Cited By
View all- Carter LDougherty JNagel KDecker AEiselt K(2014)Interdisciplinary computing classesProceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/2538862.2538882(445-450)Online publication date: 5-Mar-2014
The effect of disciplinary identity on interdisciplinary learning during scientific group meetings
Authors: 
Anat Yarden, Nir EstermanAuthors Info & Claims
Anat Yarden, Nir EstermanAuthors Info & ClaimsPages 475 - 482
Abstract
Learning to become an interdisciplinary scientist will be needed in order to participate in the scientific research of the future. It is therefore of great importance to learn about the challenges graduate students, with various disciplinary backgrounds, face when carrying out interdisciplinary scientific research. We used the weekly group meetings of an interdisciplinary research group, in the field of systems biology, as a platform to probe the challenges to learning interdisciplinary science. Group meetings were observed and interviews were carried out with the group members. A visible, if sometimes subtle, difference between the challenges facing biologists and those facing physicists was identified. Physicists encountered difficulties in grasping the biological knowledge organization; while biologists found the models suggested by physicists over simplistic. The views of the group members on the nature of the disciplines of physics and biology complement our understanding of the possible causes of some of the identified challenges.
References
[1]
Aderem, A. (2005). Systems biology: It's practice and challenges. Cell, 124, 511-513.
[2]
Allen, W., & Cowley, J. (2004). The elusive field of systems biology. Physiological Genomics, 16, 285-286.
[3]
Amann, K., & Knorr-Cetina, K. (1989). Thinking through talk: An ethnographic study of a molecular biology laboratory. Knowledge and Society, 8, 3-26.
[4]
Ares, M. J. (2004). Interdisciplinary research and the undergraduate biology curriculum. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, 11(12), 1170-1172.
[5]
Becher, T. (1989). Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual enquiry and the cultures of disciplines. SRHE/Open University Press.
[6]
Becher, T. (1990). Physicists on physics. Studies in Higher Education, 15(1), 3-20.
[7]
Bialek, W., & Botstein, D. (2004). Introductory science and mathematics education for 21st-century biologists. Science, 303(5659), 788-790.
[8]
Bradbeer, J. (1999). Barriers to interdisciplinarity: Disciplinary discourses and student learning. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 23(3), 381-396.
[9]
Brown, A. L. (1994). The advancement of learning. Educational Researcher, 23(8), 4-12.
[10]
Donald, G. J. (1993). Professors' and students' conceptualizations of the learning task in introductory physics courses. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 30(8), 905-918.
[11]
Donald, G. J. (2002). Learning to think: Disciplinary perspectives (1st ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
[12]
Dunbar, K. (1995). How scientists really reason: Scientific reasoning in the real-world laboratories. In Davidson, J. (Ed.), The nature of insight (pp. 365-395). Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
[13]
Dunbar, K. (1997). How scientists think: Online creativity and conceptual change in science. In Vaid, S. (Ed.), Conceptual structures and processes: Emergence, discovery and change. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.
[14]
Fisher, M. K., Wandersee, H. J., & Moody, E. D. (2000). Mapping biology knowledge. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishing.
[15]
Gibbs, A., & Lawson, E. A. (1992). The nature of scientific thinking as reflected by the work of biologists & by biology textbooks. The American Biology Teacher, 54(3), 137-152.
[16]
Golde, M. C., & Gallagher, A. H. (1999). The challenges of conducting interdisciplinary research in traditional doctoral programs. Ecosystems, 2, 281-285.
[17]
Gross, J. L. (2004). Interdisciplinarity and the undergraduate biology curriculum: Finding a balance. Cell Biology Education, 3(Summer), 85-87.
[18]
Gutierrez, A. R., Shasha, E. D., & Coruzzi, M. G. (2005). Systems biology for the virtual plant. Plant Physiology, 138, 550-554.
[19]
Kafatos, C. F., & Eisner, T. (2004). Unification in the century of biology. Science, 303(27), 1257.
[20]
Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (1986). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts (Vol. 1). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
[21]
Lattuca, R. L. (2001). Creating interdisciplinarity: Interdisciplinary research and teaching among college and university faculty. Nashville: TN: Vanderblit University press.
[22]
Lave, J., & Wegner, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
[23]
Leonard, J. W., Dufrense, J. R., & Mestre, P. J. (1996). Using qualitative problem-solving strategies to highlight the role of conceptual knowledge in solving problems. American Journal of Physics, 64(12), 1495-1503.
[24]
Linda, B. S., & Sterman, J. (2001). Bathtub dynamics: Initial results of a systems thinking inventory. System Dynamics Review, 16(4), 249-286.
[25]
Luscombe, N. M., Greenbaum, D., & Gerstein, M. (2001). What is bioinformatics? A proposed definition and overview of the field. Method of Information Medicine, 40, 346-358.
[26]
Mayr, E. (1985). How biology differs from the physical sciences. In Weber, B. H. (Ed.), Evolution at a crossroads: The new biology and the new philosophy of science (pp. 43-63). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
[27]
Mayr, E. (1988). Toward a new philosophy of biology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
[28]
National Research Council {NRC}. (2003). BIO2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists. Washington (DC): National Academies Press.
[29]
Rosenberg, A. (1985). The structure of biological science. Cambridge: Cambridge university press.
[30]
Shkedi, A. (2005). Multiple case narrative: A qualitative approach to the study of multiple population. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
[31]
Shkedi, A., & Shkedi, Y. (2005). Narralizer: A software for qualitative research analysis (Version 1.01.001). Yakum: Yazamut Yakum.
[32]
Sung, S. N., Gordon, I. J., Rose, D. G., Getzoff, D. E., Kron, J. S., Mumford, D., Onuchic, N. J., Scherer, F. N., Sumners, L. D., & Nancy, K. J. (2003). Educating future scientists. Science, 301(5639), 1485.
[33]
Towns, H. M., & Grant, R. E. (1997). I believe I can go out of this class actually knowing something: cooperative learning activities in physical chemistry. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 34(8), 819-835.
[34]
Traweek, S. (1988). Beamtimes and lifetimes: The world of high energy physicists. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
[35]
Van Heuvelen, A. (1991). Learning to think like a physicist: A review of research based instructional strategies. American Journal of Physics, 59(10), 891-897.
[36]
Webb, M. N. (1989). Peer interaction and learning in small groups. International Journal of Educational Research, 13(1), 21-39.
Index Terms
- The effect of disciplinary identity on interdisciplinary learning during scientific group meetings
Recommendations
Collaborative interdisciplinary astrobiology research: a bibliometric study of the NASA Astrobiology Institute
This study aims to undertake a bibliometric investigation of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) funded research that was published between 2008 and 2012 (by teams of Cooperative Agreement Notice Four and Five). For this purpose, the study creates an ...
Comments
Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
June 2008
523 pages
Publisher
International Society of the Learning Sciences
Publication History
Published: 24 June 2008
Qualifiers
- Article
Acceptance Rates
Overall Acceptance Rate 307 of 307 submissions, 100%
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- View Citations1Total Citations
- 82Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)3
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1
Reflects downloads up to 26 Dec 2024
Other Metrics
Citations
Cited By
View all- Carter LDougherty JNagel KDecker AEiselt K(2014)Interdisciplinary computing classesProceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/2538862.2538882(445-450)Online publication date: 5-Mar-2014
View Options
Login options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Sign in