an interdisciplinary approach

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Teaching in Higher Education

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Making interdisciplinary subjects relevant to students: an interdisciplinary approach Min Yanga a Centre for the Advancement of University Teaching, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Online publication date: 11 November 2009

To cite this Article Yang, Min(2009) 'Making interdisciplinary subjects relevant to students: an interdisciplinary approach',

Teaching in Higher Education, 14: 6, 597 — 606 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13562510903315019 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562510903315019

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Teaching in Higher Education Vol. 14, No. 6, December 2009, 597606

Making interdisciplinary subjects relevant to students: an interdisciplinary approach Min Yang*

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Centre for the Advancement of University Teaching, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong This paper examines issues relating to the design/redesign of the pedagogy of interdisciplinary undergraduate subjects. Examples include: (a) law subjects for students in Business Management or Building and Surveying; (b) ‘English Communication for Business’ for students in English; and (c) ‘Information technology in Business’ for students in Business. Interdisciplinary subjects often frustrate teachers because of their marginal status within the programme, low student interest and difficulty of creating a balance between the subject’s double facets (e.g. the balance between the business and language facets in the abovementioned Subject b). It has long been advocated that interdisciplinary subjects naturally invite an interdisciplinary pedagogical approach. Nevertheless, the puzzle often remains as to how to reconcile the different disciplinary facets within the subject without confusing students, each having its distinctive tradition of content organisation and teaching/assessment approaches. In the paper, the concepts of interdisciplinary and disciplinary culture and their pedagogical implications are explored, which support an interdisciplinary approach to teaching interdisciplinary subjects. Following that, literature relevant to approaches to pedagogical and curriculum design of interdisciplinary subjects is reviewed. Theories about outcome-based approaches and constructive alignment for designing curriculum and pedagogical design for undergraduate courses are then discussed and their implications for implementing the interdisciplinary approach are examined. Keywords: interdisciplinary subjects; teaching and assessment design; contents design; interdisciplinary approach; outcome-based approaches; constructive alignment

Introduction Interdisciplinary subjects present a number of pedagogical challenges to academics in different disciplines. Such subjects may be exemplified by the following: (a) law subjects for students in Business Management or Building and Surveying; (b) ‘English Communication for Business’ for students in English; and (c) ‘Information technology in (for) Business’ for students in Business Management. The linking words ‘for’ and ‘in’ appearing in the above-mentioned subject titles say much of the relationship between these subjects with the main discipline in which they are taught. Although sometimes the teacher and the students of these subjects are from the same discipline, more often the subjects are taught by academics from one discipline to students in a different discipline. Therefore, such subjects are often referred to as *Email: [email protected] ISSN 1356-2517 print/ISSN 1470-1294 online # 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/13562510903315019 http://www.informaworld.com

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‘service subjects’ (Bulmer 1999; Howson et al. 1988; Trowler 1998, 62). Many other ‘service subjects’ are being taught at undergraduate level, such as statistics, mathematics, physics, citizenship, etc. Often associated with the term ‘service subjects’ is the frustration felt by academics when teaching such subjects, since these subjects present a number of pedagogical difficulties (Allen 2005; Lindgren 1977; Morris 2006; Oliver and Plewes 2002, 17): . the subjects’ and their teachers’ marginal and isolated status within the programme; . the fragmentation of knowledge structure presented in the subject because of too many contents to ‘cover’; . students’ lack of necessary acculturation into the discipline represented by the subject, such as the lack of academic vocabulary and discourse and methods of inquiry needed for studying the subject; . difficulty of maintaining a balance between the subject’s double disciplinary facets the discipline of the students’ major and the discipline which the subject is ‘serving’ from; . low student motivation and interest and low attendance rate during lectures; and . unsatisfactory learning results. Therefore, the question that I am raising and trying to address in this paper is: How could teachers of interdisciplinary subjects tackle these instructional challenges in order to increase students’ interest and promote their integration of knowledge and skills learned in these subjects and beyond? To avoid the sometimes pessimistic sentiment attached to the term ‘service subjects’, I prefer using the alternative, ‘interdisciplinary subjects’. Embedded in this other term is a more positive implication that, rather than forcing students into an alien disciplinary culture and indigestible ‘foreign’ knowledge from another discipline, these subjects when well designed and deployed could offer students not only interdisciplinary perspectives but also the opportunity for integration of knowledge/skills in the dynamic, multifaceted professions and workplaces. It should be noted that the subject titles quoted at the beginning of this section only as illustrative examples for the instructional design or redesign of interdisciplinary subjects discussed in this paper, which is mainly meant to be a theoretical exploration. This allows me a free hand to gain insights from reviewing internetbased or print-based subject/programme description documents and research papers on interdisciplinary subjects. The complexity involved in teaching interdisciplinary subjects I have made reference to the concepts of ‘discipline’, ‘disciplinary culture’ and ‘interdisciplinary subjects’ without properly defining them. The term ‘discipline’ refers to: ‘the means of communication, common methods and modes of inquiry, the exchange of research findings, and the creation of norms and values relative to the conduct of research’ (Ratcliff 1997, 14). The discipline exerts strong epistemological influences upon curriculum and pedagogical design in terms of selection and



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organisation of knowledge and assumptions about what students should know and be able to do (i.e. student learning outcomes) and methods of teaching and assessment used to help students achieving desirable learning (D’Andrea and Gosling 2005, 113; Stark and Lattuca 1997). Because of the deep-rooted epistemological influences of the discipline (Ratcliff 1997, 1314), the phenomenon of ‘disciplinary culture’ has drawn much attention of educational researchers working in different areas, such as the knowledge creation and professional learning of academics as members of community of practice (D’Andrea and Gosling 2005, 113; Lave and Wenger 1991; Scho¨n 1996; Taylor, Barr, and Steele 2002; Toohey 1999, 4469) and the scholarship of teaching and learning in diverse disciplines (Hativa and Marincovich 1995; Huber and Morreale 2002). Although the ubiquitous influence of ‘disciplinary cultures’ is questioned by those who critically investigate their ideological impact on students as (future) members of social and professional groups (for instance, D’Andrea and Gosling 2005, 113), the concept itself does usefully alert us to the seriousness of challenges that academics encounter when trying to cross disciplinary boundaries when teaching interdisciplinary subjects. Although the concept of ‘interdisciplinarity’ has wider meaning than what I have adopted in this paper as explained in the introductory section, the examination of this wider meaning may shed light on the question posed in the same section. ‘Interdisciplinarity’ is frequently used to describe a subject, a programme or a research project under names like ‘Integrated Studies’ or ‘Integrated Project’, using such mechanisms as team teaching with academics from different disciplines, group learning, capstone seminars, capstone theses/projects, etc. (Klein and Newell 1997, 4046). Interdisciplinarity benefits the students or the project team through the integration of knowledge/understanding, methodologies and perspectives derived from multiple disciplines of the teaching or research team (Chynoweth 2006; Klein and Newell 1997). It is thus distinguished from ‘multidisciplinarity’, a model that does not necessitate the synthesis of knowledge and methodologies drawn from the disciplines, but tends to present disciplines as non-interactive parallels (Chynoweth 2006; Klein and Newell 1997). Interdisciplinarity is also different from the ‘disciplinary model’, which segregates the field of study into discrete soft/hard and applied/pure cognitive disciplines like islands isolated by the sea (Chynoweth 2006; Morris 2006). The discussion of the concept of ‘interdisciplinarity’ takes us back to the question raised in the previous section. To explore the question in more depth, I now go back to one of the examples of interdisciplinary subjects at the beginning of the paper. The example is law subjects for students in Business Management or Building and Surveying. Some scholars maintain that teaching law subjects in non-law disciplines necessarily invites an ‘interdisciplinary approach’ (Chynoweth 2006; Cotgrave 2005) or what Allen (2005) and Corbin (2002) call the ‘contextual approach’. This approach puts the teaching of the subject in the context of the other or the main discipline. Moreover, it recognises and respects the disciplinary culture of the main discipline. The term ‘interdisciplinary approach’ conveys for the philosophy the cultivation of an interdisciplinary perspective in students, whereas the term ‘contextual approach’ advocates the method of contextualising the subjects in their main discipline and profession. For simplicity of discussion in this paper, I would adopt the term ‘interdisciplinary approach’ for teaching interdisciplinary


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subjects, while making use of the method expressed by the term ‘contextual approach’. A number of advantages may be identified relating to the use of the interdisciplinary approach for teaching law subjects to non-law students. First, students may be provided with an interdisciplinary perspective (Chynoweth 2006). Second, students may be enabled to handle legal and related ethical issues as informed professionals in their own discipline (Byles and Soetendorp 2002, 145). Third, multiple teaching methods can be flexibly used for improving instructional design of the interdisciplinary subjects (Allen 2005; Corbin 2002). Finally, linkage between the multidisciplinary facets of the main discipline can be strengthened, which is necessary for establishing a genuinely integral curriculum for undergraduate programmes that are multidisciplinary in nature, such as the programmes of business management and building education (Allen 2005; Corbin 2002). The advantages of interdisciplinary approach would not be fully exploited without meeting two conditions. The first condition is that the teacher of law must consider the law subject and the main discipline (i.e. the non-law discipline) as ‘two interacting means of dealing with a human problem or activity’. The second condition is that the teacher must be ready to learn from the other discipline, particularly whether and how its theory is put into practice in the main discipline. Perhaps what we can derive from Lindgren’s argument is that: firstly, the teaching of law subjects needs to be teaching ‘in context’ (Lindgren 1977); and secondly, the culture of the ‘other discipline’ should not only be respected but also be taken into serious consideration in content and instructional design of the law subject. Arguably, these two conditions for applying the interdisciplinary approach may also be applicable to other interdisciplinary subjects, without which the interdisciplinary subjects would become irrelevant to students because of the remoteness of disciplinary culture associated with the interdisciplinary subjects as compared with other subjects studied in their main discipline. The interdisciplinary approach to some extent echoes the model of interdisciplinarity suggested by Chynoweth (2006) and Klein and Newell (1997, 4046), but goes further by admitting the significance of the context of the students’ main discipline in curriculum and pedagogical design. And, for sure, the approach is more pertinent to our question at hand because of its direct focus on interdisciplinary subjects. Making interdisciplinary subjects relevant to students: the interdisciplinary approach supported by outcome-based approaches and constructive alignment Although educationally desirable as examined earlier, it would not be an easy undertaking to implement the interdisciplinary approach in curriculum and pedagogical design of interdisciplinary subjects. It would be challenging for the teacher to help students integrate the double facets of the interdisciplinary subject in terms of contents, methodologies and reconcile the possibly differing perspectives and values associated with the disciplines. It would be especially difficult to convince students that venturing into ‘another’ discipline other than their major one and make as much effort as in a subject of their major discipline is meaningful, since the mutual ‘otherness’ of interdisciplinary subjects is so often felt by the teachers of such subjects and their students (Allen 2005, 2). One may further ask: How can the contextualisation of interdisciplinary subjects be realised and how can the desired



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integration of knowledge be achieved? A possible direction for overcoming these difficulties might be going back to the basic questions: (a) What are the reasons for including interdisciplinary subject(s) in the curriculum of the programme in the first place? (b) What outcomes of learning should students achieve by taking interdisciplinary subject(s)? And how can students be helped by the teacher in doing so? Question (a) above asks about the reasons why an interdisciplinary subject is needed in the curriculum, which is usually related to the objectives of the subject in question. Question (b) then asks about the learning outcomes which are the educational consequences of subject in students, i.e. the output of the subject. Reflected in these questions is the idea of outcome-based approaches or outcomebased curriculum, which is a model for curriculum and teaching design emphasising the output, rather than the input, of the teaching system (Adam 2004). The model is advocated by many researchers (Biggs and Tang 2007; D’Andrea and Gosling 2005, 1159; Light and Cox 2001; Spady 1994) and widely adopted by academics, staff developers and policy makers (Adam 2004; Ewell 2005; Oliver and Plewes 2002, 16). The model is most often combined with and, indeed, supported by the principle of constructive alignment, which was first proposed by Biggs (1996, 2003) and advocated by many others (e.g. D’Andrea and Gosling 2005, 1159; Entwistle 2000). Spady (1994, 1) proposes that the starting point of outcome-based model is clarifying what is important for students to be able to do (the intended student learning outcomes), based on which appropriate teaching and assessment methods may be designed to ensure that students achieve the intended learning outcomes. This idea has much in common with constructive alignment, as Biggs (1996, abstract) states: Constructive alignment represents a marriage of the two thrusts, constructivism being used as a framework to guide decision-making at all stages in instructional design in deriving curriculum objectives in terms of performances that represent a suitably high cognitive level, in deciding teaching/learning activities judged to elicit those performances, and to assess and summatively report student performance.

A range of benefits of outcome-based approaches are identified in the literature, such as the benefits for course designers, quality assurance, learners and national/ international education transparency in terms of qualifications (Adams 2004). Yet, some educators have also expressed concerns about learning outcomes, such as the possible restriction of intended learning outcomes on student learning, especially their ‘unintended’ learning outcomes that could be discouraged by the approach (Adams 2004). Others worry that specifying learning outcomes may lead to overemphasis on competences rather than understanding and desirable perspectives and values. These concerns may be addressed by giving emphasis to the desired understanding, values and perspectives in stating the learning outcomes, and by employing teaching and assessment methods that can help students achieve these outcomes (Biggs and Tang 2007). It is argued that because they stress the outcomes to be achieved and demonstrated by students, outcome-based approaches and constructive alignment presuppose a paradigm shift towards student-cantered and learning-oriented teaching and learning (D’Andrea and Gosling 2005, 115; see also Barr and Tagg 1995; Yang 2005a, 2005b). Academics looking for practical tips of writing outcomes statements are often recommended to use the action verbs taken from Bloom’s classification of


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cognitive objectives (Bloom 1956) and Biggs’ Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes taxonomy (SOLO: Biggs and Collis 1982; Biggs and Tang 2007) in order to distinguish students’ understanding and abilities attainable at different levels (Light and Cox 2001). These action verbs can be flexibly used to indicate what students should know (in terms of academics/professional knowledge and understanding), be able to do (in terms of academic/professional, cognitive and generic abilities) and be like (in terms of professional ethics, civic responsibilities and lifelong learning attitudes) upon completion of their studies (Light and Cox 2001; Spady 1994). Having discussed the rationale for relating the implementation of the interdisciplinary approach to outcome-based approaches and the associated principle of constructive alignment, I shall now turn back to discussing questions (a) and (b), raised earlier regarding the reason for including interdisciplinary subjects in the curriculum, and kind of the learning outcomes and teaching strategies for the subjects. Again, I shall use the first example presented in the introductory section: law subjects for students in Business Management or Building and Surveying; and I shall focus specifically on law subjects in Building and Surveying programmes. The built environment is widely recognised in the profession as encompassing multiple disciplines (Byles and Soetendorp 2002; Lindgren 1977; QAA 2002) and, therefore, can serve as a typical ‘case’ for discussion. By comparison, students in Business Management programmes, students are only required to achieve ‘some knowledge and understanding’ of the legal context of business (QAA 2007). Byles and Soetendorp (2002, 145) summarise the reasons for including law in diverse nonlaw curriculums. From the perspective of programme administration, inclusion of law subjects fulfils the purposes of ensuring accountability and meeting the requirements of professional bodies. Inclusion of law subjects is also motivated by the necessity of enabling students to: (a) explore legal issues as part of the background to the main area of study; (b) examine how legal system and methods have been made to operate in their professional areas (see also Lindgren 1977); (c) evaluate the effects of the law on their profession; (d) determine when to bring in a legal advisor; (e) develop the concept of citizenship; (f) create opportunities to change law and shape the law; and (g) communicate across disciplines. Most of these reasons for teaching law subjects to non-law students are associated with the output of law teaching and can be translated into learning outcomes of law subjects for students in non-law disciplines. This is illustrated by the following learning outcomes identified by law educators (Byles and Soetendorp 2002, 149; Morris 2006): . ability of critically examining specific practice issues within legal and ethical dimensions; . ability of engaging in debate on legal practice issues; . ability of accessing legal information (i.e. knowing where and how to retrieve legal information); . ability of applying the law to their discipline and understanding the effect of law on their professional work; . ability of seeking help from and work with in-house/retained lawyers (i.e. knowing when and how to seek legal assistance, thereby acting proactively as professional clients of their lawyers);


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. ability of practicing preventive law and preventive management, leadership and networking to minimise risks (i.e. acting defensively as informed professionals); and . ability of evaluating personal and professional value systems in practice. The above-listed learning outcomes are highly professionally relevant and do not require students to act like a lawyer, as legal learning in law schools would require (Byles and Soetendorp 2002; Morris 2006). Although different law subjects have different scope of knowledge and skills to teach students, the above-listed learning outcomes should aid the subject teacher in putting these general outcomes into their more specific subject contexts in order to formulate the subject outcomes. A number of student-centred innovative teaching and assessment strategies in teaching law to non-law students can be identified in the literature. These strategies are examples of how learning activities and assessment tasks can be constructively aligned with the learning outcomes in the context of multiple disciplines that constitute students’ chosen profession. The first strategy was examined by Morris (2006), which combines problem-based learning with inquiry-based learning. This strategy requires that students investigate into messy legal problems in their professional context, using the knowledge and skills learned in the subject. Three instructional advantages were identified. For one thing, the problem situations retain the untidiness of any real life encounters with legal problems, which may include partial and misinformation, errors, wrong names, etc. Further, students also have to overcome the authentic obstacles in researching and writing about the problems. Lastly, the strategy put students in the position of constructing and negotiating their own syllabus with the teacher and fellow students (in the case of the learning task being assigned to small groups), which facilitate their development of an autonomous learning style. An approach similar to the first one is again a hybrid strategy which combines problem-based learning with role play (Corbin 2002). It is most useful when the law teacher wishes to provide students with hands-on practice opportunities in handling legal matters in the professional context. By taking the role of professionals, students learn to become better informed professionals and better prepared clients of law firms. Activity approach is yet another approach for making law subjects relevant and attractive for non-law students. It emphasises building learning activities into classroom teaching of law subjects, which can take the form of two methods (Soetendorp and Byles 2000). One of the methods constitutes a dialogical approach, which entails non-law student engaging in dialogue (e.g. email messages) with lawyers on topics drawn from the law subject. The other method is case studies, which require students’ actively seeking diverse solutions to legal problems that emerge in the context of students’ own profession. Both methods of the activity approach bring students into a multidisciplinary context for conceptualising and solving real life legal problems relevant to students’ profession. The fourth strategy transforms the traditional lectures into interactive lectures with flexible methods of active classroom learning (Allen 2005). Two such methods would suffice as examples of interactive lectures. One of such methods is the post-it method as a way of brainstorming for group discussion of concepts and terms. The method requires that small groups of students write on post-it notes all possible


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interpretations of legal concepts/principles being discussed, and then share the notes in the whole class. A second method is called the Socratic-casebook method, which is a format of real life case study. Used in group discussions in tutorials and/or lectures, the method entails that students gather and present real life legal case stories in their case books and then share the cases in small groups for in-depth discussion. The instructional benefits of this approach to teaching law subjects are two-fold: it is easy to design and implement in large-class lectures; and it links law subject to students’ main subject area and everyday life. It can be argued that the above-mentioned teaching and assessment strategies and methods are good attempts of making use of the interdisciplinary approach which is strongly supported by the outcome-based model and the principle of constructive alignment. As such, they can offer insights for teaching other interdisciplinary subjects. Conclusion and recommendations for further research In this paper, I have considered the challenges in curriculum and pedagogical design presented by interdisciplinary subjects, which are often termed as ‘service subjects’. After examining the complexity involved in teaching interdisciplinary subjects, especially the extent to which such subjects are affected by the disciplinary cultures co-existing among academics teaching in multidisciplinary programmes and by academics’ interdisciplinary practices, I have come to the tentative conclusion that an interdisciplinary approach can be employed in the designing of such subjects. Then, using some examples of interdisciplinary subjects, it has been demonstrated that this proposed approach can be strongly supported by the outcome-based model of teaching/curriculum design and the principle of constructive alignment along with innovative teaching and assessment strategies/methods. It is argued that this combination of the interdisciplinary approach with outcome-based approaches and constructive alignment can effectively assist the teacher in handling the subject design challenges. Further research can extend the research into issues relating to the curriculum and pedagogical design of interdisciplinary subjects by experimenting on the interdisciplinary approach and associated teaching and assessment strategies as suggested in this paper. This can be done by conducting action research, case studies or other forms of educational research with teachers and students of interdisciplinary subjects. In the meanwhile, investigation may be undertaken to explore academics’ perceptions of and approaches to the design and teaching of interdisciplinary subjects in diverse disciplines. From a broader perspective of interdisciplinarity, it would also be worthwhile to explore academics’ practices in supervising students’ interdisciplinary learning tasks such as capstone projects and collaborative community service projects, which often require students to draw on knowledge and skills learned from more than one discipline or to collaborate with students or professionals from a different discipline. References Adam, S. 2004. Using learning outcomes: Towards the European higher education area Bologna process. Scottish Research [online]. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/ 09/19908/42704 (accessed October 23, 2006).



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