Project Overview

One of the problems of designing and creating the interdisciplinary courses at Georgia College & State University has been to create a truly interdisciplinary approach to the various topics studied. In the design of the two courses studied here (for the design of the IDST 2310 Fine and Applied Arts in Civilization, see the discussion in the 2310 portfolio; for the design of the IDST 2205 Global Issues course, see the discussion in the portfolio), diverse disciplinary perspectives were brought to bear on selected issues and problems, and diverse cultural perspectives were also introduced into each discussion. The courses were intended not only to introduce students to the artistic contributions of the world's civilizations and to contemporary global issues, but to encourage the ability to synthesize and analyze these diverse perspectives and to use multiple resources and disciplines to approach an issue. The theoretical literature suggests that interdisciplinary courses should foster critical abilities, greater empathy for ethical, social, and other issues, greater ability to tolerate ambiguity, the ability to tolerate diverse perspectives, and the ability to synthesize or integrate these diverse perspectives, enlarged perspectives or horizons, more creative, original or unconventional thinking, more humility or listening skills, and sensitivity to bias. (1) As synthesis is one of the higher order skills according to Bloom's Taxonomy and other measures of cognitive development, interdisciplinary studies has an important place in any university curriculum.

Our Interdiscplinary Studies Program plays a central role in our institutional mission as the Public Liberal Arts University of Georgia. The theoretical benefits of an interdisciplinary approach to the curriculum are in harmony with our institutional mission goals, which include the desire "to endow [our] graduates with a passion for achievement, a lifelong curiosity, and an exuberance for learning . Georgia College & State University aims to produce graduates who are well prepared for careers or advanced study and who are instilled with exceptional qualities of mind and character. These include an inquisitive, analytical mind; respect for human diversity and individuality ..." All students at GC&SU must complete at least two interdisciplinary courses in their core work, and may complete as many as nine. Students are required to complete one interdisciplinary course in Area B (Institutional Options) of our core curriculum, and may choose from either the IDST 2205 Global Issues (2 hours), IDST 2210 Ethics in Society (2 hours), or IDST 2215 Communication in Society (2 hours). Students must also complete one course in Area C (Literature and Fine Arts), and may choose from IDST 2310 The Fine and Applied Arts in Civilization (3 hours) or IDST 2315 America's Diverse Cultural Heritage (3 hours)

Although there is a copious amount of theoretical literature on the benefits of an interdisciplinary education, there have been few studies of its actual impact on student learning in the context of specific courses. Mnay studies, among them Jean MacGregor's pioneering study of interdisicplinary learning communities, have focused on student retention as a barometer of success; MacGregor also attempted to assess the intellectual development of students before and after leaving learning communities through pre- and post- MIDs. The MID, as is the case with other standardized measure of intellectual development, is not directly tied to the content of any single course.(2) While this method of assessment is obviously more appropriate for interdisciplinary contexts than the use of nationally normed tests in a specific curricular areas, Michael Field, Russell Lee, and Mary Lee Field argue that many of the instruments designed to measure intellectual or cognitive development are not standardized or fully validated. (3) Other attempts to assess interdisciplinary programs have upon anecdotal evidence from students, such as the questionairres completed by directors of interdisciplinary programs for the Association of Integrative Studies' directory of undergraduate interdisciplinary programs. (4) A.W. Astin further charted the impact of interdisciplinary learning in his What Matters in College? Four Critical Years Revisited. Astin noted the effects of interdisciplinary work on cognitive and academic development, disciplinary and general knowledge, critical thinking, GPA, preparation for graduate and professional school, degree aspirations, intellectual self-concept, performance on MCAT, LSAT, NTE examinations, and self-reported growth measures with the exception of job skills and foreign language.(5) Although these and many other studies have provided documentation of the effacacy of interdisicplinary programs, none have attempted to "probe the precise mechanisms through which interdisicplinary study has such widespread effects" (6).

I was very interested to discover to what extent if at all any of these theoretical affects of an interdisciplinary approach were manifested by the students in their actual course work at my instutitution, and to what extent the students themselves perceived any of these results. I was also interested in whether students perceived their interdisciplinary courses as different from traditional courses in the disciplines and if so, why. In particular, I was interested in whether there were pedagogical techniques that proved more effective in interdisciplinary classes and to what extent student learning could be linked to specific models of interdisciplinary course enactment. I was also interested in what learning problems students might encounter in interdisciplinary contexts and under what conditions students developed integrative habits of mind. In sum, my project attempted to shed some light on how and in what contexts interdisciplinarity produces the postive effects discussed in the literature.

In the fall semester 1999 I conducted an online survey in two courses, IDST 2310 The Fine and Applied Arts in Civilization and IDST 2205 Global Issues in Society. I taught the Fine and Applied Arts course along with occassional guest lecturers and a guest workshop clinician, Dr. Roxanne Farrar of the GC&SU Art Department, while a team of two faculty members, one in Anthropology and another in Geography, taught the IDST 2205 course. In the interviews conducted in the fall 1999 semester over 70 students responded to several general questions about interdisciplinary courses based on their experience in this course, and also whether they thought this course would have an impact on their future performance. They also responded to specific questions about their course content.

In addition to the interviews, I also administered standardized assessment instruments, including the Jackson Personality inventory and the Measure of Epistemological Reflection. The Jackson Personality Inventory provides a quantitative measure of 300 different items related to personality traits and learning preferences. The Measure of Epistemological Reflection provides both quantitative and qualitative measures of cognitive development. These two instruments allowed me to develop profiles of the class members. In the fall of 1999, I also administered the Reflective Judgment Interview.

I analyzed work on student assignments, including examination essays, the final self-portrait project in IDST 2310, active and collaborative assignments, and the mock world summit simulation in IDST 2205. I video-taped the mock world summit in the IDST 2205 Global Issues courses, observed several sessions of the course, and documented the content of each session, pedagogical tools and instruments used, as well as student discussions. I also created extensive documentation of the enactment of my own course, IDST 2310, in the form of online course chapters which are essentially transcriptions of my lectures along with a catalog of slides, assignments used, and transcriptions of guest lectures.

I attempted to triangulate these measures, and I used the results of the Fall 1999 semester to determine what were the basic issues related to student learning outcomes and pedagogy in the interdisciplinary courses and to determine the research problems upon which to focus in subsequent semesters. My primary focus was on the IDST 2310 Fine and Applied Arts course, as that is the course I teach every semester. I used the results from the IDST 2205 Global Issues fall 1999 course primarily for comparison purposes and to enlighten the results of the fall 1999 IDST 2310 course. I continued my study using these same instruments but with modifed student survey forms in my sections of the IDST 2310 course in the Spring 2000, Fall 2001, Spring 2001, and Summer 2001 semesters and in my own section of the IDST 2205 Global Issues course in the Summer 2001. In these sections of the courses, I also conducted video-taped student focus groups, video-taped student presentations, and collected materials from student bulletin board postings in WEBCT. During the summer 2001 I focused more extensively on the IDST 2205 course and developed a full-fliedged course portfolio.

To explore my analysis of these materials, proceed to the IDST 2310 Fine and Applied Arts in Civilization Portfolio or to the IDST 2205 Global Issues in Society portfolio.

ENDNOTES

1. William H. Newell, "Interdisciplinary Curriculum Development," in Issues in Integrative Studies no. 8 (1990) 69-70. Several other authors have written on the outcomes of interdisciplinary education, including Vincent Kavaloski. In his article, "Interdisciplinary Education and Humanistic Aspiration: A Critical Reflection," in Joseph Kockelmans, Interdisciplinarity and Higher Education (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1979), Kavaloski argues that integration of knowledge, freedom of inquiry, and innovation are important outcomes of an interdisciplinary education. A longitudinal study at St. Olaf's College showed that students in the interdisiplinary program had greater tolerance for ambiguity than their counterparts in traditional majors. See Allen J. David and William H. Newell's "Those Experiential Colleges of the 1960's: Where Are They, Now that We Need Them?," in The Chronicle for Higher Education (November 18, 1981), 64. Reprinted in Stephen H. Barnes, ed., Points of View on American Higher Education, Vol. 2 Institutions and Issues (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990). 38-43.

2. See The Washington Center News Fall 1991.

3. Michael Field, Russell Lee, and Mary Lee Field, "Assessing Interdisciplinary Learning," in Julie Thonpson Klein and William G. Doty, eds. Interdisciplinary Studies Today. New Directions for Teaching and Learning no. 58 (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994). William H. Newell thoroughly discusses these and other issues in "Advancing Interdisciplinary Studies," in Handbook of the Undergraduate Curriculum (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996): 393-415.

4. William H. Newell, Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Programs: A Directory (Oxford, Ohio: Association for Integrative Studies, 1986).

5. A.W. Astin, What Matters in College? Four Critical Years Revisited (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992).

6. Julie Thompson Klein and William H. Newell, "Advancing Interdisciplinary Studies," in Handbook of the Undergraduate Curriculum, eds. Jerry gaff and James Ratcliff (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1996), 411.

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