Toward an Analytic Framework of Interdisciplinary Reasoning and Communication in Science

• In Event: 52.029 - Interdisciplinary and Integrated STEM Education: Research, Practices, and Perspectives

Abstract

College students need to think and work across disciplinary boundaries. We formulate a theoretical framework that helps analyze interdisciplinary reasoning and communication (IRC) in science that encompasses four interrelated dimensions:
• Integration: integrating knowledge from multiple disciplinary sources.
• Translation: distinguishing and translating terminologies between disciplines in order to converse on a topic that involves multiple disciplines.
• Transfer: applying what they have learned from one disciplinary to another in order to understand or solve a problem.
• Transformation: applying what they have learned from one discipline to physically or conceptually change a system typically considered in a different discipline.
We apply the IRC framework to analyze two meetings in an interdisciplinary project and illustrate how the four dimensions helped interpret the meeting dynamics.

The data came from a project where a group of scholars from different science disciplines worked together to create interdisciplinary assessment items for introductory science courses (Shen, Liu & Sung, in press). In this study, we chose two representative meetings for analysis. These meetings were at different phases in the project and covered different IRC dimensions. We chose a coherent statement as our unit of analysis: one or more sentences that deliver a stand-alone meaning. We applied a two-dimensional coding scheme, one on topical categories and the other on the IRC dimensions. We employed an iterative coding process that took several cycles and the interrater reliability reached an adequate level (> .85). All inconsistent codes were resolved through discussion.

During the first meeting the team discussed the co-generated concept map on osmosis. The second meeting started with the discussion on generating assessment items, and then shifted to the conceptual aspect of osmosis. In terms of topics, the team members were more engaged in concept-specific discussion; in terms of the IRC dimensions, they were mainly engaged in translation for each other. Specifically, more than half of the relevant statements in both meetings focused on concept specific translation. These statements were mainly cued by the terms used in different disciplines to describe osmosis. The percentage of the translation statements declined about 10% in the second meeting, suggesting that the team did improve on communication. Transformation statements were found in the second meeting, usually when an individual encountered incompatible views. This process requires the execution of the other IRC processes when needed, as one has to be able to integrate, transfer, and translate an old system in order to reconstruct and change it in a meaningful way.

We proposed a framework on IRC and applied it to analyze two interdisciplinary meetings. Our analysis revealed interesting patterns (we only highlight a few here due to space limitation) and suggested a refined understanding of the framework itself. Our work demonstrates the power of partnership of multiple disciplines and the importance of translation. Our framework provides a concrete basis to guide interdisciplinary instruction and assessment to foster the desired underlying IRC processes.

Authors

• Ji Shen, University of Miami

• Shannon Hsianghan-Huang Sung, Spelman College

• Dongmei Zhang, University of Georgia