Morrison, David (2015) the Underdetermination of Interdisciplinarity: Theory and Curriculum Design in Undergraduate Higher Education
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Morrison, David (2015) The underdetermination of interdisciplinarity: theory and curriculum design in undergraduate higher education. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/6094/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] The Underdetermination of Interdisciplinarity: theory and curriculum design in undergraduate higher education David Morrison Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Education College of Social Sciences University of Glasgow 2 Abstract Interdisciplinarity in higher education is a widely used but poorly understood term. There is a wealth of literature about the topic, but beneath the surface details very little of it agrees. Further, what attempts have been made to engage with pedagogies of interdisciplinarity in the undergraduate curriculum often suggest dubious programmes of ‘minimal understanding’ or ‘adequacy’. These are consistent only in their inconsistency and lack of standard qualifications, and are often short lived. This thesis explores why there is no consensus on interdisciplinarity, and why there is no consistently effective undergraduate curriculum to develop it, and seeks to resolve both questions via a range of empirical evidence from fields which have not heretofore been applied to interdisciplinarity research. Three problems are identified in the current research: self-contradictory pedagogic models; a general lack of reliable evidence for theories; and a lack of engagement with relevant educational and psychological research. Taking a pragmatic approach to evidence I review the existing educational research on disciplinarity and the psychological research on expertise, knowledge transfer, collaborative cognition and categorisation to see if these can yield more consistent and empirical foundations for an understanding of interdisciplinarity. The culmination of this research soundly undermines several of the persistent but ill- evidenced models of interdisciplinarity in the literature, namely pluralism, disciplinary essentialism, and competency-based models, and establishes a more coherent approach to interdisciplinary curricula. Taking the view that a model is not complete without connection to practice, I have also interviewed current academics in the ‘interdisciplinary’ field of Medieval Studies to correlate the psychological evidence with praxis. Ultimately, interdisciplinarity as a ‘thing’ or a stable academic identity is refuted in favour of interdisciplinarity as a particular focus of skills-based curriculum. This focus should ideally be developed concurrently with matching skills in a disciplinary context in order to balance breadth and depth of learning. This thesis ends with some forward-thinking considerations of curriculum models which could facilitate a balanced disciplinary and interdisciplinary approach in practice. 3 ABSTRACT 2 LIST OF FIGURES 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 8 DECLARATION 8 ABBREVIATIONS 9 INTRODUCTION 10 Research Questions 10 Core Terms 13 Underdetermination 13 Adbuction 14 Thesis Structure 15 Psychology of Interdisciplinarity 15 Applied Theory & Medieval Studies 16 Undergraduate Curriculum 16 Triangulation of Evidence 17 Research Assumptions 19 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW - INTERDISCIPLINARITY 21 Introduction 21 HTRoI (Historio-Theoretical Research of Interdisciplinarity) 24 Evidential Issues of HTRoI 26 Pluralism 28 Disciplinary Essentialism 32 Competency Interdisciplinarity 38 SoITL (Scholarship of Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning) 44 RoIR (Research of Interdisciplinary Research) 45 ERoI (Educational Research of Interdisciplinarity) 50 Legacy of HTRoI 52 Approaches to Interdisciplinarity in Curriculum 54 New Directions 55 Concluding Remarks 57 A Note on Transdisciplinarity 57 Bringing it Together, Agreeing to Disagree 57 CHAPTER 2: EPISTEMOLOGY & ACADEMIC KNOWLEDGE 60 Introduction 60 Pragmatism & Naturalised Epistemology 62 4 Scepticism, Positivism & Relativism 66 Pragmatism Naturalised: Science and the Two Cultures 68 Holism, Reductionism and Interdisciplinarity as ‘Greater than the Sum of Parts’ 72 Limitations of Naturalised Pragmatism 74 Summary 74 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 76 Introduction 76 Literature Reviews: Secondary Data as Primary Source 78 Method 79 Limitations of Secondary Data as a Method 81 Secondary Data and Competency Interdisciplinarity 81 Interviews in Medieval Studies 82 Defining the Medieval 83 Cognate Disciplines 84 Limitations of Interviews as a Method 85 Method 86 Ethical Considerations 88 Coding and Interpretation 88 Difficulties Encountered 90 CHAPTER 4: DISCIPLINARITY 92 Introduction 92 Classification Models 93 Problems with the Biglan Model 95 Sociocultural Models 98 Foucault and Power 99 The ‘Two Cultures’ Revisited 101 Pure versus Applied Knowledge 102 The Meaning of Evidence 104 Subject Matter 105 Generic Skills, Critical Skills and Transferable Skills 107 Recent Approaches to Disciplinarity 109 Summary 111 CHAPTER 5: EXPERTISE (KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER, QUALIFICATIONS AND TRANSACTIVE MEMORY SYSTEMS) 113 Introduction 113 Core Principles of Expertise 113 Research Paradigm of Expertise Study 116 Chunking and Miller’s Law 117 Chunking and Language 118 Traits of Experts 119 Automaticity & Cognitive Entrenchment 121 Domain Specificity & Knowledge Transfer 123 Knowledge Transfer Research 126 5 Time, Trust, and Qualification Frameworks 130 Developing Standards 132 Structure of Qualifications 134 Transactive Memory Systems 135 Traits of Transactive Memory 137 Interdisciplinarity is a Transactive Memory System 140 Limitations and the Importance of Pedagogic Solutions 140 An Alternative Expertise Model? 141 Summary 142 CHAPTER 6: CATEGORISATION 145 Introduction 145 Core Principles of Categorisation 146 Supervised and Unsupervised Categorisation 146 Selective Attention 147 Simplicity, Similarity and Typicality 148 Models of Categorisation 148 Limitations of Current Research 151 Categorisation and Interdisciplinarity 152 The ‘Tree Study’ 152 Natural Categories - Optimal Categories 153 Creating/Placing New Academic Categories - The Lure of Pluralism 155 Pure and Applied Categories 157 A Little Knowledge? 158 Summary 158 CHAPTER 7: MEDIEVAL STUDIES IN PRACTICE 161 Method of Analysis 161 Interdisciplinarity 164 How would you define interdisciplinarity? 164 Do you see interdisciplinarity as individual or collaborative, either or both? 166 Epistemology 167 Can you discuss what you think of the terms ‘truth’, ‘validity’ or ‘evidence’ in Medieval Studies? 167 Disciplinarity 169 How would you define a discipline? 169 Expertise 171 What, in your view, makes a good interdisciplinary researcher? 171 Do you think this [Being a Good Interdisciplinary Researcher] can be learned or taught? 173 Are there particular skills or knowledge which you feel every medievalist should know? 175 Categorisation 177 How would you define or differentiate the ‘medieval’ period? 177 Nature of Medieval Studies 179 Medieval Studies Undergraduate 181 Undergraduate teaching experience 182 6 Analysis 183 CHAPTER 8: DISCUSSION 186 Disciplinarity 186 Expertise & Expert Language 187 Subject Matter 189 Recontextualising Fields 191 Categorisation of Disciplinarity 193 Ownership or Stewardship 194 Interdisciplinarity 197 Competency Models and Development of Expertise 198 Polymathery and Transactive Memory 199 Transience and New Disciplines 201 Transience, Disciplinarity and the Perfect (Medieval) Storm 202 Interdisciplinary Is... 205 Interdisciplinarity in the Curriculum 209 Interdisciplinary Skills 211 The Interdisciplinary Curriculum in Concept 213 The Interdisciplinary Curriculum in Practice 217 Interdisciplinary Studies Repurposed 221 Implementation through Curriculum Mapping 222 Limitations and Further Research 223 Final Thoughts 224 APPENDICES 226 Appendix I 226 University of Glasgow: Graduate Attributes 226 University of Aberdeen: Graduate Attributes 227 Edinburgh Napier University English subject group: Graduate Attributes 228 University of Edinburgh: Graduate Attributes 229 Appendix II 230 SCQF Level 7 230 SCQF Level 8 231 SCQF Level 9 232 SCQF Level 10 232 Appendix III 234 Interview Script 234 Appendix IV 236 Plain Language Statement 236 Appendix V 238 Consent Form 238 REFERENCES 239 7 List of Figures I.1 Triangulation of Evidence ....................................................................................... 18 1.1 Types of Interdisciplinarity ..................................................................................... 29 1.2 Pluralistic Interdisciplinary Models ........................................................................ 30 1.3 Abstracts of Interdisciplinarity ................................................................................ 52 3.1 Interview Demographics ......................................................................................... 87 5.1 Guild Expertise...................................................................................................... 135 5.2 Factors of Transactive Memory