A Qualitative Study of Graduate Student and Faculty Expectations, Experiences, and Beliefs Regarding Interdisciplinary Education

ABSTRACT Research on interdisciplinarity and interdisciplinary education, including at the graduate level, has been increasing over the past few decades. Interdisciplinary research and collaboration have been discussed in the current literature as having the potential to aid in solving complex contemporary problems or issues by accounting for their intricacies through the inclusion of multiple disciplinary perspectives. Despite efforts to increase interdisciplinary opportunities in graduate education, a need remains to better understand the experiences and viewpoints of graduate students and graduate faculty members, to better inform current and future directions in improving the practice of interdisciplinary research and the pedagogies around interdisciplinary education. Gleaning a better understanding of graduate student expectations, experiences, opinions and beliefs related to teaching and learning can be used to facilitate improvements in interdisciplinary education. This project utilized qualitative methods employing semi‐structured interviews with inductive coding to understand the expectations, perspectives and beliefs held by graduate students and graduate faculty based in the social sciences, while also inquiring about their histories, expectations, and interests around interdisciplinary education and research. Thematic analysis was conducted to identify repeating topics and themes from participant interviews. Interest in and beliefs about the importance of interdisciplinary education and research were noted during interviews of both graduate students and graduate faculty members. Graduate students were interested in and willing to take interdisciplinary courses and work on interdisciplinary research teams; and they may expect these experiences. Graduate faculty members expressed confidence in their ability to instruct interdisciplinary courses and were already engaged in interdisciplinary research. Participants identified benefits and barriers to the practice of interdisciplinarity and its associated opportunities and challenges in graduate education and training. There was a common positive perception of the importance and value of interdisciplinary graduate education and interdisciplinary research. Participant experiences and perspectives may help to initiate or further develop interdisciplinary graduate education programs. Furthermore, understanding information from our interviewees may help to develop existing or future graduate interdisciplinary education programs with aims of improving graduate student learning, comprehension, and interdisciplinary professional development. Although this study identified a common interest and perceived importance in interdisciplinarity within the social sciences, further research is needed to better understand the beliefs and experiences of graduate students and graduate faculty members to help inform the creation, development, implementation, assessment, and continued success of graduate‐level interdisciplinary education programs. This study directly explored the expectations, beliefs, and experiences of graduate students and graduate faculty members focusing on interdisciplinary teaching and learning. Graduate students described how their exposure to interdisciplinary interactions and environments bolstered their own skillsets and knowledge, while enabling them to have lower‐stakes introductions to interdisciplinary research. Faculty experiences provided valuable insight regarding potential routes to improve interdisciplinary educational settings, while navigating the difficulties faced when traversing between scholarly disciplines. These experiences, perceptions, and beliefs could be utilized to improve the quality of existing graduate education programs or in supporting the creation of new or additional opportunities to educate and train graduate students in interdisciplinarity.