Page 116 - Teaching and learning of interdisciplinary thinking in higher education in engineering

Chapter 5
Further research directions are numerous: (1) replication studies to validate the present results and to verify that the present findings can be generalized (Babbie, 2010), (2) experimental studies to develop pedagogical support for students contending with the challenges of IDT learning, (3) learning studies to further analyse short-term learning processes. This would involve extending the investigation to individual students to better understand how students learn IDT, (4) design-based research studies to investigate the impact of constructively aligned designs on IDT learning, (5) design studies of assessment instruments (Boix Mansilla, Duraising, Wolfe, & Haynes, 2009; Engström, 2014; Hackett & Rhoten, 2009; Lattuca et al., 2013). Ideally, these design studies would focus on an individual's performance. Table 5.7 presents an initial version of an assessment instrument for assessing an individual's IDT performance.
5.7 Conclusions and implications
In extending the understanding of student IDT learning in HEE, the present research concludes that empirical evidence was found to support the learning theory of Illeris (2002, 2007) and the FQM concepts of Luning and Marcelis (2007) with respect to short-term IDT learning processes. In particular, the present research concludes that students face challenges on all three learning dimensions of Illeris during IDT learning in the FQM course. In this respect, students tend to report content-related and interaction-related challenges more frequently than incentive-related challenges. Furthermore, the present research concludes that during IDT learning, students make every one of the four types of disciplinary knowledge connection that are possible in FQM. In this respect, students tend to report tc–hd and tc–ac disciplinary knowledge connections more frequently than fd–hd and fd–ac disciplinary knowledge connections. Overall, it can be concluded that research in ‘designing for learning’
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