Challenges to Student Interdisciplinary Learning Effectiveness: An Empirical Case Study

Abstract

In order to meet industrial demands, some colleges and universities have offered interdisciplinary programs that integrate design, engineering, and business. However, how many changes these programs have brought to students, and whether students participating in these programs have had better interdisciplinary ability than students involved in a single discipline study have always been questions that many researchers want to explore. In a university that offers an interdisciplinary program, we found that there is no significant difference in interdisciplinary integration ability between the students participating in the interdisciplinary program and the students involved in a single discipline study through quantitative comparisons of 91 student questionnaires and analyses of interviews with nine teachers of interdisciplinary courses and other related staff members. This may result from the students' lack of motivation, lack of prior experience, the influence of individual traits, the increase of learning pressure and academic burden, and the interference of disciplinary factors during interdisciplinary learning. The research finding is intended to improve student interdisciplinary learning effectiveness by facilitating interdisciplinary teachers' understanding of the influencing factors of student interdisciplinary learning, and by providing a reference for interdisciplinary teaching design.

Keywords: challenges of interdisciplinary learning; interdisciplinary integration ability; learning environment; learning outcomes; student attributes.

Figure 1

Difference between Multidisciplinarity and Interdisciplinarity. Collated, modified and drawn from Menken Steph, Keestra Machiel, Rutting Lucas, Post Ger, De Roo Mieke, Blad Sylvia, De Greef Linda. 2016. An introduction to interdisciplinary research: Theory and practice. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 31–32.