Fostering collisions in interdisciplinary graduate education

O’Meara, KerryAnn; Culpepper, Dawn

doi:10.1108/sgpe-08-2019-0068

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…In recent years, the model of the interdisciplinary Doctoral Training Programme has become more common (Doonan et al, 2018). Various studies exist investigating how contentions along disciplinary lines shape these PGRs, through the fostering of idea flow and creativity, but also inducing personal insecurities relating to depth of knowledge and future job opportunities (Haider et al, 2018;Knaggård et al, 2018;Mountford et al, 2020;O'Meara and Culpepper, 2020). Such programmes vary as to what support/training is provided (Killion et al, 2018), and individual Ph.D projects often end up being interdisciplinary in name only (Lindvig and Hillersdal, 2019).…”

Section: The Rise Of Interdisciplinary Research a Natural Progression Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical reflections of postgraduate researchers on a collaborative interdisciplinary research project

Purvis

Keding

Lewis

et al. 2023

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

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By employing a retrospective collaborative autoethnographic approach, this work aims to better understand how an interdisciplinary context shaped the authors’ experiences of British academia during their Ph.D research. The authors bring together their individual observations and experiences to collectively interrogate and critically reflect on their position as postgraduate researchers (PGRs) on a collaborative interdisciplinary research project. These reflections are taken as a lens through which to interrogate the contemporary British university. Pre-existing tensions within the academy are characterised as ‘asymmetries’ along dimensions of risk, disciplinary hierarchy, and knowledge. It is argued that the authors’ experience of uncertainty and precarity as junior academics stems principally from pre-existing structures within British academia, rather than the interdisciplinary environment in which they were immersed. By emphasising the role of the successfully trained doctoral candidate as an outcome itself, it is argued that indicators of success can be reframed, shifting the power asymmetry to place greater value on PGRs within the neoliberal academy. Highlighting the ambiguity of their convergent and divergent personal experiences, the authors suggest there is a need for a greater focus on the contested role of the PGR within the contemporary university system.

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Section: The Rise Of Interdisciplinary Research a Natural Progression Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical reflections of postgraduate researchers on a collaborative interdisciplinary research project

Purvis

Keding

Lewis

et al. 2023

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

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“…First, our theoretical approach should be applied to the analysis of graduate student sensemaking across additional disciplinary intersections to include, for example, courses that converge the natural sciences with the humanities and engineering with the arts. Doing so would expand the understanding of the sensemaking process beyond the specific context of TEC and further inform the development and refinement of pedagogical strategies used in the growing field of transdisciplinary graduate education (O’Meara and Culpepper, 2020).…”

Section: Implications For Practice and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entrepreneurial sensemaking and transdisciplinary graduate entrepreneurship education

Mars

Hart

2022

SGPE

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Purpose There is pressure to transform graduate education in ways that better prepare and socialize students for academic careers that require entrepreneurial activities and/or professional pathways outside of academia. The inclusion of entrepreneurial learning in graduate curricula and programs is one strategy for responding to such calls. Yet, there lacks an understanding of how graduate students outside of the business fields make sense of entrepreneurial content relevant to their academic interests and career aspirations. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore entrepreneurial sensemaking by non-business graduate students enrolled in a transdisciplinary entrepreneurship course. Design/methodology/approach A single case study design was used to explore how seven nonbusiness graduate students in a transdisciplinary entrepreneurial leadership course made sense of entrepreneurial content relevant to their academic interests and career aspirations. Data were collected through direct observations, semi-structured interviews and the administration of an entrepreneurial leadership proclivity assessment tool. Findings Through experiential learning intentionally centering entrepreneurship, graduate students acquire entrepreneurial knowledge in ways that enhance their agency and sense of empowerment without diluting or overriding their academic and/or professional intentions. Practical implications Sensemaking is framed as a pedagogical resource for fostering the integration of entrepreneurial content in transdisciplinary graduate courses and experiences in ways that align with and support the academic interests and career aspirations of individual students. Originality/value A novel entrepreneurial sensemaking approach to the integration of entrepreneurial content with transdisciplinary curricula that is directly responsive to calls for graduate education transformation is introduced.

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“…At the graduate level, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has provided support to develop pedagogical approaches for interdisciplinary training via the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) and NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) programs, which seek to effectively train graduate students in convergent research areas to better align with the needs of a dynamically changing workforce (22). Innovative models for interdisciplinary graduate training have been developed through these programs, with many sharing an emphasis on exploration, communication, and collaboration across disciplines (23)(24)(25)(26)(27).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender, interdisciplinary graduate training, and confidence working in teams

Lu,

Blake,

Eyler

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Teamwork is recognized as critical to solving complex societal challenges related to energy, health, and sustainability. With graduate education, students often gain teamwork experience through a problem-focused approach where they are brought into existing collaborations to pursue research that is focused on studying questions that have already been identified. Here, we describe an interdisciplinary educational program where graduate students were tasked with leading team formation, problem identification, and research formulation. This team-first training approach used a two-year curriculum to bring together students enrolled in diverse engineering and science graduate programs and provided students with a pedagogical understanding of interdisciplinarity, nurtured the development of student communication skills across disciplines, fostered student-led team formation and idea development, and empowered students to forge new connections between research groups. Assessment of three cohorts immediately following curriculum completion (n = 36) revealed significant gains in confidence in teamwork (p < 0.001) when compared to a control group of academic peers (n = 74). These gains varied across demographic groups, with women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics presenting the strongest gains. This finding illustrates the importance of exploring how interdisciplinary team curricula in graduate school could support overcoming the gender gap in confidence.

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Fostering collisions in interdisciplinary graduate education

Cited by 9 publications

References 32 publications

Critical reflections of postgraduate researchers on a collaborative interdisciplinary research project

Critical reflections of postgraduate researchers on a collaborative interdisciplinary research project

Entrepreneurial sensemaking and transdisciplinary graduate entrepreneurship education

Gender, interdisciplinary graduate training, and confidence working in teams

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