Page 24 - Teaching and learning of interdisciplinary thinking in higher education in engineering

Chapter 1
The research context of steps 2 and 3 was the interdisciplinary field of FQM, which involves the knowledge integration between technology-related and management-related disciplines (see chapters 3, 4, and 5 for more information about FQM). The research context of the master curriculum on FQM was chosen for a couple of reasons varying from theoretical to practical: (a) the master curriculum is based upon theoretical concepts with respect to IDT (Luning & Marcelis, 2006) and interdisciplinary research (Luning & Marcelis, 2007, 2009b), (b) this curriculum aimed at the development of broad IDT which is necessary for HEE (e.g., Schaefer et al., 2012), (c) this curriculum features problem-centred teaching, which is one of the identified commonly used pedagogical strategies in interdisciplinary education (Nikitina, 2006), and (d) this curriculum has several interdisciplinary courses which are provided by teachers who have experience in interdisciplinary higher education for a number of years. It was expected that the field of FQM is representative to explore the teaching and learning of IDT of engineering students with respect to complex problem solving.
1.6 Thesis outline
Chapter 2 reports on the literature review on teaching and learning of IDT in higher education. Chapter 3 reports on the critical evaluation of the implementation of the instructional design on IDT in HEE. Chapter 4 reports on the analytical characterization of student learning processes on IDT in HEE. Chapter 5 reports on the critical analysis of learning challenges, student strategies, and outcomes of education in IDT. Chapter 6 synthesizes and reflects upon the research described in this thesis and presents the developed conceptual framework on teaching and learning of IDT.
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