Evaluating Disciplinary Insights

Disciplinarians have long wondered about the ability of interdisciplinary scholars to fully understand the disciplinary literatures that they draw upon. And of course the interdisciplinarian cannot be expected to have the same depth of understanding as the specialized disciplinary scholar. Perhaps the key insight of interdisciplinary scholarship is that this depth of expertise is not essential. The interdisciplinarian need not master an entire discipline but rather only understand the insights that it generates regarding the research question, and place these insights within the context of that discipline’s overall perspective. In evaluating the discipline’s insights, the interdisciplinarian has several advantages over the disciplinary researcher:

· The interdisciplinarian can compare and contrast insights generated by different disciplines. The interdisciplinarian can then ask why these insights are in conflict. (Note that doing so is critical for the later step of integration.)

· The interdisciplinarian can ask to what extent the discipline’s insights reflect its disciplinary perspective. The disciplinarian that is not self-conscious of disciplinary perspective cannot ask such a question.

· While the disciplinarian may have more detailed knowledge of a particular theory or method, the interdisciplinarian can bring an understanding of the relative strengths and weaknesses of different theories and methods (see above) [hot link]. This may allow identification of problems missed by the disciplinarian (because each discipline tends to downplay the limitations of favored theories and methods). It also facilitates the identification of alternative theories and methods that might generate different conclusions

· The interdisciplinarian by mapping a complex system can place any disciplinary insight in context. All too often, disciplinary researchers will examine a particular relationship (how B influences C) in detail, but then (often implicitly) assume that other relationships (A influencing B or C influencing D) operate in a particular way and then reach a conclusion about a much more complex chain of relationships (how A influences D through B and C) than they have actually studied. [ Thomas Mayer,Accuracy Versus Precision in Economics makes this point powerfully]. The interdisciplinarian may be able to draw on other disciplines that actually study these other relationships.

· More generally, the interdisciplinarian can ask whether the disciplinary analysis has ignored critical variables studied by other disciplines (or perhaps ignored by all), and analyze how the discipline’s conclusions would change if these were included.

· Once the potential sources of bias in disciplinary insights have been identified, the interdisciplinarian can triangulate across different theories and methods to achieve a more accurate understanding than any one discipline can achieve.

· Since interdisciplinarians are guided to be explicit about the search for bias, they should also be more diligent in assuring that they do not themselves favor particular insights because these accord with their personal biases.

Two points should be stressed:

· Interdisciplinarians risk superficiality if they take insights from a particular work without placing these in context or evaluating these. Such practices are worthy of disdain, and assessment of interdisciplinary work needs to ensure that the interdisciplinarian has placed insights in context and evaluated them. Note that evaluation is an important task for all insights, not just those found to be in conflict.

· The non-superficial interdisciplinarian brings valuable skills and strategies to the task of evaluating disciplinary insights. These are complementary to the forms of evaluation pursued by the disciplinarian, which will stress detailed examination of the theory employed, techniques applied, and data analyzed. (Of course the interdisciplinarian may do this sort of evaluation too).