Interdisciplinarity is the combining of methods and insights of two or more academic disciplines into the pursuit of a common task, such as a research project. It is typically characterized by the crossing of ‘traditional boundaries’ between academic disciplines or schools of thought to address new and emerging issues.[1]
Some historical writings trace the origins of interdisciplinarity back to the mid-1920s (Frank, 1988; Sills, 1986; Graff, 2015). These exquisitely written historical texts nicely show that interdisciplinarity has been one of the most ambitious and challenging intellectual projects for more than nine decades. During this time, interdisciplinary has celebrated some great achievements, but equally often it has also struggled to fulfill its promise. during the last few years, interdisciplinarity (again) has become a hot topic and (again) made its way into research funding schemes and university curriculums. But let’s not forget that it has been trying to do so for 90 years. What astonishes us is that we know so little about how people learn to do this complex work [2]
Making connections between different concepts is essential in interdisciplinary study. Here are some other benefits of studying in this way:
1)Interdisciplinary knowledge and application of different disciplines can lead to greater creativity.
2)Students begin to consolidate learning by synthesizing ideas from many perspectives and consider an alternative way of acquiring knowledge
3)Interdisciplinary study allows for the synthesis of ideas and the synthesis of characteristics from many disciplines. At the same time, it addresses students’ individual differences and helps to develop important, transferable skills. These skills, such as critical thinking, communication, and analysis are important and continually developing at all stages of life.[3]
Challenges of Interdisciplinary Studies:
1)The first barrier facing interdisciplinary students is attitude. An attitudinal barrier is any behavior or perception that prevents students or employees from effectively communicating. In the case of interdisciplinary studies, an attitudinal barrier would be a scholar or researcher who has no interest in collaborating with other disciplines or people.
2)Communication:
In every discipline, there is jargon. The special, “keywords” that particular groups use to communicate. Jargon poses a threat to cross-disciplinary collaboration because people can’t communicate with each other if they can’t understand each other. The communication barrier poses a unique challenge to interdisciplinarity
3)Academic Structure:
Academic departments provide the resources and tools that students need to be successful in their fields. Every department has the programs, faculty, staff, and organization it needs to advance learning within its given field, but sometimes the structures across departments do not align with one another, making interdisciplinarity collaboration a challenge.
4)Career Development:
An overarching fear of interdisciplinarity is the “10,000-hour rule,” meaning interdisciplinary students might graduate as masters of nothing. Instead of graduating with a comprehensive understanding of a single discipline like anthropology or economics, they graduate with a smattering of knowledge, spread across many fields[4] Therefore, according to what has been said, all people active in science should try as much as possible to make the interdisciplinary view more common than it is, so that solutions may be found to improve complex problems.
[1]:https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/academy/keythemes/interdisciplinarity
[3]:https://www.open.edu/openlearn/education/what-are-the-benefits-interdisciplinary-study
[4]:https://press.rebus.community/idsconnect/chapter/the-challenges-of-doing-interdisciplinary-work/
- Fatemeh Panahi, Pharm.D, Systems Artificial Intelligence Network (SAIN), Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (USERN), Tehran, Iran