In our previous blog we considered why interdisciplinary research is so interesting and introduced some of the resultant challenges. Now we will consider how supervisors can support research students to navigate the challenges of interdisciplinary research.
Interdisciplinary research requires additional learning for postgraduate students, beyond that of research within a single discipline. Students are often bringing previously distinct bodies of academic literature together, using and reflecting on methods in new and novel ways, while also needing to find ways to explain a research project’s interdisciplinarity to examiners who may be firmly situated within their own disciplinary silos.
Supervising interdisciplinary research students tends to be an exciting opportunity for academics to work outside of their traditional disciplinary boundaries. But it also involves guiding students to negotiate different theories, research practices, and knowledge traditions; some of which may also be unfamiliar to the supervisor. Supervisors can also encounter different practices in terms of research supervision; different disciplines have different norms in terms of regularity of meetings, scale of input, and involvement in wider research communities.
Supervisors are known to use several approaches in supporting research students, and these become more complex when supervising interdisciplinary projects. Lee (2012) articulated a range of supervisory styles that draw on different aspects of knowledge and identity, including:
- Functional, which focuses on performativity and process, taking a project-management approach
- Enculturation, which focuses on “becoming an academic” and integrating into the disciplinary community
- Critical Thinking, which focuses on rigour in the development of arguments, encouraging a questioning, analytical approach to self-evaluation
- Emancipation, which focuses on personal development, and understanding what contribution the individual can make to the discipline
- and Relationship Development, which focuses on the experience and feeling of being a doctoral researcher.
When it comes to supervising interdisciplinary projects, these issues around knowledge and identity become increasingly complex.
Questions arise about what types of knowledge are being produced at the intersections between disciplines: this means it becomes harder to follow (and articulate) the path of a research student’s development. Assumptions about disciplines are important to consider: natural and social sciences sit within broader power dynamics and implicit knowledge hierarchies, where natural science is often perceived as producing more valuable knowledge. Natural sciences depend on repeatable experiments and quantitative data, whereas social sciences grapple with intricate, non-reproducible aspects of human behavior and societal dynamics. Results from social sciences tend to illuminate the intricacies of our world, rather than yielding seemingly straightforward, objective facts that are readily applicable in real-world scenarios. Bridging between disciplines, then, requires addressing potential disparities in perceived value of their respective knowledge through effective communication and listening.
This has an impact on students’ identity, in that interdisciplinary PGRs may find that their emerging academic identity lacks the clear direction of a single disciplinary counterpart. As interdisciplinary supervisors, we need to think about how we enable our students to position themselves, in terms of research activities, roles, and intellectual shifts (Akkerman and Bakker, 2011). Our role as supervisors is to guide students to examine the thresholds between and across the disciplines they span in their research, aiding them to identify the key concepts, interrelated ideas, approaches, and histories that intersect in the context of their own research. This is a place where students encounter ideas that are outside of their comfort zone, and which often put them in an uncomfortable and uncertain space (Wisker et al., 2010). As (interdisciplinary) supervisors we need to be hyper-aware of this discomfort. We must find ways to enable our students to think about where and how they are crossing boundaries, acknowledging boundary experiences where they have opportunities to reframe thinking and change practice (Clark et al, 2017).
This interdisciplinary PGR research may move at a different pace to that which supervisors have previously experienced, as students engage in self-discovery of their own unique, interdisciplinary academic identity. To achieve this we can draw on insight from collaborative research: on how perspectives change and develop; how we come to develop new ideas and new research methods through collaboration (Rose & Jay, 2022); and how to embrace these new approaches while also paying attention to ethical complexity (Thomas-Hughes, 2018; Jay & Rose, 2023) and the ways different disciplines (and research partners) understand quality (Howard & Thomas-Hughes, 2020).
We are not saying this is easy. Supervisors of interdisciplinary PGRs may need to face up to their own work and academic views being challenged in ways that bring cognitive and intellectual dissonance and provocation. However, there is tremendous opportunity here as, through our interactions, we change and change others, and we develop concepts in ways that we could not have done on our own or within our own disciplines.
As interdisciplinary supervisors, we need to be able to step outside of our comfort zones of what we think we know. We need to be comfortable with considering different methodological possibilities, beyond those that we are familiar with. We need an ability to learn from others, be flexible in our approaches and develop ideas together. And we need humility – to recognise that our way is not the only way. To do this, we need to be very aware of where we sit within our own discipline, and who we are as academics. As supervisors, we can begin to engage with this process through asking ourselves the following questions:
- What is our model of integration with other disciplines?
- How embedded are we in our disciplinary identity?
- How do we perceive our own and other’s disciplines?
- What role does our discipline have in producing knowledge, and how is this knowledge used?
- What are the limitations of our discipline and how might these be addressed via interdisciplinarity?
- What other power dynamics might come into play when supervising a student or working with a colleague from another discipline?
- And what are the risks? How can we work together to plan for and mitigate those risks to enable our student’s (and their research) to achieve their full potential?
Using these questions to help us reflect on our own position as supervisors can provide a framework for supporting PGRs navigate the complex landscape of interdisciplinary research and learn to occupy the spaces between disciplines.
References
Akkerman, S. and Bakker, A. (2011). Boundary crossing and boundary objects. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 132-169. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654311404435
Clark, J., Laing, K., Leat, D., Lofthouse, R., Thomas, U., Tiplady, L. and Woolner, P. (2017). Transformation in interdisciplinary research methodology: the importance of shared experiences in landscapes of practice. International Journal of Research and Method in Education, 40(3), 243-256. https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727X.2017.1281902
Howard, M. and Thomas-Hughes, H. (2020) Conceptualising quality in co-produced research. Qualitative Research, 21(5), 788-805. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794120919092
Jay, T. and Rose, J. (2023) Parental Engagement and Out-of-School Mathematics Learning: Breaking out of the boundaries. Emerald Publishing Ltd.
Lee, A. (2012) How are doctoral students supervised? Concepts of doctoral research supervision. Studies in Higher Education, 33(3), 267-281. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070802049202
Rose, J. and Jay, T. (2022). Case study 7 – Reflections on position: relational agency in researching ‘everyday maths’. In J. Rose, T. Jay, J. Goodall, L. Mazzoli Smith and L. Todd. (Eds) Repositioning Out-of-School Learning: Methodological challenges and possibilities for researching learning beyond school. Emerald: UK. pp.85-96.
Thomas-Hughes, H., 2018. Ethical ‘mess’ in co-produced research: reflections from a UK-based case study. International journal of social research methodology, 21(2), pp.231-242.
Wisker, G., Morris, C., Cheng, M., Masika, R., Warnes, M., Trafford, V., Robinson, G. and Lilly, J. (2010) Doctoral Learning Journeys: Final Report. Higher Education Academy: York.
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