How to Incorporate Interdisciplinarity into Your Study Programme

1. Interdisciplinarity at Ghent University: What Does It Mean?

Collaboration between professionals from various disciplines is an essential element of solving today’s and tomorrow’s complex problems. This type of collaboration is often coated in terms such as ‘multidisciplinary’, ‘interdisciplinary’ or ‘transdisciplinary’. Each of these terms, however, denotes a different type of collaboration between various professionals or disciplines.

When various disciplines analyse the same problem and deliver their expert input, this process is called multidisciplinarity. Ultimately, the different analyses are brought together (but not integrated) into a final product. A multidisciplinary partnership is still founded on a strong (mono-)disciplinary basis, while the boundaries between the various participating disciplines remain visibly in place.

In the context of future-proof education, we at Ghent University aim for a more advanced type of collaboration between disciplines, i.e. inter- and transdisciplinarity. What these types have in common is that they integrate various disciplinary definitions and come to a solution that will transcend disciplinary boundaries.

Interdisciplinarity focuses on the integration of knowledge (information, data, techniques, research methods...) from two or more disciplines with the purpose of tackling a problem in such a way that the solution transcends disciplinary boundaries. Although the disciplinary boundaries still exist, they are less visible in the final product because all the knowledge has been integrated. In such cases, interdisciplinarity is a means, not an end, to come to innovative solutions to complex problems.

Transdisciplinarity arises when academics from different disciplines collaborate with each other and with non-academic stakeholders. In this type of collaboration, all the stakeholders integrate each other’s knowledge, skills and methods to come to a solution. Not only does transdisciplinarity transcend the own disciplinary boundaries but also those between academics, society and other social stakeholders.

In the remainder of this Education Tip we will use the term ‘interdiscisplinarity’ to cover inter- as well as transdisciplinarity.

2. Incorporating Interdisciplinarity into the Curriculum: Why?

By definition, complex problems comprise many different aspects that transcend one specific discipline. In climate change, for instance, oceans play a significant role, but so do the melting ice caps, solar radiation, the transport industry, mobility, political decisions, human consumerism, deforestation and land usage. All of these elements pose an important problem in their own right, and are studied accordingly within their own discipline. To fully understand the larger problem, however, it is important to look beyond the boundaries of one’s own discipline. Interdisciplinary collaboration is essential, on an academic as well as on a practical level. An integration of all that disciplinary knowledge - the main characteristic of interdisciplinarity - can yield new conceptual frameworks, insights, or even entirely new disciplines. Interdisciplinarity, in other words, is an important engine for innovation.

At Ghent University, we want to train our students into becoming critical thinkers with an open and constructive attitude vis-à-vis diversity. ‘Dare to Think’ and ‘Multiperspectivism’ are the premise of our vision on education. Adopting various perspectives, open-mindedness, a tolerance for deviating opinions, communication and collaboration are generic competencies students acquire when interdisciplinary education is incorporated into the study programme. These competencies cater to the needs of a professional field in which interprofessional relations and interdisciplinary collaboration are on the rise.

3. Incorporating Interdisciplinarity into the Curriculum: How?

You want to make room for interdisciplinarity in the curriculum. That’s great! But where to start? Each Programme Committee knows what their perfect graduate should look like, and so it is their prerogative to put certain emphases in their curriculum to achieve that. There is a roadmap to come to that goal, but that is not to say that the process is linear per se: it is perfectly possible to skip from one step to another. Still, the roadmap can serve as a guiding principle.

3.1 Bring Together a Committed Team

In consultation with your Programme Committee (PC), bring together a group of people who are committed to this theme. Who are possible key players in this process of change? Think for instance of:

lecturers or other staff members associated with the study programme who already collaborate with another study programme or another faculty;

lecturers or other staff members associated with the study programme with an interest in interdisciplinarity and interdisciplinary collaboration;

alumni and students of the study programme;

stakeholders from the professional field;

faculty support staff: curriculum managers, education support staff and/or quality assurance staff ....;

central support staff: process facilitators for study programme support;

The more diverse the team, the more guarantee the study programme has of being screened and helped from various perspectives, and of gaining a broad outlook on things. In the past, the students' critical perspective has consistently proven to be very valuable in opening up the discussion about the curriculum and increasing receptiveness to new/different opportunities.

3.2 What is the Importance of Interdisciplinarity to the Study Programme?

If you want to implement change, you have to identify your goals first. These goals can be made explicit in a study programme’s vision (text). Such a vision (text) explains to a broad audience what the study programme stands for, which (future) objectives it aspires, and how. Find out if, and in what way, interdisciplinarity already features in the study programme’s vision (text), or adjust said vision (text) to incorporate interdisciplinarity further. Taking your cue from that vision, you can then start (re)designing the curriculum.

The following exercises may help you along.

1. The Programme Committee considers the core issue.

Try to look ahead by brainstorming on the following question:

What are current and future interdisciplinary problems you want your students to be able to tackle?

2. Reflection questions

The following reflection questions may help you develop a vision on interdisciplinarity:

which generic competencies do students need to be able to tackle current and future interdisciplinary problems?

apart from your own discipline, with which other disciplines do your students need to be familiar?

in the context of which important knowledge contents and skills do students need to be able to adopt other perspectives?

in terms of discipline, what are heterogeneous groups with which will students have to collaborate later, and how will they do so?

what are ways in which students will have to learn to communicate with and to such heterogeneous groups and non-academic stakeholders?

in what ways do students need to be aware of boundaries, limitations and presuppositions of their own discipline?

what does it mean to deal with various other disciplinary perspectives in a respectful manner?

how is looking for and developing interdisciplinary, creative solutions accommodated in the curriculum?

If you have a clear view on what interdisciplinarity means in the context of your study programme, you can embed that in the Education Monitor. In some cases, this may result in a refreshing of the programme competencies/learning outcomes, which in turn, need to be implemented in the curriculum.

3.3 Interdisciplinarity in the Study Programme: As Is

To gain a full overview of the current state of affairs, it might be useful to screen the curriculum/study programme. To this end, you can make use of resources that will give insight into where the study programme stands when it comes to interdisciplinarity. Think, for instance, of course sheets (which course units deal with interdisciplinarity) and cyclical surveys such as the study programme feedback survey, or the alumni survey (what feedback do students and alumni give on interdisciplinarity in the programme). This will allow you to map:

the extent to which the study programme currently focuses on interdisciplinarity, thus implementing its vision;
the discrepancies between the vision, the learning outcomes, the curriculum and the student and/or alumni feedback.

Mapping existing initiatives will garner higher appreciation of what is already in place, and will also strengthen the coherence and profile of the study programme. The Programme Committee may choose to communicate more explicitly on existing interdisciplinary initiatives with (prospective) students and lecturers. This will give the lecturers a better overview of which of their colleagues already focuses on interdisciplinarity. Consequently they gain better insight into the students’ (starting) competencies for each course unit that contributes to interdisciplinarity. This, in turn, will help them shape their own course unit and determine which (generic) competencies they can aspire with their course unit, knowing what (generic) competencies the students have acquired previously. Students will be better informed of the objectives and the importance of interdisciplinarity to the study programme and their graduation profile. Once the Programme Committee has a clear view on which teaching and assessment methods are used to implement interdisciplinarity, they can monitor the work load for students better, too.

In the event that a Programme Committee comes across discrepancies between their vision (what it is we want to attain), the objectives (how they are translated into competencies/learning outcomes), the curriculum (which course units contribute to the learning outcomes), and alumni/student feedback (whether or not students/alumni actually capture what the study programme intends and develops/assesses in course units), they can determine an action plan for the future. Consider the following example: the Programme Committee of an engineering programme has engaged in a visioning exercise and has come to the conclusion that students need to acquire more knowledge on disciplines such as sociology, economics, and law. At this point, however, such a focus is largely absent from the programme-specific competencies/learning outcomes. Some of the lecturers do have a tradition of inviting guest speakers from various disciplines in their classes, at their own initiative. The Programme Committee identifies two action points: first, they have to write a programme-specific competency/learning outcome in which they describe the expectations regarding knowledge of other disciplines upon graduation. They do so based on a shared vision. Second, they will have to bring together all the lecturers who have this tradition of inviting guest speakers, in order to (1) familiarise them with the new programme-specific competency/learning outcome and show them how they can contribute to this. And (2), they have to invite those lecturers to bring their respective course units (including the course competencies, the contents of the guest lectures and the assessment methods) into better alignment.

3.4 How to Shape My Curriculum?

Once you have a clear vision, you can start giving shape to the curriculum. Interdisciplinarity can be conveyed by many different teaching methods. The choice of a particular teaching method and its place in the curriculum depends on a number of (pre)conditions:

the lecturer’s personal interests and competencies;

the students’ intended level of achievement (e.g. do you aim for pure knowledge transfer on another discipline or do you want your students to develop interdisciplinary collaboration skills?);

the time and resources that are available;

the logical alignment with the course contents;

the diversity of the current student population.

Students acquire interdisciplinary competencies by specialising in their own discipline and thoroughly exploring other disciplines at the same time. Each discipline analyses the world in a specific way, availing itself of its own mental models, frameworks or paradigms. Students will have to get to know these, as well as the discipline-specific jargon, before they can learn to collaborate. The curriculum should therefore contain sufficient opportunities for interdisciplinary education, preferably in the form of well-aligned course units.

Ideally, there is a point in the curriculum where students in an interdisciplinary group are asked to tackle a real-life challenge, for the purpose of which they have to use various competencies in an integrated manner. Do not expect students to acquire the necessary competencies automatically as they go along. It simply does not work that way. For example, are students ready and able to adopt different perspectives? Have they been asked before to communicate and collaborate with peers who do not speak the same jargon? These competencies call for a step-by-step approach to interdisciplinarity throughout the curriculum.

The chart below gives an overview of possible teaching methods to support and inspire you when shaping the curriculum. On the left-hand side of the continuum, you will find less intensive teaching methods, mainly focused on competencies such as knowledge acquisition. As you move more to the right of the continuum, the teaching methods gradually become more focused on applying competencies in controlled teaching settings (e.g. a simulation), to result in teaching methods with a focus on a fully integrated application of competencies in authentic settings. Each learning opportunity comes with a handy information sheet, as well as practical examples to serve as inspiration.

3.5 Implementation and Support

There are various teaching methods (e.g. ‘integrating different perspectives’) which lecturers can implement at their own discretion.

Entering into a collaboration with another study programme or faculty, however, is subject to a number of prerequisites:

objectives: make sure that the learning outcomes of the assignment or the collaboration are well-aligned. Each study programme and each course unit has its own set of learning outcomes. Before you enter into a collaboration with another study programme, be sure to consider what you aim to achieve together and what the objectives of the project/course unit/... are;

organisation: often there is enthusiasm aplenty on all sides, only to be smothered by organisational difficulties (scheduling, accommodation in the curriculum...). Get in touch with the faculty schedulers at both faculties to find out what is (not) possible;

start small: for example, organise one day for students from different study programmes to work together, and give that initiative time to grow into something bigger like a project week or a larger assignment;

mandatory or elective: make sure you have a stable student group, consisting of students from various study programmes. For instance, if you bring together students from an elective and a mandatory course unit, the mix of disciplines can be rather unstable;

integration into existing assignments or projects: study programmes usually already have projects or group assignments where students have to work together. Consider the opportunities for making existing initiatives partly or entirely interdisciplinary by adding an extra component to the assignment.

Lecturers' Expertise

The key to success are lecturers who are experienced in designing interdisciplinary learning opportunities for students. A powerful (interdisciplinary) learning environment stands or falls by the expertise of lecturers (or teams of lecturers), i.e. lecturers who have a full grasp of the other disciplines and are able to integrate different perspectives. If you are looking for professional development and/or support initiatives for your team, please contact the Education Support team for tailor-made support.

3.6 Evaluate

In this last step, you evaluate whether or not the curricular revisions you implemented (intended learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities, assessment) correspond to the study programme’s vision on future-proof education. Make adjustments where necessary, but do not forget to share the successes with the entire team.

4. Want to Know More?

Additional information and links:

In case you have questions or want to share good practices, please contact us at onderwijsondersteuning@ugent.be.

UGent Practices

Last modified June 27, 2024, 1:42 p.m.