A Rough Guide to Interdisciplinarity: Graduate Student Perspectives

摘要

A widely held belief is that only through interdisciplinarity can academics effectively address today's complex ecological problems, because these problems demand cross-disciplinary efforts and specialized knowledge from natural and social scientists. Innovative interdisciplinary research and curricula have been created to train a new generation of scientists to engage with complex issues. It seems critical that those most affected by interdisciplinary education—doctoral students—provide feedback about such innovations. Without understanding students' experiences in interdisciplinary programs, faculty will not know whether they are “getting it right” for future generations of interdisciplinarians. From our experiences as doctoral students, we provide reflections and perspectives on the National Science Foundation–funded Urban Ecology IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) Program at the University of Washington. We discuss the aspects of the program that provided the most beneficial interdisciplinary experiences, as well as those aspects that could be improved. We identify three stages of intellectual development, present questions encountered during each stage, and develop six core recommendations for interdisciplinary research and training programs.nnNatural and social scientists addressing complex ecological problems increasingly recognize the value of one another's research, and often seek multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary approaches to investigate real-world issues. A multidisciplinary approach involves researchers from two or more disciplines working collaboratively on a common problem, without modifying disciplinary approaches or developing synthetic conceptual frameworks. An interdisciplinary approach involves the use of an innovative conceptual framework to synthesize and modify two or more disciplinary approaches to deal with a research problem. Finally, a transdisciplinary approach involves nonacademic practitioners working with academics to identify, research, and develop solutions to real-world problems (Tress et al. 2003).nnInterdisciplinarity, in particular, is heralded as an educational paradigm that can meet the ecological challenges of the coming century (Palmer et al. 2005). The challenge is to develop collaborative partnerships among researchers to explore the complexity of human–nature interactions (Grimm et al. 2000). Interdisciplinary education exposes students to research in multiple disciplines, trains them in collaborative methods through team research, and promotes new forms of communication and collaboration among disciplines. The goal of interdisciplinary education is to develop new researchers and educators in “science at the leading edge” to effectively address pressing societal and environmental problems (Leshner 2004). Interdisciplinary, and now trans-disciplinary, research and training are often part of university mission statements and course curricula, and are explicitly supported by large-scale funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health.nnCollaboration among researchers in multiple disciplines is the essence of interdisciplinarity. Collaboration entails the collective conception, development, and pursuit of a research problem. Doing this effectively requires time to develop a common language, resolve epistemological differences, and define research expectations. Collaborative initiatives have typically been the realm of established senior scientists (Dubrow and Harris 2006), but now are occurring earlier in academic careers, including undergraduate and graduate education. Recent publications about interdisciplinarity offer synopses of interdisciplinary research and training (IDRT) initiatives, progress reports on interdisciplinary education, and reviews of process-related issues (Ivanitskaya et al. 2002, Sung et al. 2003, Musante 2004, Rhoten and Parker 2004).nnAlthough the current literature explicates some aspects of interdisciplinarity—recognizing cultural and institutional barriers and the need to build community and common language across disciplines, for example (Nicolson et al. 2002, Sung et al. 2003)—it does not explicitly present or discuss PhD students' experiences in IDRT programs. In fact, remarkably little information has been collected or published about the student experience in IDRT programs in traditional university settings. Published perspectives are largely those of IDRT implementers (faculty, established researchers), for whom it is difficult to “understand and empathize with the ways students experience the institution. Faculty and staff tend to see the institution from their own perspective” (Hunt et al. 1992, p. 103). There is little guidance for students considering IDRT programs or for faculty designing them (Pallas 2001,Young 2001, Miller and Brimicombe 2004). In short, the actual experiences of PhD students—perhaps the most well-grounded source of information on the success of IDRT—remain largely unheard, despite the proven utility of investigating students' perspectives to understand other innovative, experimental pedagogy (Anderson et al. 2000). Moreover, the continued success of IDRT depends on the reactions of participating students, who will use their IDRT experiences to decide whether or how to participate in interdisciplinary work in their future careers.nnIn this article, we provide insight into our experiences as graduate students pursuing interdisciplinary studies and suggest approaches for building long-lasting IDRT programs. We realize that each IDRT program and student experience will be different, but we are confident that our experiences and list of recommendations will be beneficial to individuals developing, implementing, and participating in IDRT programs. We provide our perspectives on the processes, benefits, and challenges of participating in one IDRT program. This rough guide to interdisciplinarity describes how we successfully navigated a natural–social science IDRT program, both individually and as a group. Our objective is to provide our experience within this IDRT context; for an external evaluation of the program, see Heg and colleagues (2004).nnWe first provide a synopsis of the program (structure, process, and participants). Then we explain the stages by which we progressed through interdisciplinary and disciplinary components of our degrees. We define and describe each stage of progress, concluding each stage with specific questions that we asked. These questions aim to provoke the reader to contemplate IDRT in other settings, taking lessons learned here for application elsewhere. We conclude with six core recommendations to improve doctoral students' experiences with IDRT. These recommendations should be useful for students considering IDRT graduate programs, and for faculty developing them.