Reflecting

Interdisciplinarity is grounded in an appreciation of the subconscious biases inherent in disciplinary perspective [See Defining "Disciplinary Perspective"]. It thus naturally encourages researchers to be reflective. Indeed, though reflection is discussed here toward the end of the research process, the interdisciplinary researcher is strongly encouraged to be reflective throughout the interdisciplinary research process.

There are at least three important forms of reflection:

· Reflect on what has been learned, both about the research question in particular and about the interdisciplinary research process in general.

· Reflect on which steps in the research process have not been treated as carefully as they could.

· Reflect on one’s own biases.

Since bias is largely subconscious, this last sort of reflection is best guided by a conscious awareness of possible sources of bias:

· Humans have limited perceptual and cognitive capabilities

· Researchers cannot entirely escape cultural biases or political pressures to ‘find’ particular results

· Scholars operate within institutional structures that encourage certain sorts of behavior and discourage others

· Scholars likewise operate within scholarly perspectives inherited from the past.

[These are classified in more detail in Szostak, Rick, Classifying Science, Springer, 2004, ch. 5]

Bammer has suggested that all interdisciplinary researchers need to reflect on the ubiquity of unknowns. See Coping With Unknowns

Bammer provides a very useful checklist for ensuring that integrative research has been performed appropriately at https://i2insights.org/2018/07/31/knowledge-synthesis-checklist/