interdisciplinary problem solving

October 1, 2018

To Solve Real-World Problems, We Need Interdisciplinary Science

Solving today’s complex, global problems will take interdisciplinary science

By Graham A. J. Worthy & Cherie L. Yestrebsky

T he Indian River Lagoon, a shallow estuary that stretches for 156 miles along Florida's eastern coast, is suffering from the activities of human society. Poor water quality and toxic algal blooms have resulted in fish kills, manatee and dolphin die-offs, and takeovers by invasive species. But the humans who live here have needs, too: the eastern side of the lagoon is buffered by a stretch of barrier islands that are critical to Florida's economy, tourism and agriculture, as well as for launching NASA missions into space.

As in Florida, many of the world's coastlines are in serious trouble as a result of population growth and the pollution it produces. Moreover, the effects of climate change are accelerating both environmental and economic decline. Given what is at risk, scientists like us—a biologist and a chemist at the University of Central Florida—feel an urgent need to do research that can inform policy that will increase the resiliency and sustainability of coastal communities. How can our research best help balance environmental and social needs within the confines of our political and economic systems? This is the level of complexity that scientists must enter into instead of shying away from.

Although new technologies will surely play a role in tackling issues such as climate change, rising seas and coastal flooding, we cannot rely on innovation alone. Technology generally does not take into consideration the complex interactions between people and the environment. That is why coming up with solutions will require scientists to engage in an interdisciplinary team approach—something that is common in the business world but is relatively rare in universities.

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Universities are a tremendous source of intellectual power, of course. But students and faculty are typically organized within departments, or academic silos. Scientists are trained in the tools and language of their respective disciplines and learn to communicate their findings to one another using specific jargon.

When the goal of research is a fundamental understanding of a physical or biological system within a niche community, this setup makes a lot of sense. But when the problem the research is trying to solve extends beyond a closed system and includes its effects on society, silos create a variety of barriers. They can limit creativity, flexibility and nimbleness and actually discourage scientists from working across disciplines. As professors, we tend to train our students in our own image, inadvertently producing specialists who have difficulty communicating with the scientist in the next building—let alone with the broader public. This makes research silos ineffective at responding to developing issues in policy and planning, such as how coastal communities and ecosystems worldwide will adapt to rising seas.

Science for the Bigger Picture

As scientists who live and work in Florida, we realized that we needed to play a bigger role in helping our state—and country—make evidence-based choices when it comes to vulnerable coastlines. We wanted to make a more comprehensive assessment of both natural and human-related impacts to the health, restoration and sustainability of our coastal systems and to conduct long-term, integrated research.

At first, we focused on expanding research capacity in our biology, chemistry and engineering programs because each already had a strong coastal research presence. Then, our university announced a Faculty Cluster Initiative, with a goal of developing interdisciplinary academic teams focused on solving tomorrow's most challenging societal problems. While putting together our proposal, we discovered that there were already 35 faculty members on the Orlando campus who studied coastal issues. They belonged to 12 departments in seven colleges, and many of them had never even met. It became clear that simply working on the same campus was insufficient for collaboration.

So we set out to build a team of people from a wide mix of backgrounds who would work in close proximity to one another on a daily basis. These core members would also serve as a link to the disciplinary strengths of their tenure home departments. Initially, finding experts who truly wanted to embrace the team aspect was more difficult than we thought. Although the notion of interdisciplinary research is not new, it has not always been encouraged in academia. Some faculty who go in that direction still worry about whether it will threaten their recognition when applying for grants, seeking promotions or submitting papers to high-impact journals. We are not suggesting that traditional academic departments should be disbanded. On the contrary, they give the required depth to the research, whereas the interdisciplinary team gives breadth to the overall effort.

Our cluster proposal was a success, and in 2019 the National Center for Integrated Coastal Research (UCF Coastal) was born. Our goal is to guide more effective economic development, environmental stewardship, hazard-mitigation planning and public policy for coastal communities. To better integrate science with societal needs, we have brought together biologists, chemists, engineers and biomedical researchers with anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, planners, emergency managers and economists. It seems that the most creative perspectives on old problems have arisen when people with different training and life experiences are talking through issues over cups of coffee. After all, "interdisciplinary" must mean more than just different flavors of STEM. In academia, tackling the effects of climate change demands more rigorous inclusion of the social sciences—an area that has been frequently overlooked.

The National Science Foundation, as well as other groups, requires that all research proposals incorporate a social sciences component, as an attempt to assess the broader implications of projects. Unfortunately, in many cases, a social scientist is simply added to a proposal only to check a box rather than to make a true commitment to allowing that discipline to inform the project. Instead social, economic and policy needs must be considered at the outset of research design, not as an afterthought. Otherwise our work might fail at the implementation stage, which means we will not be as effective as we could be in solving real-world problems. As a result, the public might become skeptical about how much scientists can contribute toward solutions.

Connecting with the Public

The reality is that communicating research findings to the public is an increasingly critical responsibility of scientists. Doing so has a measurable effect on how politicians prioritize policy, funding and regulations. UCF Coastal was brought into a world where science is not always respected—sometimes it is even portrayed as the enemy. There has been a significant erosion of trust in science over recent years, and we must work more deliberately to regain it. The public, we have found, wants to see quality academic research that is grounded in the societal challenges we are facing. That is why we are melding pure academic research with applied research to focus on issues that are immediate—helping a town or business recovering from a hurricane, for example—as well as long term, such as directly advising a community on how to build resiliency as flooding becomes more frequent.

As scientists, we cannot expect to explain the implications of our research to the wider public if we cannot first understand one another. A benefit of regularly working side by side is that we are crafting a common language, reconciling the radically different meanings that the same words can have to a variety of specialists. Finally, we are learning to speak to one another with more clarity and understand more explicitly how our niches fit into the bigger picture. We are also more aware of culture and industry as driving forces in shaping consensus and policy. Rather than handing city planners a stack of research papers and walking away, UCF Coastal sees itself as a collaborator that listens instead of just lecturing.

This style of academic mission is not only relevant to issues around climate change. It relates to every aspect of modern society, including genetic engineering, automation, artificial intelligence, and so on. The launch of UCF Coastal garnered positive attention from industry, government agencies, local communities and academics. We think that is because people do want to come together to solve problems, but they need a better mechanism for doing so. We hope to be that conduit while inspiring other academic institutions to do the same.

After all, we have been told for years to "think globally, act locally" and that "all politics is local." Florida's Indian River Lagoon will be restored only if there is engagement among residents, local industries, academics, government agencies and nonprofit organizations. As scientists, it is our responsibility to help everyone involved understand that problems that took decades to create will take decades to fix. We need to present the most helpful solutions while explaining the intricacies of the trade-offs for each one. Doing so is possible only if we see ourselves as part of an interdisciplinary, whole-community approach. By listening and responding to fears and concerns, we can make a stronger case for why scientifically driven decisions will be more effective in the long run.

Graham A. J. Worthy is founder and director of the National Center for Integrated Coastal Research at the University of Central Florida (UCF Coastal) and chairs the university's department of biology. His research focuses on how marine ecosystems respond to natural and anthropogenic perturbations.

Cherie L. Yestrebsky is a professor in the University of Central Florida's department of chemistry. Her research expertise is in environmental chemistry and remediation of pollutants in the environment.

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• Published: 11 January 2023

The effectiveness of collaborative problem solving in promoting students’ critical thinking: A meta-analysis based on empirical literature

• Enwei Xu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6424-8169 1 ,
• Wei Wang 1 &
• Qingxia Wang 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  10 , Article number:  16 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Collaborative problem-solving has been widely embraced in the classroom instruction of critical thinking, which is regarded as the core of curriculum reform based on key competencies in the field of education as well as a key competence for learners in the 21st century. However, the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking remains uncertain. This current research presents the major findings of a meta-analysis of 36 pieces of the literature revealed in worldwide educational periodicals during the 21st century to identify the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking and to determine, based on evidence, whether and to what extent collaborative problem solving can result in a rise or decrease in critical thinking. The findings show that (1) collaborative problem solving is an effective teaching approach to foster students’ critical thinking, with a significant overall effect size (ES = 0.82, z  = 12.78, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.69, 0.95]); (2) in respect to the dimensions of critical thinking, collaborative problem solving can significantly and successfully enhance students’ attitudinal tendencies (ES = 1.17, z  = 7.62, P  < 0.01, 95% CI[0.87, 1.47]); nevertheless, it falls short in terms of improving students’ cognitive skills, having only an upper-middle impact (ES = 0.70, z  = 11.55, P  < 0.01, 95% CI[0.58, 0.82]); and (3) the teaching type (chi 2  = 7.20, P  < 0.05), intervention duration (chi 2  = 12.18, P  < 0.01), subject area (chi 2  = 13.36, P  < 0.05), group size (chi 2  = 8.77, P  < 0.05), and learning scaffold (chi 2  = 9.03, P  < 0.01) all have an impact on critical thinking, and they can be viewed as important moderating factors that affect how critical thinking develops. On the basis of these results, recommendations are made for further study and instruction to better support students’ critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving.

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Introduction.

Although critical thinking has a long history in research, the concept of critical thinking, which is regarded as an essential competence for learners in the 21st century, has recently attracted more attention from researchers and teaching practitioners (National Research Council, 2012 ). Critical thinking should be the core of curriculum reform based on key competencies in the field of education (Peng and Deng, 2017 ) because students with critical thinking can not only understand the meaning of knowledge but also effectively solve practical problems in real life even after knowledge is forgotten (Kek and Huijser, 2011 ). The definition of critical thinking is not universal (Ennis, 1989 ; Castle, 2009 ; Niu et al., 2013 ). In general, the definition of critical thinking is a self-aware and self-regulated thought process (Facione, 1990 ; Niu et al., 2013 ). It refers to the cognitive skills needed to interpret, analyze, synthesize, reason, and evaluate information as well as the attitudinal tendency to apply these abilities (Halpern, 2001 ). The view that critical thinking can be taught and learned through curriculum teaching has been widely supported by many researchers (e.g., Kuncel, 2011 ; Leng and Lu, 2020 ), leading to educators’ efforts to foster it among students. In the field of teaching practice, there are three types of courses for teaching critical thinking (Ennis, 1989 ). The first is an independent curriculum in which critical thinking is taught and cultivated without involving the knowledge of specific disciplines; the second is an integrated curriculum in which critical thinking is integrated into the teaching of other disciplines as a clear teaching goal; and the third is a mixed curriculum in which critical thinking is taught in parallel to the teaching of other disciplines for mixed teaching training. Furthermore, numerous measuring tools have been developed by researchers and educators to measure critical thinking in the context of teaching practice. These include standardized measurement tools, such as WGCTA, CCTST, CCTT, and CCTDI, which have been verified by repeated experiments and are considered effective and reliable by international scholars (Facione and Facione, 1992 ). In short, descriptions of critical thinking, including its two dimensions of attitudinal tendency and cognitive skills, different types of teaching courses, and standardized measurement tools provide a complex normative framework for understanding, teaching, and evaluating critical thinking.

Cultivating critical thinking in curriculum teaching can start with a problem, and one of the most popular critical thinking instructional approaches is problem-based learning (Liu et al., 2020 ). Duch et al. ( 2001 ) noted that problem-based learning in group collaboration is progressive active learning, which can improve students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Collaborative problem-solving is the organic integration of collaborative learning and problem-based learning, which takes learners as the center of the learning process and uses problems with poor structure in real-world situations as the starting point for the learning process (Liang et al., 2017 ). Students learn the knowledge needed to solve problems in a collaborative group, reach a consensus on problems in the field, and form solutions through social cooperation methods, such as dialogue, interpretation, questioning, debate, negotiation, and reflection, thus promoting the development of learners’ domain knowledge and critical thinking (Cindy, 2004 ; Liang et al., 2017 ).

Collaborative problem-solving has been widely used in the teaching practice of critical thinking, and several studies have attempted to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the empirical literature on critical thinking from various perspectives. However, little attention has been paid to the impact of collaborative problem-solving on critical thinking. Therefore, the best approach for developing and enhancing critical thinking throughout collaborative problem-solving is to examine how to implement critical thinking instruction; however, this issue is still unexplored, which means that many teachers are incapable of better instructing critical thinking (Leng and Lu, 2020 ; Niu et al., 2013 ). For example, Huber ( 2016 ) provided the meta-analysis findings of 71 publications on gaining critical thinking over various time frames in college with the aim of determining whether critical thinking was truly teachable. These authors found that learners significantly improve their critical thinking while in college and that critical thinking differs with factors such as teaching strategies, intervention duration, subject area, and teaching type. The usefulness of collaborative problem-solving in fostering students’ critical thinking, however, was not determined by this study, nor did it reveal whether there existed significant variations among the different elements. A meta-analysis of 31 pieces of educational literature was conducted by Liu et al. ( 2020 ) to assess the impact of problem-solving on college students’ critical thinking. These authors found that problem-solving could promote the development of critical thinking among college students and proposed establishing a reasonable group structure for problem-solving in a follow-up study to improve students’ critical thinking. Additionally, previous empirical studies have reached inconclusive and even contradictory conclusions about whether and to what extent collaborative problem-solving increases or decreases critical thinking levels. As an illustration, Yang et al. ( 2008 ) carried out an experiment on the integrated curriculum teaching of college students based on a web bulletin board with the goal of fostering participants’ critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving. These authors’ research revealed that through sharing, debating, examining, and reflecting on various experiences and ideas, collaborative problem-solving can considerably enhance students’ critical thinking in real-life problem situations. In contrast, collaborative problem-solving had a positive impact on learners’ interaction and could improve learning interest and motivation but could not significantly improve students’ critical thinking when compared to traditional classroom teaching, according to research by Naber and Wyatt ( 2014 ) and Sendag and Odabasi ( 2009 ) on undergraduate and high school students, respectively.

The above studies show that there is inconsistency regarding the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking. Therefore, it is essential to conduct a thorough and trustworthy review to detect and decide whether and to what degree collaborative problem-solving can result in a rise or decrease in critical thinking. Meta-analysis is a quantitative analysis approach that is utilized to examine quantitative data from various separate studies that are all focused on the same research topic. This approach characterizes the effectiveness of its impact by averaging the effect sizes of numerous qualitative studies in an effort to reduce the uncertainty brought on by independent research and produce more conclusive findings (Lipsey and Wilson, 2001 ).

This paper used a meta-analytic approach and carried out a meta-analysis to examine the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking in order to make a contribution to both research and practice. The following research questions were addressed by this meta-analysis:

What is the overall effect size of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking and its impact on the two dimensions of critical thinking (i.e., attitudinal tendency and cognitive skills)?

How are the disparities between the study conclusions impacted by various moderating variables if the impacts of various experimental designs in the included studies are heterogeneous?

This research followed the strict procedures (e.g., database searching, identification, screening, eligibility, merging, duplicate removal, and analysis of included studies) of Cooper’s ( 2010 ) proposed meta-analysis approach for examining quantitative data from various separate studies that are all focused on the same research topic. The relevant empirical research that appeared in worldwide educational periodicals within the 21st century was subjected to this meta-analysis using Rev-Man 5.4. The consistency of the data extracted separately by two researchers was tested using Cohen’s kappa coefficient, and a publication bias test and a heterogeneity test were run on the sample data to ascertain the quality of this meta-analysis.

Data sources and search strategies

There were three stages to the data collection process for this meta-analysis, as shown in Fig. 1 , which shows the number of articles included and eliminated during the selection process based on the statement and study eligibility criteria.

This flowchart shows the number of records identified, included and excluded in the article.

First, the databases used to systematically search for relevant articles were the journal papers of the Web of Science Core Collection and the Chinese Core source journal, as well as the Chinese Social Science Citation Index (CSSCI) source journal papers included in CNKI. These databases were selected because they are credible platforms that are sources of scholarly and peer-reviewed information with advanced search tools and contain literature relevant to the subject of our topic from reliable researchers and experts. The search string with the Boolean operator used in the Web of Science was “TS = (((“critical thinking” or “ct” and “pretest” or “posttest”) or (“critical thinking” or “ct” and “control group” or “quasi experiment” or “experiment”)) and (“collaboration” or “collaborative learning” or “CSCL”) and (“problem solving” or “problem-based learning” or “PBL”))”. The research area was “Education Educational Research”, and the search period was “January 1, 2000, to December 30, 2021”. A total of 412 papers were obtained. The search string with the Boolean operator used in the CNKI was “SU = (‘critical thinking’*‘collaboration’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘collaborative learning’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘CSCL’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘problem solving’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘problem-based learning’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘PBL’ + ‘critical thinking’*‘problem oriented’) AND FT = (‘experiment’ + ‘quasi experiment’ + ‘pretest’ + ‘posttest’ + ‘empirical study’)” (translated into Chinese when searching). A total of 56 studies were found throughout the search period of “January 2000 to December 2021”. From the databases, all duplicates and retractions were eliminated before exporting the references into Endnote, a program for managing bibliographic references. In all, 466 studies were found.

Second, the studies that matched the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the meta-analysis were chosen by two researchers after they had reviewed the abstracts and titles of the gathered articles, yielding a total of 126 studies.

Third, two researchers thoroughly reviewed each included article’s whole text in accordance with the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Meanwhile, a snowball search was performed using the references and citations of the included articles to ensure complete coverage of the articles. Ultimately, 36 articles were kept.

Two researchers worked together to carry out this entire process, and a consensus rate of almost 94.7% was reached after discussion and negotiation to clarify any emerging differences.

Eligibility criteria

Since not all the retrieved studies matched the criteria for this meta-analysis, eligibility criteria for both inclusion and exclusion were developed as follows:

The publication language of the included studies was limited to English and Chinese, and the full text could be obtained. Articles that did not meet the publication language and articles not published between 2000 and 2021 were excluded.

The research design of the included studies must be empirical and quantitative studies that can assess the effect of collaborative problem-solving on the development of critical thinking. Articles that could not identify the causal mechanisms by which collaborative problem-solving affects critical thinking, such as review articles and theoretical articles, were excluded.

The research method of the included studies must feature a randomized control experiment or a quasi-experiment, or a natural experiment, which have a higher degree of internal validity with strong experimental designs and can all plausibly provide evidence that critical thinking and collaborative problem-solving are causally related. Articles with non-experimental research methods, such as purely correlational or observational studies, were excluded.

The participants of the included studies were only students in school, including K-12 students and college students. Articles in which the participants were non-school students, such as social workers or adult learners, were excluded.

The research results of the included studies must mention definite signs that may be utilized to gauge critical thinking’s impact (e.g., sample size, mean value, or standard deviation). Articles that lacked specific measurement indicators for critical thinking and could not calculate the effect size were excluded.

Data coding design

In order to perform a meta-analysis, it is necessary to collect the most important information from the articles, codify that information’s properties, and convert descriptive data into quantitative data. Therefore, this study designed a data coding template (see Table 1 ). Ultimately, 16 coding fields were retained.

The designed data-coding template consisted of three pieces of information. Basic information about the papers was included in the descriptive information: the publishing year, author, serial number, and title of the paper.

The variable information for the experimental design had three variables: the independent variable (instruction method), the dependent variable (critical thinking), and the moderating variable (learning stage, teaching type, intervention duration, learning scaffold, group size, measuring tool, and subject area). Depending on the topic of this study, the intervention strategy, as the independent variable, was coded into collaborative and non-collaborative problem-solving. The dependent variable, critical thinking, was coded as a cognitive skill and an attitudinal tendency. And seven moderating variables were created by grouping and combining the experimental design variables discovered within the 36 studies (see Table 1 ), where learning stages were encoded as higher education, high school, middle school, and primary school or lower; teaching types were encoded as mixed courses, integrated courses, and independent courses; intervention durations were encoded as 0–1 weeks, 1–4 weeks, 4–12 weeks, and more than 12 weeks; group sizes were encoded as 2–3 persons, 4–6 persons, 7–10 persons, and more than 10 persons; learning scaffolds were encoded as teacher-supported learning scaffold, technique-supported learning scaffold, and resource-supported learning scaffold; measuring tools were encoded as standardized measurement tools (e.g., WGCTA, CCTT, CCTST, and CCTDI) and self-adapting measurement tools (e.g., modified or made by researchers); and subject areas were encoded according to the specific subjects used in the 36 included studies.

The data information contained three metrics for measuring critical thinking: sample size, average value, and standard deviation. It is vital to remember that studies with various experimental designs frequently adopt various formulas to determine the effect size. And this paper used Morris’ proposed standardized mean difference (SMD) calculation formula ( 2008 , p. 369; see Supplementary Table S3 ).

Procedure for extracting and coding data

According to the data coding template (see Table 1 ), the 36 papers’ information was retrieved by two researchers, who then entered them into Excel (see Supplementary Table S1 ). The results of each study were extracted separately in the data extraction procedure if an article contained numerous studies on critical thinking, or if a study assessed different critical thinking dimensions. For instance, Tiwari et al. ( 2010 ) used four time points, which were viewed as numerous different studies, to examine the outcomes of critical thinking, and Chen ( 2013 ) included the two outcome variables of attitudinal tendency and cognitive skills, which were regarded as two studies. After discussion and negotiation during data extraction, the two researchers’ consistency test coefficients were roughly 93.27%. Supplementary Table S2 details the key characteristics of the 36 included articles with 79 effect quantities, including descriptive information (e.g., the publishing year, author, serial number, and title of the paper), variable information (e.g., independent variables, dependent variables, and moderating variables), and data information (e.g., mean values, standard deviations, and sample size). Following that, testing for publication bias and heterogeneity was done on the sample data using the Rev-Man 5.4 software, and then the test results were used to conduct a meta-analysis.

Publication bias test

When the sample of studies included in a meta-analysis does not accurately reflect the general status of research on the relevant subject, publication bias is said to be exhibited in this research. The reliability and accuracy of the meta-analysis may be impacted by publication bias. Due to this, the meta-analysis needs to check the sample data for publication bias (Stewart et al., 2006 ). A popular method to check for publication bias is the funnel plot; and it is unlikely that there will be publishing bias when the data are equally dispersed on either side of the average effect size and targeted within the higher region. The data are equally dispersed within the higher portion of the efficient zone, consistent with the funnel plot connected with this analysis (see Fig. 2 ), indicating that publication bias is unlikely in this situation.

This funnel plot shows the result of publication bias of 79 effect quantities across 36 studies.

Heterogeneity test

To select the appropriate effect models for the meta-analysis, one might use the results of a heterogeneity test on the data effect sizes. In a meta-analysis, it is common practice to gauge the degree of data heterogeneity using the I 2 value, and I 2  ≥ 50% is typically understood to denote medium-high heterogeneity, which calls for the adoption of a random effect model; if not, a fixed effect model ought to be applied (Lipsey and Wilson, 2001 ). The findings of the heterogeneity test in this paper (see Table 2 ) revealed that I 2 was 86% and displayed significant heterogeneity ( P  < 0.01). To ensure accuracy and reliability, the overall effect size ought to be calculated utilizing the random effect model.

The analysis of the overall effect size

This meta-analysis utilized a random effect model to examine 79 effect quantities from 36 studies after eliminating heterogeneity. In accordance with Cohen’s criterion (Cohen, 1992 ), it is abundantly clear from the analysis results, which are shown in the forest plot of the overall effect (see Fig. 3 ), that the cumulative impact size of cooperative problem-solving is 0.82, which is statistically significant ( z  = 12.78, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.69, 0.95]), and can encourage learners to practice critical thinking.

This forest plot shows the analysis result of the overall effect size across 36 studies.

In addition, this study examined two distinct dimensions of critical thinking to better understand the precise contributions that collaborative problem-solving makes to the growth of critical thinking. The findings (see Table 3 ) indicate that collaborative problem-solving improves cognitive skills (ES = 0.70) and attitudinal tendency (ES = 1.17), with significant intergroup differences (chi 2  = 7.95, P  < 0.01). Although collaborative problem-solving improves both dimensions of critical thinking, it is essential to point out that the improvements in students’ attitudinal tendency are much more pronounced and have a significant comprehensive effect (ES = 1.17, z  = 7.62, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.87, 1.47]), whereas gains in learners’ cognitive skill are slightly improved and are just above average. (ES = 0.70, z  = 11.55, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.58, 0.82]).

The analysis of moderator effect size

The whole forest plot’s 79 effect quantities underwent a two-tailed test, which revealed significant heterogeneity ( I 2  = 86%, z  = 12.78, P  < 0.01), indicating differences between various effect sizes that may have been influenced by moderating factors other than sampling error. Therefore, exploring possible moderating factors that might produce considerable heterogeneity was done using subgroup analysis, such as the learning stage, learning scaffold, teaching type, group size, duration of the intervention, measuring tool, and the subject area included in the 36 experimental designs, in order to further explore the key factors that influence critical thinking. The findings (see Table 4 ) indicate that various moderating factors have advantageous effects on critical thinking. In this situation, the subject area (chi 2  = 13.36, P  < 0.05), group size (chi 2  = 8.77, P  < 0.05), intervention duration (chi 2  = 12.18, P  < 0.01), learning scaffold (chi 2  = 9.03, P  < 0.01), and teaching type (chi 2  = 7.20, P  < 0.05) are all significant moderators that can be applied to support the cultivation of critical thinking. However, since the learning stage and the measuring tools did not significantly differ among intergroup (chi 2  = 3.15, P  = 0.21 > 0.05, and chi 2  = 0.08, P  = 0.78 > 0.05), we are unable to explain why these two factors are crucial in supporting the cultivation of critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving. These are the precise outcomes, as follows:

Various learning stages influenced critical thinking positively, without significant intergroup differences (chi 2  = 3.15, P  = 0.21 > 0.05). High school was first on the list of effect sizes (ES = 1.36, P  < 0.01), then higher education (ES = 0.78, P  < 0.01), and middle school (ES = 0.73, P  < 0.01). These results show that, despite the learning stage’s beneficial influence on cultivating learners’ critical thinking, we are unable to explain why it is essential for cultivating critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving.

Different teaching types had varying degrees of positive impact on critical thinking, with significant intergroup differences (chi 2  = 7.20, P  < 0.05). The effect size was ranked as follows: mixed courses (ES = 1.34, P  < 0.01), integrated courses (ES = 0.81, P  < 0.01), and independent courses (ES = 0.27, P  < 0.01). These results indicate that the most effective approach to cultivate critical thinking utilizing collaborative problem solving is through the teaching type of mixed courses.

Various intervention durations significantly improved critical thinking, and there were significant intergroup differences (chi 2  = 12.18, P  < 0.01). The effect sizes related to this variable showed a tendency to increase with longer intervention durations. The improvement in critical thinking reached a significant level (ES = 0.85, P  < 0.01) after more than 12 weeks of training. These findings indicate that the intervention duration and critical thinking’s impact are positively correlated, with a longer intervention duration having a greater effect.

Different learning scaffolds influenced critical thinking positively, with significant intergroup differences (chi 2  = 9.03, P  < 0.01). The resource-supported learning scaffold (ES = 0.69, P  < 0.01) acquired a medium-to-higher level of impact, the technique-supported learning scaffold (ES = 0.63, P  < 0.01) also attained a medium-to-higher level of impact, and the teacher-supported learning scaffold (ES = 0.92, P  < 0.01) displayed a high level of significant impact. These results show that the learning scaffold with teacher support has the greatest impact on cultivating critical thinking.

Various group sizes influenced critical thinking positively, and the intergroup differences were statistically significant (chi 2  = 8.77, P  < 0.05). Critical thinking showed a general declining trend with increasing group size. The overall effect size of 2–3 people in this situation was the biggest (ES = 0.99, P  < 0.01), and when the group size was greater than 7 people, the improvement in critical thinking was at the lower-middle level (ES < 0.5, P  < 0.01). These results show that the impact on critical thinking is positively connected with group size, and as group size grows, so does the overall impact.

Various measuring tools influenced critical thinking positively, with significant intergroup differences (chi 2  = 0.08, P  = 0.78 > 0.05). In this situation, the self-adapting measurement tools obtained an upper-medium level of effect (ES = 0.78), whereas the complete effect size of the standardized measurement tools was the largest, achieving a significant level of effect (ES = 0.84, P  < 0.01). These results show that, despite the beneficial influence of the measuring tool on cultivating critical thinking, we are unable to explain why it is crucial in fostering the growth of critical thinking by utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

Different subject areas had a greater impact on critical thinking, and the intergroup differences were statistically significant (chi 2  = 13.36, P  < 0.05). Mathematics had the greatest overall impact, achieving a significant level of effect (ES = 1.68, P  < 0.01), followed by science (ES = 1.25, P  < 0.01) and medical science (ES = 0.87, P  < 0.01), both of which also achieved a significant level of effect. Programming technology was the least effective (ES = 0.39, P  < 0.01), only having a medium-low degree of effect compared to education (ES = 0.72, P  < 0.01) and other fields (such as language, art, and social sciences) (ES = 0.58, P  < 0.01). These results suggest that scientific fields (e.g., mathematics, science) may be the most effective subject areas for cultivating critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

The effectiveness of collaborative problem solving with regard to teaching critical thinking

According to this meta-analysis, using collaborative problem-solving as an intervention strategy in critical thinking teaching has a considerable amount of impact on cultivating learners’ critical thinking as a whole and has a favorable promotional effect on the two dimensions of critical thinking. According to certain studies, collaborative problem solving, the most frequently used critical thinking teaching strategy in curriculum instruction can considerably enhance students’ critical thinking (e.g., Liang et al., 2017 ; Liu et al., 2020 ; Cindy, 2004 ). This meta-analysis provides convergent data support for the above research views. Thus, the findings of this meta-analysis not only effectively address the first research query regarding the overall effect of cultivating critical thinking and its impact on the two dimensions of critical thinking (i.e., attitudinal tendency and cognitive skills) utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving, but also enhance our confidence in cultivating critical thinking by using collaborative problem-solving intervention approach in the context of classroom teaching.

Furthermore, the associated improvements in attitudinal tendency are much stronger, but the corresponding improvements in cognitive skill are only marginally better. According to certain studies, cognitive skill differs from the attitudinal tendency in classroom instruction; the cultivation and development of the former as a key ability is a process of gradual accumulation, while the latter as an attitude is affected by the context of the teaching situation (e.g., a novel and exciting teaching approach, challenging and rewarding tasks) (Halpern, 2001 ; Wei and Hong, 2022 ). Collaborative problem-solving as a teaching approach is exciting and interesting, as well as rewarding and challenging; because it takes the learners as the focus and examines problems with poor structure in real situations, and it can inspire students to fully realize their potential for problem-solving, which will significantly improve their attitudinal tendency toward solving problems (Liu et al., 2020 ). Similar to how collaborative problem-solving influences attitudinal tendency, attitudinal tendency impacts cognitive skill when attempting to solve a problem (Liu et al., 2020 ; Zhang et al., 2022 ), and stronger attitudinal tendencies are associated with improved learning achievement and cognitive ability in students (Sison, 2008 ; Zhang et al., 2022 ). It can be seen that the two specific dimensions of critical thinking as well as critical thinking as a whole are affected by collaborative problem-solving, and this study illuminates the nuanced links between cognitive skills and attitudinal tendencies with regard to these two dimensions of critical thinking. To fully develop students’ capacity for critical thinking, future empirical research should pay closer attention to cognitive skills.

The moderating effects of collaborative problem solving with regard to teaching critical thinking

In order to further explore the key factors that influence critical thinking, exploring possible moderating effects that might produce considerable heterogeneity was done using subgroup analysis. The findings show that the moderating factors, such as the teaching type, learning stage, group size, learning scaffold, duration of the intervention, measuring tool, and the subject area included in the 36 experimental designs, could all support the cultivation of collaborative problem-solving in critical thinking. Among them, the effect size differences between the learning stage and measuring tool are not significant, which does not explain why these two factors are crucial in supporting the cultivation of critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

In terms of the learning stage, various learning stages influenced critical thinking positively without significant intergroup differences, indicating that we are unable to explain why it is crucial in fostering the growth of critical thinking.

Although high education accounts for 70.89% of all empirical studies performed by researchers, high school may be the appropriate learning stage to foster students’ critical thinking by utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving since it has the largest overall effect size. This phenomenon may be related to student’s cognitive development, which needs to be further studied in follow-up research.

With regard to teaching type, mixed course teaching may be the best teaching method to cultivate students’ critical thinking. Relevant studies have shown that in the actual teaching process if students are trained in thinking methods alone, the methods they learn are isolated and divorced from subject knowledge, which is not conducive to their transfer of thinking methods; therefore, if students’ thinking is trained only in subject teaching without systematic method training, it is challenging to apply to real-world circumstances (Ruggiero, 2012 ; Hu and Liu, 2015 ). Teaching critical thinking as mixed course teaching in parallel to other subject teachings can achieve the best effect on learners’ critical thinking, and explicit critical thinking instruction is more effective than less explicit critical thinking instruction (Bensley and Spero, 2014 ).

In terms of the intervention duration, with longer intervention times, the overall effect size shows an upward tendency. Thus, the intervention duration and critical thinking’s impact are positively correlated. Critical thinking, as a key competency for students in the 21st century, is difficult to get a meaningful improvement in a brief intervention duration. Instead, it could be developed over a lengthy period of time through consistent teaching and the progressive accumulation of knowledge (Halpern, 2001 ; Hu and Liu, 2015 ). Therefore, future empirical studies ought to take these restrictions into account throughout a longer period of critical thinking instruction.

With regard to group size, a group size of 2–3 persons has the highest effect size, and the comprehensive effect size decreases with increasing group size in general. This outcome is in line with some research findings; as an example, a group composed of two to four members is most appropriate for collaborative learning (Schellens and Valcke, 2006 ). However, the meta-analysis results also indicate that once the group size exceeds 7 people, small groups cannot produce better interaction and performance than large groups. This may be because the learning scaffolds of technique support, resource support, and teacher support improve the frequency and effectiveness of interaction among group members, and a collaborative group with more members may increase the diversity of views, which is helpful to cultivate critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

With regard to the learning scaffold, the three different kinds of learning scaffolds can all enhance critical thinking. Among them, the teacher-supported learning scaffold has the largest overall effect size, demonstrating the interdependence of effective learning scaffolds and collaborative problem-solving. This outcome is in line with some research findings; as an example, a successful strategy is to encourage learners to collaborate, come up with solutions, and develop critical thinking skills by using learning scaffolds (Reiser, 2004 ; Xu et al., 2022 ); learning scaffolds can lower task complexity and unpleasant feelings while also enticing students to engage in learning activities (Wood et al., 2006 ); learning scaffolds are designed to assist students in using learning approaches more successfully to adapt the collaborative problem-solving process, and the teacher-supported learning scaffolds have the greatest influence on critical thinking in this process because they are more targeted, informative, and timely (Xu et al., 2022 ).

With respect to the measuring tool, despite the fact that standardized measurement tools (such as the WGCTA, CCTT, and CCTST) have been acknowledged as trustworthy and effective by worldwide experts, only 54.43% of the research included in this meta-analysis adopted them for assessment, and the results indicated no intergroup differences. These results suggest that not all teaching circumstances are appropriate for measuring critical thinking using standardized measurement tools. “The measuring tools for measuring thinking ability have limits in assessing learners in educational situations and should be adapted appropriately to accurately assess the changes in learners’ critical thinking.”, according to Simpson and Courtney ( 2002 , p. 91). As a result, in order to more fully and precisely gauge how learners’ critical thinking has evolved, we must properly modify standardized measuring tools based on collaborative problem-solving learning contexts.

With regard to the subject area, the comprehensive effect size of science departments (e.g., mathematics, science, medical science) is larger than that of language arts and social sciences. Some recent international education reforms have noted that critical thinking is a basic part of scientific literacy. Students with scientific literacy can prove the rationality of their judgment according to accurate evidence and reasonable standards when they face challenges or poorly structured problems (Kyndt et al., 2013 ), which makes critical thinking crucial for developing scientific understanding and applying this understanding to practical problem solving for problems related to science, technology, and society (Yore et al., 2007 ).

Suggestions for critical thinking teaching

Other than those stated in the discussion above, the following suggestions are offered for critical thinking instruction utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

First, teachers should put a special emphasis on the two core elements, which are collaboration and problem-solving, to design real problems based on collaborative situations. This meta-analysis provides evidence to support the view that collaborative problem-solving has a strong synergistic effect on promoting students’ critical thinking. Asking questions about real situations and allowing learners to take part in critical discussions on real problems during class instruction are key ways to teach critical thinking rather than simply reading speculative articles without practice (Mulnix, 2012 ). Furthermore, the improvement of students’ critical thinking is realized through cognitive conflict with other learners in the problem situation (Yang et al., 2008 ). Consequently, it is essential for teachers to put a special emphasis on the two core elements, which are collaboration and problem-solving, and design real problems and encourage students to discuss, negotiate, and argue based on collaborative problem-solving situations.

Second, teachers should design and implement mixed courses to cultivate learners’ critical thinking, utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving. Critical thinking can be taught through curriculum instruction (Kuncel, 2011 ; Leng and Lu, 2020 ), with the goal of cultivating learners’ critical thinking for flexible transfer and application in real problem-solving situations. This meta-analysis shows that mixed course teaching has a highly substantial impact on the cultivation and promotion of learners’ critical thinking. Therefore, teachers should design and implement mixed course teaching with real collaborative problem-solving situations in combination with the knowledge content of specific disciplines in conventional teaching, teach methods and strategies of critical thinking based on poorly structured problems to help students master critical thinking, and provide practical activities in which students can interact with each other to develop knowledge construction and critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem-solving.

Third, teachers should be more trained in critical thinking, particularly preservice teachers, and they also should be conscious of the ways in which teachers’ support for learning scaffolds can promote critical thinking. The learning scaffold supported by teachers had the greatest impact on learners’ critical thinking, in addition to being more directive, targeted, and timely (Wood et al., 2006 ). Critical thinking can only be effectively taught when teachers recognize the significance of critical thinking for students’ growth and use the proper approaches while designing instructional activities (Forawi, 2016 ). Therefore, with the intention of enabling teachers to create learning scaffolds to cultivate learners’ critical thinking utilizing the approach of collaborative problem solving, it is essential to concentrate on the teacher-supported learning scaffolds and enhance the instruction for teaching critical thinking to teachers, especially preservice teachers.

Implications and limitations

There are certain limitations in this meta-analysis, but future research can correct them. First, the search languages were restricted to English and Chinese, so it is possible that pertinent studies that were written in other languages were overlooked, resulting in an inadequate number of articles for review. Second, these data provided by the included studies are partially missing, such as whether teachers were trained in the theory and practice of critical thinking, the average age and gender of learners, and the differences in critical thinking among learners of various ages and genders. Third, as is typical for review articles, more studies were released while this meta-analysis was being done; therefore, it had a time limit. With the development of relevant research, future studies focusing on these issues are highly relevant and needed.

Conclusions

The subject of the magnitude of collaborative problem-solving’s impact on fostering students’ critical thinking, which received scant attention from other studies, was successfully addressed by this study. The question of the effectiveness of collaborative problem-solving in promoting students’ critical thinking was addressed in this study, which addressed a topic that had gotten little attention in earlier research. The following conclusions can be made:

Regarding the results obtained, collaborative problem solving is an effective teaching approach to foster learners’ critical thinking, with a significant overall effect size (ES = 0.82, z  = 12.78, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.69, 0.95]). With respect to the dimensions of critical thinking, collaborative problem-solving can significantly and effectively improve students’ attitudinal tendency, and the comprehensive effect is significant (ES = 1.17, z  = 7.62, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.87, 1.47]); nevertheless, it falls short in terms of improving students’ cognitive skills, having only an upper-middle impact (ES = 0.70, z  = 11.55, P  < 0.01, 95% CI [0.58, 0.82]).

As demonstrated by both the results and the discussion, there are varying degrees of beneficial effects on students’ critical thinking from all seven moderating factors, which were found across 36 studies. In this context, the teaching type (chi 2  = 7.20, P  < 0.05), intervention duration (chi 2  = 12.18, P  < 0.01), subject area (chi 2  = 13.36, P  < 0.05), group size (chi 2  = 8.77, P  < 0.05), and learning scaffold (chi 2  = 9.03, P  < 0.01) all have a positive impact on critical thinking, and they can be viewed as important moderating factors that affect how critical thinking develops. Since the learning stage (chi 2  = 3.15, P  = 0.21 > 0.05) and measuring tools (chi 2  = 0.08, P  = 0.78 > 0.05) did not demonstrate any significant intergroup differences, we are unable to explain why these two factors are crucial in supporting the cultivation of critical thinking in the context of collaborative problem-solving.

Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included within the article and its supplementary information files, and the supplementary information files are available in the Dataverse repository: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/IPFJO6 .

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the graduate scientific research and innovation project of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region named “Research on in-depth learning of high school information technology courses for the cultivation of computing thinking” (No. XJ2022G190) and the independent innovation fund project for doctoral students of the College of Educational Science of Xinjiang Normal University named “Research on project-based teaching of high school information technology courses from the perspective of discipline core literacy” (No. XJNUJKYA2003).

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Xu, E., Wang, W. & Wang, Q. The effectiveness of collaborative problem solving in promoting students’ critical thinking: A meta-analysis based on empirical literature. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 16 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01508-1

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Interdisciplinarity is an analytically reflective study of the methodological, theoretical, and institutional implications of implementing interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and research. Interdisciplinary approaches in the social sciences began in the 1920s. At a minimum, they involve the application of insights and perspectives from more than one conventional discipline to the understanding of social phenomena. The formal concept of interdisciplinarity entered the literature in the early 1970s. The scholars responsible all shared the thought that the scientific enterprise had become less effective due to disciplinary fragmentation and that a countermovement for the unification of knowledge was the proper response. However, not all interdisciplinarians believe that the unification of existing knowledge is the answer.

There are many ways of differentiating between types of interdisciplinary approaches. One classification distinguishes between multidisciplinary, crossdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches. Multidisciplinary approaches involve the simple act of juxtaposing parts of several conventional disciplines in an effort to get a broader understanding of some common theme or problem. Crossdisciplinary approaches involve real interaction across the conventional disciplines, though the extent of communication; thus, combination, synthesis, or integration of concepts and/or methods vary considerably. Transdisciplinary approaches, meanwhile, involve articulated conceptual frameworks that seek to transcend the more limited world views of the specialized conventional disciplines. Even though many believe that interdisciplinary efforts can create innovative knowledge, the power structure of the disciplinary academy resists interdisciplinary inroads on its authority and resources.

• academic discipline
• area studies
• interdisciplinary approaches
• interdisciplinarity
• interdiscipline
• multidisciplinary
• cross-disciplinary
• transdisciplinary

Updated in this version

Updated references; major revisions throughout.

Introduction

As early as the 1920s, the US Social Science Research Council (SSRC) recognized that, in only several decades after its invention, the departmental/disciplinary structure of the university was becoming an obstacle to effectively addressing comprehensive social problems. Especially in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, the Rockefeller Foundation and then the Ford Foundation worked with the SSRC to fund interdisciplinary research and teaching in US higher education. In the early Cold War era, area studies programs were major recipients of that funding. As a consequence, international studies during this period were often conceptualized as interdisciplinary (Calhoun, 2017 ). At the founding of the International Studies Association (ISA) in 1959 , its mission statement explicitly states that the ISA “promotes interdisciplinary approaches to problems that cannot fruitfully be examined from the confines of a single discipline” ( International Studies Perspectives , May, 2007 , back cover).

The first section of this essay is a historical survey of selected professional literature on interdisciplinary studies, beginning with the classic 1972 OECD Report on its Paris conference (Apostel, 1972 ). It was the first major book entitled Interdisciplinarity . To achieve some conceptual clarity on the many varieties of interdisciplinary activity in the academy, basic terms were defined and a typology proposed. The second major part of this essay is structured by that typology of multidisciplinary, crossdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches. Since all of these categories rely on disciplines as the core ingredient, discipline is also defined.

In recent years, the concept interdisciplinarity has become popular among scholars. Many books and articles have it in their titles. Books on interdisciplinary approaches vary from those promoting interdisciplinarity (Farrell, Lusatia, & Vanden Hove, 2013 ) to those denigrating it and praising the superior qualities of the disciplines (Jacobs, 2014 ). Furthermore, the widespread discussion of interdisciplinarity does not mean that it has politically succeeded in the academy. By and large the conventional disciplines have maintained their power over the university and funding bureaucracies. The last section of this essay discusses the varying fortunes of interdisciplinary approaches in the academy, especially in reference to international relations.

Historical Survey of Select Literature

The noun interdisciplinarity made its professional debut in a 1972 publication from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The report, entitled Interdisciplinarity: Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities (Apostel, 1972 ), was sponsored by OECD’s Parisian-based Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. The Report had chapters written by scholars from six different European countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Though there were many differences between them, they all shared the thought that the scientific enterprise had become less effective due to disciplinary fragmentation, and that a counter movement for the unification of knowledge was the proper response. The problem was “how to unify knowledge and what the many implications of such unity are for teaching and research in the universities …” (Apostel, 1972 , p. 11). Unification “means the integration of concepts and methods in these disciplines” (pp. 11–12). A number of unifying schemas were proposed, including mathematics, linguistic structuralism, Marxism and general systems. Although the authors had different “transdisciplinary” proposals, they all agreed that “interdisciplinarity is a way of life. It is basically a mental outlook which combines curiosity with open mindedness and a spirit of adventure and discovery. . . .” It is practiced collectively. . . . It teaches that there can be no discontinuity between education and research” (Apostel, p. 285).

In addition to a number of important theoretical articles, the OECD report had a major emphasis on the design and implementation of interdisciplinary universities. The authors of that section, Asa Briggs of Sussex University and Guy Michaud of the University of Paris, gave as their sample model an interdisciplinary university with a special emphasis on international relations. They believed that because the field of international relations had the most complex connections, it necessarily involved the study of many methods, disciplines, issues, languages, and geographical areas. All students of their proposed university were expected to be familiar with the basic approaches and concepts of anthropology, politics, economics, international law, ecology, geography, history, sociology, and ethno-psychology (Apostel, 1972 , pp. 253–257).

Chronologically, the next major book that addressed the general issue of interdisciplinarity in the university setting was entitled Interdisciplinarity and Higher Education . It was published in 1979 , and its editor was Joseph Kockelmans, the Director of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Program at Pennsylvania State University. Possibly because he was European-educated, his orientation was similar to the authors of the OECD Report. He argued that only through “philosophical reflection” can the society’s intellectuals approach the “totality of meaning.” To overcome the fragmented worlds that they have created, they need to reach agreement not only on the position of the sciences, but also on “religion, morality, the arts and our sociopolitical praxis” (Kockelmans, 1979 , pp. 153–158). However, Kockelmans was opposed to using a pre-existing framework, such as the ones listed above in the OECD Report, or the logical positivism of the Unification of Science movement spearheaded by the Vienna Circle in the 1930s. None of them fulfilled the comprehensive vision that Kockelmans advocated.

In October of 1984 , OECD, in collaboration with the Swedish National Board of Universities and Colleges, decided to hold a conference to revisit the concept and experience of interdisciplinarity. More than half of the participants were from Sweden, and almost half of them were from one university, Linköping. Linköping University was especially interested in the topic because it had instituted a doctoral program based on four interdisciplinary themes (technology and social change, water in environment and society, health and society, and communication). The proceedings of the conference were published under the title Interdisciplinarity Revisited: Re-Assessing the Concept in the Light of Institutional Experience (Levin & Lind, 1985 ). Essentially the conferees agreed that the early enthusiasm for an interdisciplinary revolution was dampened by the realities of societal and institutional politics. Interdisciplinary research and teaching were still happening, but they were easier to accomplish if the participants did not boldly label them as such. The advisability of keeping a low profile was due to the fact that the “magical slot” from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s, in which interdisciplinary innovation had flourished, was replaced by a more conservative period in which disciplines reasserted their authority. George Papadopoulos of the OECD concluded that, “interdisciplinarity, even when it succeeds in unscrambling existing curricula, remains a hostage to the disciplines” (Levin & Lind, 1985 , p. 208).

The first major work on interdisciplinarity by an American-educated scholar was published in 1990 by Julie Thompson Klein, professor of humanities at Wayne State University. Her book is entitled Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory and Practice . Rather than making an argument for a particular approach, Klein provided a compilation of all the existing literature across all fields of knowledge. She concluded her extensive survey by observing:

Interdisciplinarity has been variously defined in this century: as a methodology, a concept, a process, a way of thinking, a philosophy, and a reflexive ideology. It has been linked with attempts to expose the dangers of fragmentation, to reestablish old connections, to explore emerging relationships, and to create new subjects adequate to handle our practical and conceptual needs. Cutting across all these theories is one recurring idea. Interdisciplinarity is a means of solving problems and answering questions that cannot be satisfactorily addressed using single methods or approaches. Whether the context is a short-range instrumentality or a long-range reconceptualization of epistemology, the concept represents an important attempt to define and establish common ground. (Klein, 1990 , p. 196)

Nowhere in Julie Klein’s extensive bibliography (97 pages long) is there mention of the term international relations or international studies , although she does have a section on area studies.

In 1997 , the Academia Europaea and the European Commission organized a conference in Cambridge, England around the topic “Interdisciplinarity and the Organisation of Knowledge in Europe.” The conference proceedings were published in 1999 under the same title (Cunningham, ed.). There were 24 contributors from 11 countries with most (9) coming from the United Kingdom. Several contributors referred back to the seminal article by Erich Jantsch in the 1972 OECD pioneering publication. Collectively they agreed that modern disciplines were a product of the scientific revolution of the 19th century . The specialized research entities of the University of Berlin seem to have been the origin of the disciplinary structure of knowledge. “Focusing scholarly attention on the essence or nucleus of the individual subject led inevitably to the putting-up of barriers” (Rüegg, 1999 , pp. 34–35). The division into insular, specialized disciplines was seen by sociologists as an almost inevitable outcome of the differentiation associated with the process of industrialization. John Ziman argued that the impetus toward greater and greater specialization had to do with the scholarly requirement for originality. It’s easier to be a “big frog in a small pond” (Ziman, 1999 , pp. 74–75). He concluded his essay by contending that “disciplines stand for stability and uniformity,” whereas “interdisciplinarity is a code word for diversity and adaptability” (pp. 81–82).

In the United States, some of the young scholars in international relations observed the disciplinary narrowing of the field and decided to publish a book in 2000 entitled Beyond Boundaries: Disciplines, Paradigms, and Theoretical Integration in International Studies (Sil & Doherty, 2000 ). A review (Miller, 2001 ) appearing in the newsletter of the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies observed that the book does not deliver on its promise to meaningfully discuss disciplines, paradigms, and theoretical integration; however, it does juxtapose different theoretical positions while calling for international relations scholars to be tolerant and willing to cross boundaries between disciplines and schools of thought.

In 2002 , an English academic, Joe Moran, published a book that he simply entitled Interdisciplinarity . Though broad in comprehension, it focuses on English and cultural studies. He argued that the institutional implications of openly pursuing interdisciplinary approaches are inevitably political, both in the hierarchy of knowledge and in the allocation of material resources (Moran, 2002 ). Oxford University Press decided to enter this academic realm by publishing the Oxford Handbook of Interdisciplinarity (Froderman, Klein, & Mitcham, 2010 ). None of the 37 chapters are primarily on international studies, though one of the chapters uses area studies as an example (Calhoun & Rhoten, 2010 ). In 2017 , the Handbook came out in a second edition (Froderman). Its 46 chapters address many issues, ranging from funding to pedagogy. However, there is still no chapter dedicated to international studies. The philosopher and editor Robert Froderman argued that “interdisciplinarity is the bridge between academic sophists (disciplinarians) and the rest of society” (p. 7).

In 2009 , Pami Aalto of Tampere University in Finland embarked on a major project to discuss and showcase interdisciplinary approaches in international studies. Two books emerged from the project. The first was International Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches (Aalto, Harle & Moisio, 2011 ), and the second, Global and Regional Problems: Towards an Interdisciplinary Study (Aalto, Harle, & Moisio, 2012 ). Aalto and his fellow editors argue, “We want to assert that International Studies—as a wider field of studies than International Relations—must necessarily be more interdisciplinary than International Relations ever was during its golden era from the 1950s onwards” (Aalto et al., 2011 , p. 3). They observed that, in the inter-war period, international studies was an interdisciplinary field with materials and perspectives drawn from many fields and disciplines. They noted that this sense of the field was spelled out in the 1939 League of Nations publication University Teaching of International Relations (Zimmern) as well as Quincy Wright’s magnum opus The Study of International Relations ( 1955 ). Despite Wright’s extraordinary effort to synthesize over 20 fields into the study of international relations, his influence over the subsequent development of the field has been minimal. International relations, especially in the United States from the 1950s on, has become more and more embedded in political science. A key reason for this evolution was the focus on the cold war power conflict. Ironically, a major intellectual force in this development was Quincy Wright’s colleague at the University of Chicago, Hans Morgenthau. However, with the end of the Cold War era, Aalto and his fellow editors were hoping for the emergence of a broader, more diverse, interdisciplinary approach to international studies (Aalto et al., 2011 , pp. 11–19).

In 2013 , two European-based scholars, Andrew Barry and Georgina Born, published a book in which they claimed to rethink what is meant by interdisciplinarity, entitled Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences . For instance, the authors challenge the conventional statement that interdisciplinary activity is about combining and integrating knowledge from existing disciplines. They believe that interdisciplinarity is about gathering knowledge from all available sources, not just disciplines. They point to community-based knowledge, local experience, and indigenous knowledge, among other sources. Also, they start with the premise that neither disciplinary nor interdisciplinary activities are monolithic or unchanging. Disciplines do have the political advantage in the academy because they usually control the curriculum and the budgets that include faculty hiring. Thus, the disciplines have considerable control over the conditions that determine the degree of receptivity to interdisciplinary research and teaching in any particular university setting. In Barry and Born’s opinion, truly interdisciplinary activities have qualities that differentiate them positively from the disciplines. These three qualities are accountability, innovation, and ontology. Accountability means being more responsive to societal needs. Innovation means being more practical about the problems that are addressed. And ontology means that interdisciplinary activities are more likely to be relational, holistic, and to view humans as being embedded in nature. Also, they respect the participation of the public in the discovery and application of knowledge. But interdisciplinary programs come and go. Some have staying power and become established interdisciplines, even new disciplines. Some get absorbed, whereas others disappear altogether. “The chapters in this book attest to the heterogeneity that characterises both disciplines and interdisciplines and the necessity of probing the genealogies of particular interdisciplinary problematics” (Barry & Born, 2013 , p. 41).

The American Political Science Association noted the increasing popularity of interdisciplinary rhetoric and practice, and in 2007 , they established a Task Force to study it. The report of the Task Force was published under the title Interdisciplinarity: Its Role in a Discipline-Based Academy (Aldrich, 2014 ). The report is interesting because of the obvious tension that permeates the document between proponents of disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. The first chapter reiterates the value of disciplines. The Task Force Chair, John Aldrich, argued that disciplines are the foundation of knowledge and the academy. In his view, interdisciplinary efforts often lack valid and reliable measures for judging scholarship and teaching, and thus are inherently inferior. Nevertheless, in a subsequent chapter, four pioneers of interdisciplinary scholarship argued for the superior merits of interdisciplinary approaches. The four are David Easton (systems), R. Duncan Luce (cognitive science), and Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph (area studies). In fact, Easton stated, “I don’t see anything that can possibly be exciting and not be interdisciplinary. I think the disciplines have sort of exhausted their contributions to our understanding of politics” (Aldrich, 2014 , p. 55). Lloyd Rudolph concluded his interview by offering this reflection: “I realize that it is not only that I value interdisciplinarity but also that I value being allowed to think out of the box of disciplinary methods. New concepts reveal new realities” (Aldrich, 2014 , p. 72).

In 2013 and 2015 , two books were published that had both “interdisciplinary” and “international relations” in their titles. The first was Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Law and International Relations: The State of the Art , edited by Jeffrey Dunoff and Mark Pollack ( 2013 ). A more accurate title would have been “interdisciplinary perspectives on the historical relationship between international law and international relations.” The authors noted that during the inter-war period, scholars in the two fields worked very closely together. However, with the advent of World War II and the rise of realism as the dominant theory in international relations, the study of law was considered irrelevant, as unenforceable international law does not affect the behavior of nation-states. Furthermore, normative law was considered too non-scientific for the post-World War II behavioralists/positivists political scientists. It’s worth noting that the editors consider international relations a discipline and that they seem to use it interchangeably with political science. With the rise of other theories in international relations that challenged the dominance of realism, international law became a more acceptable ingredient of international relations scholarship in the 1990s and thereafter. However, instead of a more equal relationship between two disciplines, international law was often considered a subject rather than a discipline. Or as the editors put it, “the intellectual terms of trade were asymmetrical” (Dunoff & Pollack, 2013 , p. 649). The interdisciplinary perspective of the editors and their fellow authors is reflected in their call for more pragmatic, eclectic theoretical approaches drawn from both international relations and international law. “Our call therefore is not for token inclusion of international law approaches, but rather for an interdisciplinary version of the pragmatic, analytically eclectic, tool-kit approach” (p. 653).

The second book, edited by Patrick James and Steve Yetiv, was Advancing Interdisciplinary Approaches to International Relations (Yetiv & James, 2015 ). Their advancement illustration is the application of many perspectives from different disciplines and interdisciplines to the topic of conflict studies. These include history, political science, psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, gender studies, technology studies, demography, and systems analysis (p. 324).

In 2016 , the British Academy published a report on its investigation of interdisciplinary research and teaching in higher education in the United Kingdom. It is entitled Crossing Paths: Interdisciplinary Institutions, Careers, Education and Applications . The working group was chaired by David Soskice of the London School of Economics. In his preface, he recognized the need to promote interdisciplinarity. According to him, this was necessary because the universities, the research councils, the journals and publishers were organized along disciplinary lines. “The incentive structures set up by the interplay of these institutions militates against interdisciplinarity” (p. 5). Then, paradoxically, Soskice went on to argue, as did the group report, that the best way to promote interdisciplinarity is the support of “strong disciplines” (Soskice, 2016 , p. 6). This seems like a strategy that would perpetuate the problem they have identified. The group recommended that junior faculty should first make their reputations in a home discipline. Only then would it be safe to venture into interdisciplinary territory (p. 9). However, once socialized in the discipline’s world view, it’s less likely that faculty will venture into interdisciplinary territory.

The British Academy report recognizes that getting a credible and fair evaluation of interdisciplinary research is very difficult in a discipline-controlled environment. Nevertheless, the working group recommended “evaluating the whole and not just disciplinary parts of any interdisciplinary output. The quality of interdisciplinary work lies in the way that it brings disciplines together” (Soskice, 2016 , p. 10). The evaluation chapter provides a set of guidance questions for research-review panels for evaluating interdisciplinary research proposals. One of the questions asks whether the proposal shows “an understanding of the challenges of interdisciplinary integration, including methodological integration, and the human side of fostering interactions and communication.” Therefore, it is not surprising that the chapter ends with the statement, “a focus on interdisciplinarity revives a sense of the academy as a holistic intellectual and social organism, integrated into the wider community, in which multiple flows and exchanges between all of its parts ensure its vitality” (Soskice, 2016 , p. 70).

In 2019 , Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies dedicated an entire issue to the work of the most prolific American scholar of interdisciplinarity, Julie Thompson-Klein (Augsburg, 2019 ). Her newest book is scheduled to be published in 2021 with the title Beyond Interdisciplinarity: Boundary Work, Communication, and Collaboration in the 21st Century . The book focuses on a full range of sector-crossing, including not only academic disciplines, but also occupational professions, interdisciplinary fields, public and private spheres, local communities, project stakeholders, and countries and cultures across the globe, wherever knowledge production is occurring. This new book is an update and extension of her earlier work, Crossing Boundaries: Knowledge, Disciplinarities, and Interdisciplinarities (1996) .

Academic Discipline

Disciplines are the basic units in the structure of knowledge that have been “historically delineated by departmentalization. Within each discipline there are rational, accidental, and arbitrary factors responsible for the peculiar combination of subject matter, techniques of investigation, orienting thought models, principles of analysis, methods of explanation and aesthetic standards” (Miller, 1982 , p. 4). They constitute the bureaucratic subcultures of the modern university. The modern disciplinary system was established at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century .

Many scholars have tried their hand at the task of explicating the characteristics of an academic discipline, but the list provided by Arthur King and John Brownell ( 1966 ) in The Curriculum and the Disciplines of Knowledge still seems among the clearest and most comprehensive. Below is this author’s version of their original list:

Field of demarcated study (subject matter boundaries, inclusions and exclusions).

Shared set of underlying premises (basic assumptions about how the world works).

Shared set of concepts (jargon).

Shared set of organizing theories/models (explanatory frameworks).

Shared set of truth-determining methods (what counts as data—how to make sense of them—i.e. research protocols).

Shared set of values and norms (preferred approaches to the material field that is studied by the discipline—e.g. economists prefer the approach of the free market; also preferred conduct by the practitioners of the discipline).

These six qualities cumulatively come together as a unique perspective—a coherent world view—a disciplinary paradigm or matrix.

Community of scholars who share this world view (professional identity—academic tribes ).

Shared set of literature and great scholars in the discipline.

Agreement on what to teach (structure and content of the basic texts and curriculum from the introductory course to the advanced graduate seminars).

Means of reinforcing the professional standards (graduate training, hiring and tenure control, associations, conferences, peer-reviewed journals, and grant-making processes).

Departmental home in a college/university (bureaucratic recognition, resource allocation and territorial ownership).

Ideal-type conceptualizations of this nature have great heuristic value, but applying them in the “real world” becomes problematic. After all, every group of faculty organized around a defined academic interest that has aspirations for permanence, wish to be known, at least eventually, as a discipline. Recognition as a discipline means more prestige and the prospect of more dependable institutional support. A working solution to this definitional problem is to limit the designation of discipline to those departmental groupings that appeared at the beginning of the 20th century and have institutionally solidified their presence in the academy over the past 100 plus years. John Ziman called them the “Grand Old Disciplines” ( 1999 , p. 73). Thus, in the social sciences, the conventional and building-block disciplines would be Anthropology, Economics, Geography, History, Political Science, Psychology and Sociology. Without some kind of limitation on the use of the designation discipline, even the distinction between discipline and interdisciplinary can become meaningless. Nevertheless, the solution proposed is admittedly an arbitrary one, but the historical process that created these disciplinary conglomerates in the first place was also a relatively arbitrary process. Eric Wolf argued that the field of classical political economy was divided into the specialized disciplines of economics, political science, sociology and anthropology in a process that lost touch with the real world.

Ostensibly engaged in the study of human behavior, the various disciplines parcel out the subject among themselves. Each then proceeds to set up a model, seemingly a means to explain “hard,” observable facts, yet actually an ideologically loaded scheme geared to a narrow definition of subject matter. (Wolf, 1982 , p. 10)

The establishment of these specialized disciplines at the beginning of the 20th century has been called the “academic enclosure” process (Becher, 1989 ). In a few decades, these disciplines had enclosed themselves in departmental organizations that gave them long-term bureaucratic protection. Yet these disciplines, according to Weingart and Stehr, are “the eyes through which modern society sees and forms its images about the world, frames its experience, and learns, thus shaping its own future or reconstituting the past” (Weingart & Stehr, 1999 , p. xi). Stephen Turner argued that “disciplines are shotgun marriages . . . and are kept together by the reality of the market and the value of the protection of the market that has been created by employment requirements and expectations (Turner, 1999 , p. 55). Turner believed that the disciplines’ animosity toward interdisciplinary initiatives was primarily driven by protectionism (p. 50).

The seventh disciplinary characteristic notes that the first six qualities come together in a world view that is unique to each discipline. Comparing world view components is a useful method for both disciplinary and interdisciplinary scholars. The concept has German origins and has been productively utilized in many academic and non-academic venues for 150 years. This author was introduced into the way anthropologists use the world view method by Robert Redfield ( 1956 ). According to Redfield, every culture or sub-culture has a world view, its embedded “mental map.” It provides guidance on the nature of the world, how we know the truth about it, what is right and wrong behavior, and what emotionally matters the most. Cognitive linguist George Lakoff contended that “World views are complex neural circuits fixed in the brain. People can only understand what fits the neural circuitry in their brains. Real facts can be filtered out by world views” (Lakoff, 2017 ). Critical psychologist Michael Mascolo noted “the concept of world view is founded on the epistemological principle that observation of the physical and social world is a mediated rather than a direct process” (Mascolo, 2014 , p. 2086). He reaffirmed Redfield’s point that a complete world view has an ontology, an epistemology, and a normative belief system.

Table 1. Post-World War II Macro Social Sciences: Comparative Attributes

Source : Miller, R. C. ( 2018 ). International political economy: Contrasting world views (2nd ed., p. 17). London, UK: Routledge.

This author has used world view as the comparative method in understanding the different schools of thought in international political economy (Miller, 2018 ). One step in this process was identifying the comparative attributes of the basic contributing disciplines. A summary of that analysis is in Table 1 : Post World War II Macro Social Sciences: Comparative Attributes. Economics, political science, and sociology are compared in six fundamental dimensions: core subject matter, central concepts, explanatory strategies, normative orientation, data collection, and data analysis.

Interdisciplinary Approaches

Interdisciplinary approaches in the social sciences involve, at a minimum, the application of insights and perspectives from more than one conventional discipline to the understanding of social phenomena. Interdisciplinarity , on the other hand, is an analytically reflective study of the methodological, theoretical, and institutional implications of implementing interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and research. Strictly speaking, interdisciplinarians are those who engage in the scholarly field of interdisciplinarity, though there are many faculty and others who participate effectively in interdisciplinary projects without being reflexive about its methods, theories, and institutional arrangements. On the other hand, interdisciplinary participants are more likely to be aware of their underlying world views than disciplinarians.

There are many ways of differentiating between types of interdisciplinary approaches, and in fact, of defining the basic term, interdisciplinary. For instance, the National Academies of Science propose that:

“Interdisciplinary research is a mode of research by teams or individuals that integrates information, data, techniques, tools, perspectives, concepts, and/or theories from two or more disciplines or bodies of specialized knowledge to advance fundamental understanding or to solve problems whose solutions are beyond the scope of a single discipline or area of research practice.” (National Academy of Sciences, 2005 , p. 39)

This definition privileges the process of “integration” as well as identifying “disciplines” as the primary source of the ingredients to be integrated. Lisa Lattuca, in her faculty-interview study Creating Interdisciplinarity ( 2001 ) argued that post-structuralists, like herself and all the humanities professors and most of the social science professors in her study, reject both of these privileging assumptions. They argue that integration presumes harmonious order, whereas reality may be full of oppositions and contradictions, and that using disciplines as the basic raw material legitimizes their monopoly over knowledge. However, all of the natural scientists in her study were comfortable with the type of definition proposed by the National Academies (Lattuca, 2001 , p. 104). The Political Science Task Force Report also accepted it. Nevertheless, interdisciplinary approaches could be broadened to include the processes of juxtaposition, application, synthesis, and transcendence as well as integration.

By utilizing this broader definition of interdisciplinary approaches that includes processes other than integration, the logic of the original OECD typology retains its efficacy. That typology divided interdisciplinary approaches into multidisciplinary, crossdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary. What follows is this author’s version of that typology.

Multidisciplinary Approaches

Multidisciplinary approaches involve the simple act of juxtaposing parts of several conventional disciplines in an effort to get a broader understanding of some common theme or problem. No systematic effort is made to combine or integrate across these disciplines. This is the weakest interdisciplinary approach, and it actually enhances the stature of the participating disciplines because their identities and practices are not threatened. They do not need to change any of their protocols, yet they can claim their openness to interdisciplinary cooperation. Cafeteria-style curricula, team-taught courses, ad hoc research teams, and conference panels could be examples of this approach.

Crossdisciplinary Approaches

Crossdisciplinary approaches involve real interaction across the conventional disciplines, though the extent of communication and thus combination, synthesis or integration of concepts and/or methods varies considerably. Since the variety of crossdisciplinary approaches is so great, this author has created a further six-fold typology. The six sub-categories of crossdisciplinary approaches are: (a) topics of social interest, (b) professional preparation, (c) shared analytical methods, (d) shared concepts, (e) hybrids, and (f) shared life experiences (Miller, 1982 ). Hundreds of crossdisciplinary combinations have been created over the course of the last 100 years. Some of these combinations have been ephemeral, some long lasting, but poorly articulated, and some have developed an institutionalized coherence that rivals the conventional disciplines. The latter in this author’s taxonomy are the interdisciplines . David Long, one of the authors in Aalto’s first book called them “neodisciplines” (Long, 2011 , pp. 52–59).

Transdisciplinary Approaches

Transdisciplinary approaches, according to Jantsch’s classic essay ( 1972 ), involve articulated conceptual frameworks that seek to transcend the more limited world views of the specialized disciplines. These frameworks are holistic in intent. In the 1972 OECD volume, the transdisciplinary approaches mentioned were general systems, structuralism, Marxism, and mathematics. The 21st century transdisciplinary movement in Europe believes that the broader public should be involved in providing, testing, evaluating, and implementing knowledge across all fields. Academic disciplines, therefore, are only a part of the picture.

Social Topics

Important social topics frequently attract members from several disciplines. They start out as multidisciplinary groupings, but over time continuous communication creates a new crossdisciplinary field of study. Examples would include environmental studies, cognitive science, gerontology, labor studies, peace studies, and urban studies. The study of geographical regions, area studies, is an interesting topical example because of its close relationship to international relations.

Professional Preparation

Another organizing principle for crossdisciplinary combinations is relevant knowledge for professional preparation . Examples include business management, diplomatic studies, education, public administration, health services, and policy studies. There are undoubtedly more students, faculty, and practitioners in this professional category than in any of the other categories, but the self-conscious attention to their interdisciplinary nature is very limited. Nevertheless, there are exceptions; for instance, Donald Schön ( 1983 ) in his book The Reflective Practitioner observed that the professions are split between the rational technocratic view of the more theoretical and conventional perspective vs. the more particularistic uncertainty of the actual field situations. He tried to find a middle ground between these extremes by proposing a reflexive approach that combines theory and practice. He argued that professionals should be aware of the frames within which they operate so that they are open to critiquing the one they are using and even shift to another if the situation requires it. Schon’s proposed approach is similar to the interdisciplinary method of comparative world views or multi-perspective analysis (Miller, 1982 ).

Policy studies, a growing field in recent years, manifest this internal tension rather dramatically. In the early 1950s, Harold Lasswell expressed his belief that through a rational and scientific process the best policy options could be identified and implemented toward the betterment of democratic objectives. Some of the analytical methods he advocated, such as benefit/cost analysis, are still being applied today. However, his approach has been criticized as being undemocratic, that is, “scientists know better,” and incredibly unrealistic as the political decision-making process is anything but rational. Studying the “different perspectives that underlie conflict in public policy arenas . . . is more illuminating and ultimately more practical than quixotically tilting at scientific windmills” (Smith & Larimer, 2009 , p. 18).

Shared Analytical Methods

Similar research methods, especially the quantitative ones, are often shared across the disciplines. They provide a basis for bringing methods-oriented faculty members together in more permanent crossdisciplinary associations. These groups have conferences, journals, and even academic programs. Examples of these shared analytical methods include statistics, computer modeling, game theory, and information theory (Miller, 1982 ). However, despite the potential cost savings, conventional disciplinary departments are usually unwilling to replace their own methods courses with the more generic ones from these crossdisciplinary programs.

Shared Concepts

There are some major concepts that appear in many disciplines that have the potential for crossdisciplinary integration. Classic examples of shared concepts include energy, value, flows, role, evolution, development, and cycles (Abbey, 1976 ). George Homans, a sociologist in Harvard’s crossdisciplinary Social Relations Department in the 1960s and 70s used exchange as his main integrating concept. The source of his inspiration was rational exchange theory from the discipline of economics (today it would be called rational choice theory). He made an explicit effort to use benefit/cost exchange as the basis of a theory of human behavior that could integrate across disciplines. Homans argued that although the specifics of exchange relationships may vary across different types of human experience, their overall interactive form may be quite similar (Homans, 1974 ).

The concept of development was dominant in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s under the crossdisciplinary umbrella of modernization theory. Modernization theory grew out of the need to achieve some degree of coherent coordination between the different and sometimes contradictory development strategies proposed by the separate social science disciplines. Economists argued that development would occur if sufficient amounts of capital investment are made and markets are developed. Political scientists argued that development requires modern bureaucracies, effective governance, and political participation. Sociologists argued that modern social institutions such as factories, schools, and mass media are key components in any development plan. Anthropologists argued that the residents of poor countries had to change their traditional cultural values into modern ones if development were to occur. Psychologists argued that individual personality development is the key, shifting the orientation from ascription to achievement. Modernization theory tried to bring all of these diverse perspectives together. It was the central organizing theory of the crossdisciplinary field of development studies.

The most widely recognized type of crossdisciplinary approach is undoubtedly the hybrids . Hybrids combine parts of two existing, related disciplines to form interstitial new crossdisciplines that attempt to bridge perceived gaps between disciplines (Miller, 1982 ). Well-known examples include social psychology, political economy, biogeography, and historical sociology. Sometimes the hybrid crossdisciplinary fields generate new theories whose promise is so great that they are borrowed back into their constituent disciplines. Social psychology’s symbolic interaction theory is a case in point. In fact, Dogan and Pahre ( 1990 ) argue that hybrid activity is the most likely source of innovative advances.

One of the most important hybrids in the interdisciplinary realm of international relations is political economy, especially in the form of international political economy (IPE). IPE uses the multi-perspective approach mentioned above. It juxtaposes the competing explanatory perspectives of the market model from economics, institutionalism from political science and sociology, and historical materialism from classical Marxist political economy (Miller, 2018 ). The differing perspectives provide a rich treasury of insights, understandings, critiques, and research strategies.

Shared Life Experiences

The basic premise in crossdisciplinary programs based on shared life experiences is that certain groups have shared a common experience of oppression that gives them a shared identity, a shared rejection of mainstream knowledge that reinforces this oppression, and a shared political agenda to replace the unjust social conditions with an egalitarian society. Three major examples of this category are women’s studies, ethnic studies, and post-colonial studies. These crossdisciplinary fields entered the academy as outgrowths of the social movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. They started out as multidisciplinary challengers to the disciplinary/departmental power structure of the university, yet over the past four decades women’s studies and ethnic studies have evolved increasingly into discipline-like programs, in other words, interdisciplines. According to some observers, one of the costs of this institutional acceptance was the loss of one of the early objectives of these movements, social change activism in the community (Messer-Davidow, 2002 ).

Virtually all of the over 700 women’s studies programs in the United States teach feminist theory, an integrating perspective that focuses on socially constructed gender systems and standpoint analysis. Standpoint theory contends that how one perceives any human condition depends on the position that one occupies in the society. Those who are being oppressed are going to see things very differently than those who are doing the oppressing.

According to Ann Tickner, feminism challenges the neo-positivist and state-centric orientation of international relations in the United States. The unequal relationships that pervade the world are socially constructed and vary from place to place, with women suffering universally from male-dominated exercises of power. Furthermore, dichotomies such as those that “separate the mind (rationality) from the body (nature) diminish the legitimacy of women as ‘knowers’” (Tickner, 2014 , p. 86). Knowledge should not be pursued for its own sake or for the benefit of the state but in order to facilitate the emancipation of the oppressed (Tickner, 2014 , pp. 176–77).

Theorists in African-American or Africana studies have made a deliberate effort to incorporate the perspective of women in their key concept, Afrocentricity . The meaning of Afrocentricity is somewhat contested within the interdiscipline, but there is no doubt about what it opposes, namely Eurocentrism. Among the specified features of Eurocentrism are reductionism, individualism, and domination over nature, whereas Afrocentricity is associated with holism, community, and harmony with nature (Azibo, 2001 , p. 424). Karanja Keita Carroll ( 2008 ) contended that the “Afrikan worldview” has embedded within it an African culture-specific axiology, epistemology, logic, cosmology, ontology, teleology, and ideology that necessitate a research methodology that is consistent with these components. Instead of the Eurocentric approach that emphasizes objective detachment, separation between the knower and the known, material reality as primary, either/or logic, and knowledge for knowledge’s sake, the Afrikan worldview emphasizes full engagement, the blending of knower and known, the spiritual essence of reality as primary, both/and logic, and knowledge for the betterment of African peoples. Africana research is about participation, relationships, interdependence, and the liberation of Africana people (Carroll, 2008 , pp. 4–27).

Advocates for transdisciplinary approaches often directly challenge the efficacy of conventional disciplines, claiming that they are part of the problem rather than the solution, especially when the objective is the mitigation of complex social problems. Proponents of transdisciplinary approaches frequently accuse the hegemonic conventional disciplines of protecting the status quo rather than promoting progressive change. The framers of some transdisciplinary approaches see them as providing alternatives to the world views of the conventional disciplines that they would replace. Examples of discipline-replacement transdisciplinary approaches would be general systems theory, Marxism, cultural studies and sustainability studies. Examples of transdisciplinary approaches that could supplement rather than replace conventional disciplines would be symbolic interactionism, rational choice theory, and gender theory (Miller, 1982 ).

General systems theory, the transdisciplinary approach that Jantsch favored, contends that nature is a hierarchy of similar structures up through the whole succession of physical, biological, and social systems. There are similar developmental patterns throughout nature, but there are different paths that can lead to the same destination. Through the organization of energy from the environment (negative entropy) and communication with the environment (negative feedback), systems seek to maintain dynamic equilibria. This theory conceives of nature as a holistic set of relationships that thrives on diversity.

David Easton introduced systems thinking to political science in the 1950s and 1960s because he felt the discipline was too narrow. “I am not a political scientist but rather a social scientist interested in political problems” (Aldrich, 2014 , pp. 52–53). Currently, Carolyn and Patrick James continue Easton’s systems approach with their application of “systemism” to foreign policy analysis. However, in their view, systemism moves away from Easton’s bias toward homeostatic proclivities and emphasis on the macro level. Systemism includes both the macro and the micro and all forms of interaction between them (James & James, 2015 ).

Since the 1960s, general systems theory has been the main transdisciplinary approach of environmental or ecological studies (Costanza, 1990 ). Today, this field is most likely to be called sustainability studies. In a major conference on transdisciplinarity held in Switzerland in 2000 , sustainability was put forward not only as the major reason for the necessity of transdisciplinarity, but also as a transdisciplinary approach in itself (Klein et al., 2001 ). However, Egon Becker argues that sustainability studies is a “transdisciplinary field” that is more of a “conceptual and heuristic framework” than a general theory ( 1999 , pp. 284–285).

The lack of an agreed-upon general theory for engaging in the intellectual process of integrating across disciplines led William Newell to search for the most comprehensive and functionally effective transdisciplinary theory. He decided on general systems. But the first difficulty that Newell faced was deciding on which version of general systems theory to embrace. He identified eight possibilities: chaos, complex systems, fractal geometry, nonlinear dynamics, second-order cybernetics, self-organizing criticality, neo-evolutionary biology, and quantum mechanics (Newell, 2001 ). After studying them all, he chose complex systems as the preferred approach. Newell ( 2001 , p. 7) explains: “Specifically, the theory of interdisciplinarity studies that I am advocating focuses on the form of complexity that is a feature of the structure as well as the behavior of a complex system, on complexity generated by nonlinear relationships among a large number of components, and on the influence of the components and relationships of the system on its overall pattern of behavior.” Newell presented his preferred theory to a panel of well-known interdisciplinarians for their reactions. None of the six respondents agreed with his suggestion, primarily because they did not believe that the range and diversity of interdisciplinary possibilities could be captured within one theoretical framework (Issues in Integrative Studies 19, 2001 , pp, 1–148)

One of the respondents to Newell’s proposal, Richard Carp ( 2001 ), took issue with his basic premise, namely that the knowledge to be integrated via complex systems theory comes exclusively from existing disciplines. Carp insisted on widening the knowledge sources. He stated that we should stop thinking of “the disciplines as unique sources or resources for knowledge and thought” (Carp, 2001 , p. 74). Carp argued that we should “learn from multiple knowledge formations” (p. 75). Disciplines should not be the “gatekeepers.” The universities are just one of the many institutions in society that not only possess knowledge but can also create it. We should not be talking about interdisciplinary studies but “knowledge formations” (p. 75).

In Europe, the transdisciplinary movement has taken several different directions. The Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences conference in 2000 promoted a process form of transdisciplinarity that transcended not only disciplinary boundaries, but also the boundary between the scientific establishment on the one hand and the users of the results of scientific research on the other hand. Users include government agencies, businesses, non-profit organizations, and members of the general public. Since all of these groups are stakeholders in the solution of the societal problems that science has an obligation to address, they should all be present at the table in the research process. In fact, the more stakeholders involved, the more “robust” the research. “We take the contributions to the informing and the rationalizing of actions in their societal context to be the main performance of problem-oriented research, and by implication, also of transdisciplinary research” (Zierhofer & Burger, 2007 , p. 57). In other words, according to the Swiss school, the purpose of transdisciplinary research is to seek and facilitate the implementation of solutions for societal problems, such as violence, poverty, and global warming, that serve the common good (Pohl & Hadorn, 2008 ). Norwegian professor Willy Ostreng, in his major book on interdisciplinary research, agrees and adds that as transdisciplinarity traverses the boundaries between science and stakeholder expertise it creates a new science, a “post-normal” science (Ostreng, 2010 , pp. 29–33).

Another European school of transdisciplinarity is centered around Basarab Nicolescu, a French academic. His group is organized around the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research. The movement’s objective is the achievement of the totality of meaning across all the sciences, art, religion, and cultural perspectives. That endeavor involves the search for relations and isomorphisms across all realms. The French school’s epistemology is explicitly non-Aristotelian in that it wishes to go beyond lineal and binary logic. They recognize different levels of reality in which different modes of understanding prevail. They start with the differences between classical physics and quantum physics, between reason and intuition, between information and consciousness, and between linear and non-linear logics. Non-linear logic is explained as the unity of oppositions, the inclusion of the excluded middle, and the evolutionary process of ever more comprehensive syntheses. Manfred Max-Neef calls this epistemology “strong transdisciplinarity.” He sees some of it in the natural sciences, especially in quantum physics and complexity theories. However, he does not see any of it in the social sciences. He sees economics as the most retrogressive and therefore one of the biggest obstacles to a unified, spiritually evolved, sustainable future (Max-Neef, 2005 , pp. 5–16).

There are some interesting analogies between “strong transdisciplinarity” and the field of cultural studies, for which many claim transdisciplinary status. Both approaches are strongly critical of the excessive reliance on rationality and analytic reductionism, as well as of the fragmented specialization of the structure of knowledge. The location of cultural studies at the interface of the humanities and the social sciences enables its practitioners to bring together their different concepts of culture and then to add the additional dimension of everyday meanings and practices present among the broader population (Moran, 2002 ).

It is generally agreed that the institutional origin of cultural studies was at Birmingham University in 1964 . The founders had an anti-establishment orientation informed by Italian neo-Marxist Antonio Gramsci and French post-structuralist Michel Foucault. The Birmingham group wished to understand and challenge the power over the general population that the cultural elites exercised through the mass media and the power that the intellectual elites exercised through their control of the structure of knowledge, that is, the departmental/disciplinary structure of the academy. When cultural studies diffused to the United States, the field lost some of its political agenda; however, it retained its emphasis on popular culture. Numerous academic fields are identified as contributing to cultural studies, including cultural anthropology, textual criticism, art and social history, linguistics, sociology, aural and visual culture, philosophy of science, political economy, communication studies, psychology, and feminism. These multiple sources led Joe Moran ( 2002 , p. 50) to comment, “Cultural studies could be said to be synonymous with interdisciplinarity itself.” It is both ironic and instructive then that the founding enclave of cultural studies, the Birmingham Centre, was shut down by the higher education authorities of the United Kingdom in 2002 , presumably because of the “low quality of its research production” (Klein, 2005 , pp. 52–53).

Consequences

Advocating explicitly for interdisciplinary approaches in a discipline-controlled environment can be risky. It can be politically risky for administrative units and personally risky for faculty, especially for junior faculty. Interdisciplinary approaches do have implications for the structure and politics of knowledge. They have implications for International Relations, especially if the study of international relations is considered an interdisciplinary field. A 2002 publication assessing the field came to this conclusion:

While there seems to be little problem in designating international relations as a “field,” the symposium left unclear whether this field is most properly a subfield of political science, a subfield of several disciplines, an amalgam of the subfields of multiple disciplines or an academic discipline in its own right. (Puchala, 2002 , pp. xvi–xvii)

The dominant location for International Relations in the United States is as a subfield of Political Science (Aldrich, 2014 , p. 5). In the United Kingdom, however, the field of International Relations is more often treated as a separate discipline (Waever, 1998 ). How the field is conceptualized and institutionalized does have implications for its intellectual strategies, the identities of its practitioners, and its access to resources, both on and off-campus. David Long has argued that “it matters whether IR is considered a discipline in its own right or not. It matters in teaching and research not only by what is cut off, but what is encouraged” (Long, 2011 , pp. 59–60). Rudra Sil warned that “inflexible disciplinary structures may very well come to constitute a hindrance to whatever ‘progress’ is possible in our collective efforts to understand aspects of international life” (Sil & Doherty, 2000 , p. 6). Nevertheless, American political scientists are firmly committed to keeping international relations within their fold. A 2002 doctoral dissertation tells the tale of how, in 1986 , the Political Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) successfully absorbed the multidisciplinary graduate program in International Relations. It is an interesting tale of money and powerful personalities, and it would probably be more accurately described as a hostile takeover (Plantan, 2002 ).

Even though the author of the dissertation, Frank Plantan, used the language of interdisciplinarity, he did not employ the conceptual distinctions presented above. That is partly because the graduate program of International Relations at Penn was just a multidisciplinary collection of volunteer faculty members from 10 different departments with no separate, dedicated financial support. By centering his analysis on the Penn case study, Plantan limited the operational meaning of interdisciplinary to this loose arrangement of multidisciplinary specialists, an unstable and vulnerable setup. Yet in his discussion of the intellectual development of the field he mentioned several integrating strategies that have crossdisciplinary and even transdisciplinary qualities. His examples included realism, functionalism, behavioralism, neoliberal institutionalism, rational choice, and constructivism. However, in his historical analysis Plantan saw these theoretical perspectives as ideas to fight over rather than as integrating strategies. In his experience, the competitive departmental environment triumphed over interdisciplinary cooperation. Plantan ( 2002 , pp. 374–375) concluded, “The hefty sunk costs of an existing tenured faculty and staff, and a historic mission (however dubious) in the colleges or university’s broader curriculum, accords them a staying power, an inertia, that no interdisciplinary program can hope to achieve whatever its intellectual merit.”

When Robert Axelrod, the President of the American Political Science Association, established a Task Force in 2007 on Interdisciplinarity, he argued that interdisciplinary research is borrowing across disciplinary boundaries, both importing and exporting, but especially exporting (Axelrod, 2008 ). The Task Force Report (Aldrich, 2014 ) argued that interdisciplinary work begins with faculty who are prepared with accumulated deep knowledge in a discipline. To insure that interdisciplinary teaching and research do not endanger the institutional power of the conventional disciplines, the Report placed a major emphasis on discipline-based peer review. They contended that peer review is the preeminent means by which “the value of scientific knowledge can be established,” and peer review is only credible if it comes from an established discipline (Aldrich, 2014 , pp. 13–23). They continued, “Disciplinarity has not yet been successfully transcended as a means to address key values of scholarship—particularly to resolve contested claims about knowledge, to anchor peer review and the authority it carries with it to protect academic freedom, or to manage the labor market” (p. 23).

Interdisciplinarians would find this reasoning self-serving at the very least. After all, one of the main reasons for engaging in truly innovative interdisciplinary activity is to break free of the narrow, restrictive and presumably inadequate contexts of the established disciplines. The National Academies Report ( 2005 ) argues that there are four “drivers” for interdisciplinary research: inherent complexity of nature and society, need to explore areas that are not confined to a single discipline, need to solve societal problems, and the power of new technologies (p. 40). This Report gives several examples, but the most comprehensive is the case of climate change. Research on this complex and vital issue involves 10,000 scientists in 80 countries from more than 20 disciplines, including agricultural scientists, archeologists, atmospheric chemists, biologists, climatologists, ecologists, economists, environmental historians, geographers, geologists, hydrologists, mathematicians, meteorologists, plant physiologists, political scientists, oceanographers, remote sensing scientists, and sociologists (p. 31).

The established disciplines have been attacked by the post-structuralists for being Eurocentric, sexist, racist, pseudo-objective, status quo-protective and structured in a way that is disconnected from reality. To this group of critics both the ontologies and epistemologies of the conventional structure of knowledge are unacceptable (Moran, 2002 ). Paradoxically, some of the academics who espouse these views have managed to find an institutionalized niche in the university in departments or centers of cultural studies, ethnic studies, post-colonial studies, and women’s studies. However, in the process of institutionalization, they seem to have followed the advice of the Political Science Task Force Report: if interdisciplinary projects want to be successful—that is, achieve bureaucratic recognition with regular budgets and assigned faculty positions—you need to behave like an established discipline (Messer-Davidow, 2002 ). Besides those interdisciplines that have successfully entered the university structure since the 1960s, there were many generic interdisciplinary programs that also evolved into departments even though they were founded as challengers to the disciplinary/departmental system. Evidently, the generic-interdisciplinary departments were perceived by the established departments as the most threatening as well as the most vulnerable. As a consequence, whenever conventional departments found sympathetic administrators they embarked on a campaign for their abolition. In the Politics of Interdisciplinary Studies the stories of several of these program eliminations are told. They include programs at Wayne State, Miami of Ohio, Appalachian State, and San Francisco State, among others. (Augsburg & Henry, 2009 ).

The Political Science Task Force Report also describes how the discipline-based peer-review process works in the federal grant-making process, the largest source of extramural funding in the United States. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is probably organized the most pervasively around the conventional or established disciplines. Therefore, disciplinary criteria are used to evaluate most grant proposals submitted to the NSF. There are small programs within NSF that seem to facilitate interdisciplinary projects: The Measurement, Methodology and Statistics Program and the Human and Social Dynamics Program.

Although the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is organized functionally, its reviewing process also relies largely on disciplinary faculty and their criteria for quality. Federal funding agencies reflect and respect disciplinary boundaries, though they do seek ways to attack new problems through interdisciplinary efforts (Aldrich, 2014 , pp. 101–111). However, the ostensibly integrative interdisciplinary projects they fund frequently end up as merely multidisciplinary.

A group that studied the grant-making experience of the Academy of Finland from 1997–2004 discovered, to their surprise, that almost half of the grants (42%) had some degree of interdisciplinarity despite the disciplinary orientations of the review boards. The solution of the study authors to the disciplinary/interdisciplinary divide is to consider all research interdisciplinary. They reason that since disciplinary boundaries are so amorphous and so frequently permeated that maintaining these distinctions is artificial and inhibitive of creativity in research (Bruun, Hukkinen, Huutoniemi, & Klein, 2005 , p. 169). However, ignoring disciplinary boundaries and their associated departmental bureaucracy seems not only unrealistic about the confining power of the disciplinary structure of knowledge, but also politically naive as well.

A further interesting dimension of the International Studies Association (ISA) is the relationship between its many crossdisciplinary sections and the dominant Political Science discipline. Of the 29 sections ( 2019 ), 22 seem crossdisciplinary in nature. Examples include interdisciplinary studies, human rights studies, environmental studies, peace studies, feminist theory and gender studies, and global development studies. For years the leadership of the ISA seemed merely to presume, despite the organization’s claim to interdisciplinarity, that all the section program chairs could gather at the annual Political Science Convention to review the draft program of the upcoming ISA Convention. The implicit assumption in this past ISA practice was that the section program chairs were most likely political scientists who would be attending the annual Political Science Convention. This assumption always struck this author as problematic, especially in light of the organization’s mission statement and its interdisciplinary membership. The greater efficiency of the Internet facilitated the discontinuance of this practice.

The history of the relationship of area studies to International Relations is a fascinating one in itself. The ISA section sponsoring this contribution, the Interdisciplinary Studies Section, was originally established by area studies scholars according to Fred Riggs, one of its founders. In the 1970s, area studies scholars were contemplating founding a separate umbrella organization for all area studies programs, but they were persuaded to stay within the ISA as an independent section. Area studies centers were established in elite universities after WWII as part of a national Cold War strategy. They were “among the most far-reaching interdisciplinary projects in American higher education” (Aldrich, 2014 , p. 89). Their responsibility was to provide information on the geographic regions of the world in support of the national interests of the United States. Participating faculty came mostly from language, literature, anthropology, history, and political science (international relations) departments. The centers, despite their holistic aspirations, were multidisciplinary in form and particularistic in methodology. Money and guidance ostensibly came from private sources, such as the Ford Foundation and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), but they actually came from the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency (Cumings, 2002 ).

In the first few decades after World War II, the study of international relations was significantly oriented to area studies because the money flowing into the universities supported area studies type of knowledge. The legacy of that emphasis is reflected in a 2006 Teagle Foundation survey that found in the responses of 109 Liberal Arts Colleges, half of the top ten interdisciplinary majors were in area and international studies. Since the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, extramural teaching and research support has dwindled significantly for area and international studies. Lloyd Rudolph comments, “after the close of the Cold War, the disciplines and the ‘methodists’ succeeded in attacking and defeating the area studies orientation of Ford and via Ford the SSRC” (Aldrich, 2014 , p. 70). Area studies programs have had to endure criticism from those who see them as a “colonial enterprise” (faculty in post-colonial and ethnic studies programs), while many in the disciplines see them as lacking any theoretical coherence and methodological rigor. From the perspective of conventional disciplinarians, their region-centric particularism and their multidisciplinary structures make them the poster examples of what ails interdisciplinary programs (Miyoshi & Harootunian, 2002 ; Szanton, 2004 ).

Nevertheless, despite the continuing identity crises in area studies, they have managed to survive. Their latest restoration positions them as part of the internationalization of the academy, presumably made necessary by the knowledge demands of globalization and regional hot spots such as the Middle East. However, the continuing viability of area studies remains uncertain. As one observer noted, the different area studies faculties are as separated from each other as the members of disciplines are from each other. “By and large, the world area studies tribes inhabit relatively watertight intellectual domains” (Lambert, 1991 , p. 184). This observation is consistent with the author’s experience. As an administrator in charge of curriculum development, he suggested that the area studies programs could share a core course in which the common methodological principles of area studies could be explored. The area studies faculty, however, were not interested. Nevertheless, David Szanton hopes that participation in area studies programs have helped to “deparochialize” disciplinary faculty, though it does not seem to have lowered the heights of the disciplinary walls. Maybe by being one of the first interdisciplinary programs to use identity as one of its key concepts, area studies may have prepared the way for ethnic studies, women’s studies and post-colonial studies (Szanton, 2004 ).

The case of international political economy (IPE) also raises a number of interesting interdisciplinary issues. In its reincarnation over the last four decades or so, it fits in the category of crossdisciplinary hybrids. IPE’s location in the structure of knowledge is as confused as International Relations. The disciplines of Economics, Political Science and Sociology all claim IPE as a subfield. However, Marxists, in the tradition of classical political economy, see political economy as an overarching, holistic frame in which cultural, economic, political, and social dimensions are inter-related subsets. According to Marxists, the establishment of the specialized disciplines around these dimensions is a part of the hegemonic strategy of capitalism to obfuscate the oppressive nature of the capitalist system.

The late British political economist Susan Strange, a non-Marxist, complained about the lack of knowledge sharing across disciplinary boundaries. She was especially critical of the way in which economists and political scientists ignored each other and their respective knowledge domains. She accused American scholars of International Relations of being too narrowly connected to state-centric political models that did not include serious economic analysis. In fact, she argued, “Far from being a subdiscipline of international relations, IPE should claim that international relations are a subdiscipline of IPE” (see Strange, in Lawton, Rosenau, & Verdun, 2000 , p. 412). Susan Strange is among the “Magnificent Seven” that Benjamin Cohen singled out in his intellectual history of international political economy (Cohen, 2008 , p. 8). She was the leader of the “British School,” which is more holistic, interdisciplinary, and explicitly normative in contrast to the “American School,” which is more positivistic in orientation. Cohen continued his geographic schools of thought analysis of IPE in a 2014 publication, Advanced Introduction to International Political Economy . In response to criticism of the limitations of his original dichotomy, he added schools of thought based in continental Europe, Latin America, and China. He also recognized “leftist” or “heterodox” schools in the United States and the British Commonwealth. However, his geographic schools of thought approach focused primarily on national/regional and cultural differences, rather than theoretical.

Members of all schools of international political economy would probably be comfortable having their field identified as an “interdiscipline” (Underhill, 2000 ). An interdiscipline is a crossdisciplinary field that approximates the characteristics of an academic discipline, but it does not qualify as a 20th century conventional discipline. In fact, maybe International Relations would also best be characterized as an “interdiscipline.” However, that identification still leaves unanswered where International Relations fits in the power hierarchy of knowledge.

According to Barry Buzan and Richard Little, members of the English or British School of International Relations, the widespread placement of International Relations in the United States as a subfield of Political Science has significantly limited its theoretical potential. Buzan and Little ( 2001 ) argued that American International Relations is dominated by an ahistorical, Eurocentric, Westphalian, political/military model. One of the consequences of this approach is the preference for “fragmentation into the anarchy of self-governing and paradigm-warring islands of theory rather than integration into the imperial or federative archipelago of theoretically pluralist grand theory” (Buzan & Little, 2001 , p. 31). Margaret Hermann, in her 1998 ISA presidential address, expressed seemingly similar sentiments about fragmentation: “The field has become an administrative holding company rather than an intellectually coherent area of inquiry or a community of scholars” (Hermann, 2002 , p. 16). However, her solution is a respectful dialogue that builds a “mosaic of multiple perspectives” around problems that are issues of “world politics” (pp. 31–33). She does not seem to be recommending “grand theory” nor going beyond Political Science. Thus, hers is an intra-disciplinary rather than an inter-disciplinary solution. On the other hand, Hermann does seem to embrace the “interdisciplinary mental outlook” advocated by the authors of the pioneering OECD Report (Apostel, 1972 ).

Understanding the different types of interdisciplinary approaches and their differentiation from disciplinary approaches gives one deeper insight into the knowledge production and transmission process. If International Relations is to be a truly independent, interdisciplinary field that can take full advantage of multiple perspectives and methodologies in order to deal more effectively with global problems, it needs to liberate itself from the embrace of confining disciplines, especially Political Science.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the following for helping to improve this article: Stanley Bailis, Felicia Krishna-Hensel, Renee Marlin-Bennett, Tina Mavrikos-Adamou, Anja K. Miller, and Julie Thompson-Klein.

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Wellcome Open Research

We need an interdisciplinary approach to solve real world problems: a case study from the covid-19 pandemic.

As a research community, we need to change our ways of working to solve real world problems in real time. An interdisciplinary approach is urgently needed, bringing together experts and knowledge from across the full spectrum of research disciplines.

In this blog, Trisha Greenhalgh, Mustafa Ozbilgin, and Damien Contandriopoulos consider how a lack of interdisciplinarity impacted the public health discourse and policy around the transmission of COVID-19. Keep reading to learn more about their fascinating Research Article on Wellcome Open Research.

COVID-19 is most certainly an airborne virus, but policies for managing its spread remain focused on handwashing, and place little emphasis on airborne precautions. This ‘droplet dogma’ has prevailed since the beginning of the pandemic, despite the clear (and ever-growing) evidence for airborne transmission.

But how did we get here? How have public health discourse and policy failed to properly consider airborne transmission? Why does droplet science continue to hold its position in the mainstream?

Power and knowledge

The concepts of orthodoxy and heterodoxy are central in answering these questions.

Every field of research has its own set of orthodoxies (beliefs which are established and considered legitimate) and heterodoxies (marginal, fringe beliefs which are dismissed and not widely accepted yet, legitimate only in another field of science), but the COVID-19 pandemic brings the stand-off between these positions into the spotlight.

Our article on Wellcome Open Research draws on the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to look at how knowledge and power played out between orthodox and heterodox groups of scientists throughout the pandemic.

Orthodoxy and heterodoxy in the COVID-19 pandemic

Even before the coronavirus outbreak, two groups of scientists in different fields held very different views on the transmission of respiratory viruses.

The accepted, orthodox position is held by infectious disease researchers and IPC (Infection Prevention and Control) scientists, including doctors and nurses based in hospitals. This group traditionally research diseases for which handwashing is a key preventative measure.

Conversely, the heterodox position consists of aerosol scientists who study the flow of airborne particles – including engineers, chemists, architects, and others interested in the physical environment and how things move through it.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers in the heterodox position have found it difficult to challenge the orthodoxy because they lacked the power needed to successfully assert that the virus is airborne against the accepted droplet discourse.

How did the ‘droplet dogma’ begin?

It’s interesting to consider a case study from the World Health Organization when asking how the orthodox position became so entrenched, particularly in the West.

At the WHO’s first international press conference on COVID-19 back in February 2020, Director-General Tedros Adhanom declared “corona[virus 19] is airborne”. He then immediately corrected himself: “Sorry, I used the military word, airborne. It meant to spread via droplets or respiratory transmission. Please take it that way; not the military language.” A little over a month later, the WHO confirmed on Twitter that “COVID is not airborne”, and the recommendations and public health measures that followed were all based on droplet transmission.

When comparing this case study with Japan, where the possibility of aerosol transmission of COVID-19 was accepted from the outset, the difference is clear.

Japan’s ‘three Cs’ campaign advised the public to avoid closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings. Inter-field struggles between orthodox and heterodox positions were not so marked in Japan, allowing their local policymakers to embrace a wider range of hypotheses and research methods.

The solution: an interdisciplinary approach

What is interdisciplinarity.

Ironically, interdisciplinarity is defined differently by different disciplines. Some definitions focus on interdisciplinarity as collaboration , where a combination of different skills and knowledge come together to address a complex research challenge.

For the purpose of our research, we have followed Rowland and defined it as contestation . This means that although interdisciplinary approaches can bring inevitable conflict, the outcomes of these clashes could be positive – for example, generating new insights or knowledge.

What does an interdisciplinary approach look like?

An interdisciplinary approach to any real world issue, including the COVID-19 pandemic, needs to incorporate two key areas:

• Inclusive work practices
• Radical changes to governance

We recommend the adoption of what Nowotny et al call ‘Mode 2 knowledge production’ – an approach to science which is:

• Socially distributed
• Application-oriented
• Inherently transdisciplinary
• Involves a wide range of stakeholders, including researchers and the lay public

Acknowledging the evidence on airborne transmission opens up a range of possibilities, including:

• Creation of higher-grade, better-fitting masks
• Improvement of building safety through ventilation and air filtration
• Support for work-from-home policies, to reduce crowding in shared workspaces

During the last 22 pandemic months, science has sometimes progressed at breakneck speed. New discoveries such as vaccines were rapidly implemented and scaled up. But in other areas such as preventive public health, policy has simply not kept pace with the latest research. Our paper puts forward a political and sociological explanation for this entrenchment.

We hope that better understanding of why aerosol science is being ignored, and a move towards interdisciplinary ways of working, may help break droplet orthodoxy’s current grip on infection control policy.

You can read the full Research Article and the peer review reports via Wellcome Open Research, ‘Orthodoxy, illusio, and playing the scientific game: a Bourdieusian analysis of infection control science in the COVID-19 pandemic [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]’ >>

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Interdisciplinary problem- solving: emerging modes in integrative systems biology

• Original Paper in Philosophy of Biology
• Published: 20 July 2016
• Volume 6 , pages 401–418, ( 2016 )

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• Miles MacLeod 1 &
• Nancy J. Nersessian 2  

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Integrative systems biology is an emerging field that attempts to integrate computation, applied mathematics, engineering concepts and methods, and biological experimentation in order to model large-scale complex biochemical networks. The field is thus an important contemporary instance of an interdisciplinary approach to solving complex problems. Interdisciplinary science is a recent topic in the philosophy of science. Determining what is philosophically important and distinct about interdisciplinary practices requires detailed accounts of problem-solving practices that attempt to understand how specific practices address the challenges and constraints of interdisciplinary research in different contexts. In this paper we draw from our 5-year empirical ethnographic study of two systems biology labs and their collaborations with experimental biologists to analyze a significant problem-solving approach in ISB, which we call adaptive problem solving . ISB lacks much of the methodological and theoretical resources usually found in disciplines in the natural sciences, such as methodological frameworks that prescribe reliable model-building processes. Researchers in our labs compensate for the lack of these and for the complexity of their problems by using a range of heuristics and experimenting with multiple methods and concepts from the background fields available to them. Using these resources researchers search out good techniques and practices for transforming intractable problems into potentially solvable ones. The relative freedom lab directors grant their researchers to explore methodological options and find good practices that suit their problems is not only a response to the complex interdisciplinary nature of the specific problem, but also provides the field itself with an opportunity to discover more general methodological approaches and develop theories of biological systems. Such developments in turn can help to establish the field as an identifiably distinct and successful approach to understanding biological systems.

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Acknowledgments

We appreciate the support of the US National Science Foundation in conducting this research (DRL097394084). Miles MacLeod’s participation was also supported by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, University of Helsinki. Members of the Centre contributed much advice in earlier developments of this paper. We thank the directors of Lab C and Lab G for welcoming us into the lab and the lab-members of those labs for granting us numerous interviews. We thank the members of our research group for contributing valuable insights, especially Vrishali Subramanhian, Lisa Osbeck, Sanjay Chandrasekharan, and Wendy Newstetter. We also thank the three anonymous reviewers whose comments substantially improved the paper.

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MacLeod, M., Nersessian, N.J. Interdisciplinary problem- solving: emerging modes in integrative systems biology. Euro Jnl Phil Sci 6 , 401–418 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-016-0157-x

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Issue Date : October 2016

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“This is not a Ph.D. program by itself, but is designed to make the graduate student experience better,” Razdan said. “It’s an interdisciplinary collision, in a positive sense, and builds on extensive UD investment and success in the data sciences.”

The new National Science Foundation-funded Research Traineeship “Computing and Data Science Training for Materials Innovation, Discovery, AnalyticS” (NRT-MIDAS) will teach doctoral students in computer and information sciences, electrical and computing engineering, chemical engineering, materials science and engineering, biomedical engineering and chemistry programs how to use high-performance computing and data science to lead to new discoveries and innovations in the field of polymers.

NSF has awarded Jayaraman a nearly $3 million grant to support this traineeship over the next five years. Jayaraman, Centennial Term Professor in UD’s College of Engineering’s department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering with a joint appointment in Materials Science and Engineering, will serve as director of this traineeship program. This traineeship will work with 50 to 100 UD and DSU doctoral students, some of whom will receive financial support for two years through this NSF grant. International students will also be able to apply to the traineeship program and some selected students may receive one semester of financial support from the College of Engineering.

The program is slated to admit its first cohort of new UD and Delaware State University graduate students from one of the six specified programs in winter 2022.  Applications  are due by Tuesday, Nov. 30, and selections will be made by Wednesday, Dec. 15.

Besides the interdisciplinary technical skills, trainees will also learn the essential professional skills that every employer wants to see in their employees: Researchers who know how to interact with team members from diverse backgrounds and know the importance of adaptable science communication both in the laboratory and to the broader community.

“All of the training elements were strategically selected: The technical training elements, applying computing and data science to polymer problems in the real world, combined with professional training elements where trainees work in teams with people who aren’t from the same discipline, learning to communicate, and going above and beyond to explain their work to the other person,” Jayaraman said. “Essentially this MIDAS traineeship is that extra, customized, all-rounded training layer we’re putting on top of what these doctoral students receive in their own graduate programs.”

In this photo taken before the coronavirus pandemic necessitated the wearing of masks and distancing in classrooms, Prof. Arthi Jayaraman speaks with students in her chemical engineering class.

The diverse NRT core faculty team facilitating this collaborative training environment were also strategically selected, and were chosen because of their accomplishments and expertise in one or two of the relevant disciplines. For example, Prof. Laure Kayser with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering has expertise in polymer materials for organic electronics, Prof. Austin Brockmeier with the Data Science Institute and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has expertise in data science applied to a variety of domain sciences, while Prof. Sunita Chandrasekaran with the Department of Computer and Information Sciences brings her expertise in high-performance computing.

On the forefront of solutions

Since polymers are used in everything from food packaging and paints to electronics and medical settings, companies are constantly searching for the latest and greatest materials for, say, an airplane body or COVID-19 vaccine delivery. That means both industry and academia are often pursuing ways to optimize polymers, turning to chemistry, materials science and engineering for solutions.

By offering professional cross-training in those disciplines as well as computer science and data science, Jayaraman hopes trainees will learn how to let the machines handle the optimization and avoid the tedious trial and error that would usually come with running all possible experiments in the lab. By combining disciplines, they can use computing, modeling and artificial intelligence to save the chemicals, time and effort that extensive laboratory experiments typically need.

“If you just did experiments in a lab, you’d test one chemical and ask, ‘How does it perform? How does it behave?’ and then move to the next chemical and repeat the process. This is trial and error,” Jayaraman said. “Companies often want to find faster and cheaper ways to explore different chemicals and get to the better-performing product.”

Joshua Enszer

That’s why Jayaraman made sure the program is partnering with companies searching for such solutions. In addition to DuPont and W.L. Gore, the traineeship has also established industry partnerships with Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Merck & Co. and Procter & Gamble, with more companies expected to join in the coming months and years.

An “NRT-Hackathon” course that is being designed for the traineeship program, after trainees complete core classes and right before they explore internships, will collect real-world problems from participating companies and turn them over to small teams of students to explore and solve with computing and data science tools over the course of a semester.

“Each problem will be a semester-long problem, and students from different disciplines in each team will have to teach each other what it means,” Jayaraman said, noting that a computer sciences student will need to learn the specific properties of a chemical, while the chemical engineer sharing that information will have to learn about the computing methods their computer science colleague is using to develop data-based solutions.

Not only will the training benefit students, but it will also serve existing and future industries by preparing a well-rounded workforce and also finding ways to solve real problems by replacing trial-and-error based experiments with computing-based approaches.

“It more than bridges the gap, it has a serious economic impact,” Razdan said, noting that the program could also help participating students decide whether a life in industry or academia is better for them.

In addition to these custom interdisciplinary courses that emphasize the importance of clear communication across disciplines, trainees will also complete their regular graduate work, and benefit from a secondary NRT-MIDAS-specific adviser.

“The way a chemical engineer talks and the way a computer scientist talks is not the same,” Jayaraman said. “We want to sharpen those professional skills, especially cross-disciplinary communications, by working in team environments with different backgrounds, both culturally and technically.”

An academic approach

Not all of the talented graduate students that will be selected for this traineeship will pursue industry careers; some may want to work in academia, where they could foster this comprehensive approach in their own future classrooms. Those pedagogically minded students will hone the teaching and communications skills they’ll need, but would otherwise not be included in their normal graduate programs. With this motivation, Jayaraman recruited a pedagogical expert into the NRT-MIDAS core faculty team.

“What we’re trying to do here is fill in a big need to have people who are better teachers from the start,” said Joshua Enszer, a chemical and biomolecular engineering associate professor and member of the NRT core faculty team. The NRT-MIDAS teaching fellowship builds off a program underway in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, where a handful of fellows work with faculty to actually implement a course during their graduate studies, he said.

“Because we’re bringing together these very important and very related areas, we’re working on helping improve communication on both sides,” Enszer said. “Bringing that together and then teaching everyone together is a really exciting opportunity. I think it’s going to help prepare this generation of graduate students for a variety of potential different careers.”

A diverse NRT-MIDAS core faculty team of nine faculty members, including Jayaraman, will provide technical and research training and mentoring. An independent advisory council, made up of six international experts from academia, national laboratories and industry, will offer their perspectives and recommendations in order to strengthen this interdisciplinary traineeship.

“UD really is an excellent environment for doing team science,” said Prof. Cathy Wu, an NRT-MIDAS core faculty member and Unidel Edward G. Jefferson Chair in Engineering and Computer Science, director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, director of the Data Science Institute and director of the Protein Information Resource. “This is just a great example of how Arthi (Jayaraman) has brought such an excellent, diverse team together for this particular training grant. But if we look around UD, this kind of very collaborative effort is happening with many different initiatives. I think team science, this kind of very inclusive environment, really is a signature of what we do at UD.”

Jayaraman and others at UD hope this training continues beyond the recently awarded grant.

“I tell faculty it’s like building a building,” Razdan said. “We want the faculty focused on building the building, constructing the idea. All of us, we’re here to support Arthi with scaffolding so she has everything she needs to imagine and execute the ideas that can only come from her. We’re very, very happy to be that scaffolding for her.”

Article by Maddy Lauria |   Photos by Evan Krape |   November 02, 2021

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Center for Undergraduate Research

CUGR Announces Summer 2024 EPIC Fellowship Awardees

The University of Maine’s Center for Undergraduate Research (CUGR) is pleased to announce Summer 2024 EPIC fellowship winners. 

Experiential Programs Innovation Central (EPIC) aspires to provide integrated experiential learning and high-impact, student-centered education opportunities through hands-on exposure to research practices, emerging technologies, design thinking, interdisciplinary experiences, and innovative problem-solving.  

Students interested in pursuing any CUGR fellowship are encouraged to enroll in the EPIC course, INT 125, to support their preparation for undergraduate research beyond the classroom in any discipline.  To learn more, visit umaine.edu/epic. 

Recipients of the EPIC fellowship will receive $4,000 to put towards their research and experiential learning project. 

This year’s recipients are: 

• Robert Atwater , Engineering Physics, “Characterizing the Effects of Defect Doping on BaTiO3,” advised by Nicholas Bingham
• Jenna Cox , Psychology, “The Friendship Machine: Fast Friends And Its Effects Across Time In a University Setting,” advised by Jordan LaBouff
• Katie Davison , Communication Sciences and Disorders and Sociology, “Exploring Social-Communication, Health, and Educational Experiences of Children with Brain Injury,” advised by Jessica Riccardi
• Myles Harrison , Finance and Financial Economics, “A Maine Equity Index: How Have Maine Stocks Fared Over Time? Performance and Characteristics,” advised by Sebastian Lobe
• Matthew Patterson , New Media and Computer Science, “Our ClassXRoom,” advised by Justin Dimmel
• Arrow Smith , Anthropology and English, “Anonymity in Public Space Graffiti: Gender Differences in Public Restrooms across The University of Maine,” advised by Heather Falconer