Interdisciplinary mobility: an approach to measuring interdisciplinary learning outcomes by using curricular checkpoints

Purpose UNESCO’s ESD for 2030 Agenda places interdisciplinarity at the top of the three interrelated strategies for higher education contributions. However, more needs to be known about interdisciplinarity from a learning perspective, especially its measured relationship with learning outcomes. Does interdisciplinarity improve or hinder learning outcomes? What specific learning outcomes are more sensitive to interdisciplinarity? If a university prides itself on interdisciplinary teaching and learning, how is it fulfilled based on its curriculum? This study aims to focus on an intentionally interdisciplinary undergraduate curriculum at a Chinese university to answer these questions. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a concept of interdisciplinary mobility to observe the extent to which undergraduate students would intentionally navigate across academic divisions at key curricular checkpoints. It then adopts student self-reporting on a set of institutional learning outcomes, aligned with AAC&U’s VALUE framework, to examine the correlations between the mobility patterns and the self-reported outcomes. Finally, it uses the qualitative self-reported data to deepen alignment between the institutional learning outcomes and the VALUE framework. Findings The study finds that students demonstrate distinctive patterns of interdisciplinary mobility when they intentionally navigate across academic divisions at key curricular checkpoints. Students make these decisions, which allow them to become interdisciplinarily wider, narrower or as is. Some of these mobility patterns show significantly positive or negative correlations with the self-reported outcomes, e.g. research capabilities. One mobility pattern demonstrates particularly higher self-reported outcomes. Originality/value This study introduces a concept of interdisciplinary mobility, which could inspire creative use of curricular checkpoints and therefore allow examining interdisciplinarity vertically vis-à-vis horizontally.