interdisciplinary thinking.

Innovation and Evaluation in the Brazilian Higher Education Culture: Interdisciplinary and General Education

The aim of this study was to present partial results of the Interdisciplinary Higher Education Program (ProFIS) related to the interdisciplinary general education proposal, which represents an innovation in the Brazilian Higher Education culture. The general education provided by the program is concerned in preparing students with greater knowledge, critical sense by expanding their knowledge and culture, and makes them critical citizens and professionals. Besides curricular innovation, the course aims to establish a policy of affirmative action through the inclusion of public school students. Briefly, it presents the general education as curriculum emphasis adopted by universities in various parts of the world. Then, it presents the ProFIS proposal, its current development stage and the analysis of partial results of the evaluation process under development. The evaluation process is developed with teachers, students and course coordination.

Teaching and Learning in Interdisciplinary Higher Education: A Systematic Review

Interdisciplinary higher education aims to develop boundary-crossing skills, such as interdisciplinary thinking. In the present review study, interdisciplinary thinking was defined as the capacity to integrate knowledge of two or more disciplines to produce a cognitive advancement in ways that would have been impossible or unlikely through single disciplinary means. It was considered as a complex cognitive skill that constituted of a number of subskills. The review was accomplished by means of a systematic search within four scientific literature databases followed by a critical analysis. The review showed that, to date, scientific research into teaching and learning in interdisciplinary higher education has remained limited and explorative. The research advanced the understanding of the necessary subskills of interdisciplinary thinking and typical conditions for enabling the development of interdisciplinary thinking. This understanding provides a platform from which the theory and practice of interdisciplinary higher education can move forward.

Living the Questions: Deconstructing Interdisciplinary Higher Education and the Subject of Poverty Through a “Community of Truth”

This manuscript recounts the experience of 10 undergraduate students at a mid-sized midwestern university engaged as members of an interdisciplinary seminar examining poverty in their community. Students' writings and reflections were deconstructed within the framework of Palmer's (1997) “community of truth” to interpret students' understandings and uncertainties. Students' direct dialogue with individuals living in poverty afforded them insight that may have eluded them through more traditional higher education pedagogy. Periods of disequilibrium, deconstruction, rebuilding of new schema, and commitment toward social action were documented and evidenced both through students' writing and emerging community activism. I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. — Rainer Maria Rilke (1903, p. 27)

The Bologna Process: Impact on Interdisciplinarity and Possibilities for Women's Studies

This article discusses the impact of the so‐called Bologna process on possibilities for interdisciplinary higher education and research, in particular in relation to Women's Studies. Based on findings from two European research projects, it argues that the spaces open to interdisciplinarity and Women's Studies in higher education under the Bologna process are strongly marked by national systems and their interpretations of the Bologna requirements. The opportunities in the educational field (whether at undergraduate or post‐graduate level) to innovate and flexibilize, key requisites for Women's Studies as a discipline, are impaired by institutional structures of administration, research, evaluation, accreditation and career development that rely on disciplinarity as their core categories. The Nordic countries seem to have moved more clearly than others, such as Hungary or Spain, towards an implementation of the Bologna agreement in a manner that facilitates both interdisciplinarity and Women's Studies.