Interdisciplinary Studies

"In the field of planning and design of cities, the concept of interdisciplinarity becomes increasingly important, not only by the need to provide transversal solutions to specific questions within the urban project, but also because it is understood that the “city making” is not the ground of a single discipline.
Interdisciplinarity is intrinsic to urban studies. However, experience shows that this type of interaction between disciplines, specifically in the context of teaching and learning the urban design project, is not widespread yet. Slowly professionals and academics involved in city design and intervention are emphasizing on the need of interdisciplinary processes for those projects.
In this paper we address the teaching and learning processes in the field of urban projects, assuming these as a starting point in the training of professionals involved in the city design problems.
This work is based in the systematization and review of the results obtained in the research “Interdisciplina- ACÇÃO” (Remesar & Brandão, 2009), where we add new data collection obtained from interviews made to a new professional group in training, in the field of urban design, with the objective of generate conclusions about the argumentative language used in the urban design project development, as an interdisciplinary exercise, and also looking for a further discussion about the teaching/learning process of the urban design project with an interdisciplinary orientation."

"Les Learning sciences représentent un domaine de recherche frontière aussi dynamique que complexe à saisir y compris pour les chercheurs impliqués.

Est-il possible, pour en comprendre la genèse et le développement, d'étudier comment s'organisent les pratiques scientifiques sur un territoire dont il est a priori difficile de tracer clairement les frontières et les lieux de passage ?

A partir d'une analyse bibliométrique de la littérature se revendiquant des Learning sciences, il s'agit de tenter une première cartographie des trois "i" (interdisciplinaire, internationale et inter-institutionnel) afin d'en déterminer les principaux réseaux et foyers structurants.

L'objectif est de se donner un outil pour amorcer une histoire épistémologique (des concepts, des obstacles
et des ruptures) et une enquête (par itws) auprès de ceux qui ont contribué à l'émergence des Learning sciences."

""Corruption has become one of the most popular topics in the social scientific disciplines. However, there is a lack of interdisciplinary communication about corruption. Models developed by different
academic disciplines are often isolated from each other. The purpose of this paper is to review several major approaches to corruption and draw them closer to each other. Most studies of corruption fall
into three major categories: (i) rational-actor models where corruption is viewed as resulting from cost/benefit analysis of individual actors; (ii) structural models that focus on external forces that determine corruption; and (iii) relational models that emphasize social interactions and networks among corrupt actors. Focusing on actors’ behavior and the social context, this article explains corruption concepts taken from sociology, economics, organization studies, political science, social anthropology, and social psychology.""

"Shaping fantasies: liminality and transformation in painting and theatre.
Using Shakespeare and the Globe theatre as primary contexts, my research is a visual exploration of ambiguity, liminality and transformation, investigated concurrently in terms of text, performance and painting. The Globe or indeed any theatre stage is a liminal, transformational space; a threshold between reality and fantasy, real self and impersonation, truth and deception. A pictorial image too is concerned with transformation, illusion and story-telling. In a painting, both ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ representations are created and treated in the same way - in paint, on a two-dimensional surface – so the distinction between them is perhaps even more uncertain and destabilised.
A key theme in my paintings is the ambiguous and protean quality of the theatrical performer - how an actor embodies the shifting boundaries between reality and artifice, how their identity transforms and fluctuates. In the Elizabethan theatre, actors were known as ‘shadows’, suggesting an uncanny insubstantiality. Shakespeare also refers to the actor as a ‘cipher’ which can imply deception, disguise or equivocation. And in Shakespeare’s plays the supernatural characters – fairies, witches, fools, spirits, ghosts – represent a further layer of ambiguity, occupying an uneasy liminal space within the narrative of the drama, flitting between the corporeal and magical world.
With examples of my work, I will explore parallels between painting and theatre, and consider if and how painting can express these complex layers of fantasy and reality.

Key words: Shakespeare, Globe theatre, painting, ambiguity, liminality, transformation.
"

This is an era of emergent disciplines and transdisciplines. These emergent disciplines are different to new disciplines that arise within existing disciplines in the way that Newton and Leibniz created the calculus to solve problems in physics or Sadi Carnot, Clausius, Boltzmann and others developed thermodynamics to solve problems in physics and engineering. These emergent disciplines develop at points where the converging subject fields of old disciplines meet new kinds and classes of emergent problems. These problems arise at the intersection of current technologies and new cultural and intellectual frames. Examples of emergent disciplines and transdisciplines include fuzzy logic, chaos theory, complexity theory, knowledge management, behavioral economics, cognitive science, neuroscience, and the design sciences. This is also an era in which older disciplines with an interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary focus return to reframe and solve new problems. Hermeneutics is an example of this, both as a first-order practice used to solve interpretive problems and as a second-order theory of understanding and interpreting expressions and information arising in language and other forms of communication or experience. Finally, it is an era of new interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary communication forms, art forms, forms of media, and design practice. This is driven by concepts that respond to the large cultural shifts of the time in such ideas as intermedia, concept art, or new media. It is also driven by new technologies and the possibilities that arise within them, both in such forms as video or computers, and through the new possibilities of digital convergence. All of these call for different kinds of interdisciplinary research in addition to research within specific disciplines. The greatest problems we face are not the problems of research within existing, established disciplines. Discipline-based research fields are by and large flourishing. In contrast, we face challenges in interdisciplinary research arising from social, cultural, and conceptual barriers.

"Geoarchaeology is a discipline that has difficulty with communication, in part because academia struggles with interdisciplinarity. To improve the communication of this field, a teaching pack was developed for a foundational level – communication to novice geoarchaeologists. The teaching pack was modified through pre-interviews with teachers and trialled in two A-level classes – classical civilisation and geography. In-class observations, student feedback and pre-post knowledge  questionnaire data suggest that the teaching pack was successful at engaging students and teaching them foundational geoarchaeology concepts. Students averaged a high learning gain (0.42) that did not differ significantly between groups, suggesting that students of varying backgrounds (current and previous classes enrolled, gender) were able to achieve an equal outcome. Student perceptions of geoarchaeology and archaeological interdisciplinarity, measured on the pre-post questionnaire, became more expert-like after the teaching pack. Student and teacher feedback were used to make final revisions to the teaching pack, which is ready for wider implementation.
Geoarchaeological communication at all levels would benefit from closer attention to an interdisciplinary studies structure that separates individual disciplinary knowledge, perspectives and analyses before combining them through synthesis. This should be
supported by relevant, practical examples of a challenging level and guided considerably. These findings may be extrapolated to other interdisciplinary fields of archaeology and have important implications for cross-disciplinary university recruitment. "

The structure of studies of moral education is basically interdisciplinary; it includes moral philosophy, psychology, and educational research. This essay systematically analyses the structure of studies of moral educational from the vantage points of philosophy of science. Among the various theoretical frameworks in the field of philosophy of science, this essay mainly utilizes the perspectives of Lakatos’s research programme. In particular, this essay considers the relations and interactions between different fields, including moral philosophy, psychology, and educational research. Finally, the potential impacts of the new trends emerging from natural sciences that seem to be challenging to existing theoretical frameworks of moral education are examined using the vantage points of philosophy of science.

Cancer care still fails to address psychosocial problems, which can compromise the effectiveness of health care and thereby adversely affect cancer patients. The present retrospective study explore a routine of distress screening, which is followed by a multidisciplinary discussion, with the aim of establishing personalized strategies for intervention and treatment. Over two years, 328 patients from a Brazilian private cancer center, participated in a longitudinal study, answering the Distress Thermometer and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, three times over a 6-month period using. The data of each evaluation were discussed between oncologist assistant and psychologist, to establish appropriate intervention. Descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation and a logistic regression were employed to analyze the data. There was a prevalence of female patients (64%), with an average of 54.7 years of age (SD = 15.8, range 18–86 years). Gastrointestinal (28%), breast (23.8%) and hematological (22.6%) were the main diagnosis. The distress level progressively decreased along the assessment: fi rst day (55.8%), middle (27%) and last day of chemotherapy (13.4%), as well as the anxiety and depression score. There was a signifi cant association (p < 0.001) between distress vs. anxiety and distress vs. depression: fi rst day [r = 0.8, t(328) = 21.6; r = 0.8, t(328) = 16.2; R2 = 0.85], middle [r = 0.8, t(285) = 18.4; r = 0.8, t(285) = 20.9; R2 = 0.86] and last day of chemotherapy [r = 0.8, t(261) = 14.7; r = 0.8, t(261) = 20.8; R2 = 0.82]. Moreover, additional comparisons of the items were analyzed and will be presented at the meeting. Preliminary results suggest that distress, anxiety and depression scores tends to reduce during the 6-months period of evaluation, mainly because was supported by the multidisciplinary intervention and treatment tailored to each case.

Considering the NCCN guideline for distress management and the gola of psychosocial care, which is related to recognize and address the cancer diagnosis and treatment’s effects on the mental status and emotional wellbeing of patients, a Brazilian Cancer Center included the Distress Thermometer (DT) in the psychological evaluation routine, since 2007. The present study intend to evaluate the incidence of distress during each of these fi ve years, in a way to understand the implication of this assessment routine on the health team behavior. A total of 500 patients, sample of 100 per year, gave their consent in participate in this study (approved by the ethics committee), answering a demographic questionnaire and the DT throughout the chemotherapy protocol. In the whole sample, there was a prevalence of female patients (66.1%). They were between 18–86 years (M = 55.1; SD = 15.6). Breast (25.8%), hematological (22.3%) and gastrointestinal (21.4%) were the main diagnosis. About 66.2% had late stage (III and IV) disease. We observed that the incidence of distress have reduced over the years. Specifi cally in the fi rst year, 76% of patients reported high level of distress (DT ≥ 4) in the fi rst day of the chemotherapy protocol, decreasing to 15.6% in the last day of treatment (approximately fi ve months after the first assessment). In the fi fth year, only 46% of patients were with high distress, about fi ve months after only 5.5% remained with. Preliminary results suggest that in fi ve years the incidence of patients with distress reduced considerably (30% less). This reduction refl ect the major structural changes that have happened in the integration of the health team throughout these fi ve year in order to attend to patient’s psychosocial needs, including this perspective as an integral part of our quality cancer care. These changes will be reported at the meeting.

"This aim of this working paper is to describe the nature of actions to foster interdisciplinary research efforts at a major United Kingdom university.  The focus was placed on how interdisciplinary teams were formed, what made them work, and what inhibited them. The case for and against interdisciplinary research is presented. The terms cross disciplinary, multidisciplinary activities, multidisciplinary research, interdisciplinary research and transdisciplinary research are explored and defined.  Theoretical lens – leadership theory, social networking theory, and team science – are explicated and used to suggest how universities can further interdisciplinary research efforts.

The study employed a descriptive mixed method case study approach to collecting and analyzing the data used to draw its conclusions.  A survey was constructed around dispositions, processes and practices, which facilitate or impede interdisciplinary research, gathered from the literature and initial interviews.  The survey included open ended questions from which narrative data were collected. All research intensive staff in three of the university’s four colleges were invited to participate. One hundred and twenty seven academic staff responded to the survey. The results of the survey were verified by 25 interviews with heads of colleges, heads of schools, research coordinators, research team leaders, and team members. These interviews were supported by document review to support the findings and to draw the conclusions from the study.  Internal validity of the findings was achieved by triangulating the data collected from multiple sources (e.g. survey, narrative, interview, document review). External validity was achieved by compiling rich, thick, detailed descriptions found in evidence summaries. The findings include the following points. 

Leadership is important at both university and team levels if interdisciplinarity is to thrive in the university.  At both levels, the ability to establish direction, alignment and commitment, and develop community is often the difference between success and failure.  This seems to have occurred at the interdisciplinary research team level but not at the university level.

There seems to be a working consensus recognizing the importance of interdisciplinary research to solve the most intractable societal problems. There is less of a consensus as to whether the approach to accomplishing this should be forced or engineered.

Good leadership and good decision making is required for interdisciplinary research to thrive. The University has done well with most of the big structures that enrich and support interdisciplinarity, institutes, centres and networks.  Positive examples are cited regarding good practice such as ‘a cup of coffee’ at the university level, and ‘critical friends’ at the College level. However, the prevailing position is that clusters have made management easier but has not necessarily supported teaching and research. In this effort, ‘small’ structures such as clarity of meaning, motivation of staff, misalignment of old structures, time and workload, and loss of identify have impeded the move to university wide interdisciplinarity.

A series of three recommendations are made to move the interdisciplinary project forward: stay clear on focus, extend the benefits of serendipity to more people, and remembering that one size does not fit all.

Key Words – disciplinarily, interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinary research, interdisciplinary research, research networks, research teams, leadership, social networks, team science
24,150 words, 12 Tables, 1 Figure
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This perspective piece addresses specifically future lines of inquiry and practice that advance the goals of the agenda through an interdisciplinary approach to leadership studies. Here, the authors explain in-depth the contexts of an interdisciplinary approach to the agenda and address specific challenges therein. In order to provide clarity to this approach, considerations are made with respect to the language, contextual reference points, and tensions regarding measurement of learning. The authors provide impetus for inclusion of particular, salient priorities from the agenda, and address opportunities for practice and future research. Suggestions reveal unique opportunities within an interdisciplinary perspective such as the integration of diverse content and perspectives as well as collaboration across disciplines.