Page 21 - Teaching and learning of interdisciplinary thinking in higher education in engineering

General introduction
(incentive), and social and societal aspects (interaction dimension) during the learning processes (Illeris, 2002). The concept of learning is defined as ‘any process that in living organisms leads to permanent capacity change and which is not solely due to biological maturation or ageing’ (Illeris, 2007, p. 3). This means that in case of learning, the permanent capacity change can be content-related, incentive-related, or interaction-related, or an integrated content-incentive-interaction change. This theory, similar to the constructive alignment theory of Biggs and Tang, also features the constructivism basis; the concept of learning is considered as the construct of knowledge of individual learners by adapting their mental structures, schemes, and patterns (Illeris, 2003).
Both theories, the theory of Biggs and Tang, and the learning theory of Illeris, were used to advance the understanding on teaching and learning of IDT in HEE in order to answer the main research question:
“Which teaching and learning aspects need to be taken into account in order to teach engineering students IDT with respect to complex problem solving?”
Four studies were conducted to investigate the teaching and learning aspects. The first two studies mainly focused on the teaching aspects, using the constructive alignment theory of Biggs and Tang. Additionally, the other two studies mainly focused on the learning aspects, using the learning theory of Illeris. Each study addressed one sub research question in order to answer the main research question:
a. What are the main subskills of IDT and the main enabling conditions to teach IDT in interdisciplinary higher education? (study I)
b. What are the key design criteria that need to be taken into account to teach engineering students IDT in HEE? (study II)
c. What are the key learning experiences that need to be taken into account to teach engineering students IDT in HEE? (study III)
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