Stages of Interdisciplinary Learning

A variety of publications have addressed how students master interdisciplinarity in stages. In part these stages represent increased complexity of the material being learned itself, and in part they represent the evolution of the students' learning potential. This literature emphasizes that interdisciplinarity requires a way of thinking about the world, and that mastering this way of thinking involves not just cognitive but emotional and social challenges.

Elisabeth J. H. Spelt, Harm J. A. Biemans, Hilde Tobi, Pieternel A. Luning, and Martin Mulder (2009) Teaching and Learning in Interdisciplinary Higher

Education: A Systematic Review, Educational Psychology Review 21:365–378 argues that interdisciplinarity requires a knowledge of both disciplines and interdisciplinarity, as well as a set of cognitive and communication skills.

Haynes, C. and Brown Leonard, J. B. (2010, September/October). “From Surprise Parties to Mapmaking: Undergraduate Journeys toward Interdisciplinary Understanding.” The Journal of Higher Education, 81(5), 645-666 examine interdisciplinary learning through a developmental lens.

Allen Repko and Rick Szostak, Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory 3rd ed. (Sage 2016) discuss interdisciplinary learning in the context of Bloom's taxonomy of stages of learning.