Teaching Interdisciplinary Integration

Scholars of integration have identified several techniques for achieving integration across scholarly disagreements/conflicts:

• • Sometimes scholars disagree simply because they are defining key terminology differently. In such cases a strategy of "Redefinition" -- careful definition of key terminology -- can address the conflicts.

  • Sometimes scholars disagree because each emphasizes different variables or phenomena. In such a case it may be possible to employ "theory extension" -- in which the variables studied by one are added to the theory of another -- to transcend the conflict.

  • Sometimes scholars disagree because they focus on different pieces of a larger puzzle. Here the strategy of "organization" may prove useful: We diagram (or perhaps mathematically model) the complex problem as a whole, identifying which variables/phenomena and relationships among these are studied by different scholars. We can then often see how apparently contradictory insights are in fact complementary.

  • Sometimes, of course, scholars disagree directly. Here the strategy of "transformation" may prove useful: We recognize that opposites can be placed on a continuum. One scholar might treat individuals as entirely independent while another scholar assumes that individuals are entirely interdependent. We can recognize that individuals lie someplace between perfect independence and complete dependence on others. We can then weight the insights of these different scholars depending on where on the continuum we think particular individuals lie.

We can attest that students often "light up" when acquainted with these strategies, especially when they can apply them to conflicts they have encountered in their own research projects. Instruction in these strategies should always be pursued in conjunction with student research projects.

These strategies are discussed in more detail on the About Interdisciplinarity section of the website of the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies. That website also identifies strategies useful for other stages in interdisciplinary research: asking an interdisciplinary research question, locating and evaluating insights from multiple disciplines, and developing, testing, and communicating the more comprehensive understanding that results from integration.

Allen Repko and Rick Szostak, Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory, 3^rd ed., Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2016. This textbook also outlines strategies for each step in interdisciplinary research, including the integrative strategies outlined above.

Bergmann, Matthias , Thomas Jahn, Tobias Knobloch, Wolfgang Krohn, Christian Pohl, and Engelbert Schramm, Methods for Transdisciplinary Research: A Primer for Practice. Berlin: Campus (University of Chicago Press), 2012. This book is also a useful source on strategies for interdisciplinary research.

There are also introductory-level textbooks that define interdisciplinarity and other key terms and guide students on how to evaluate conflicting scholarly arguments:

Tanya Augsburg, Becoming Interdisciplinary: An Introduction to Interdisciplinary Studies, 3rd ed. Kendall-Hunt, 2016.

Allen Repko, Rick Szostak & Michelle Buchberger, Introduction to Interdisciplinary Studies, 2^nd ed. 2016, Thousand Oaks: Sage.

There is also a short text aimed at students performing capstone or graduate-level interdisciplinary research:

Steph Menken and Machiel Keestra, An Introduction to Interdisciplinary Research: Theory and Practice, Amsterdam University Press, 2016.

See Stages of Interdisciplinary Learning for a discussion of how students master interdisciplinary material over time.

We would stress that with the availability of texts such as the above it is very easy for instructors with limited familiarity with the literature on interdisciplinarity to teach this integrative material. They will be rewarded in turn by receiving far more thoughtful research papers from their students, and experiencing exciting class discussions among their students. Of course, such instructors can avail themselves of further advice at AIS conferences and on the AIS website at http://wwwp.oakland.edu/ais/