Distributed learning in interdisciplinary teamwork: the role of the social organisation of work

Engineering education increasingly relies on interdisciplinary project-based learning (PjBL) to prepare students for complex real-world problems. Yet bringing students from different disciplines together does not automatically produce interdisciplinary collaboration. This paper addresses a central question: under what conditions do interdisciplinary intentions translate into interdisciplinary practices and outcomes? The paper advances a theoretically grounded approach using the theory of practice architectures to analyse how collaboration is socially organised in practice. Rather than aiming at empirical generalisation, it presents a conceptual exploration illustrated through a single case from a master’s course in interdisciplinary teamwork. The analysis shows how the degree of task interdependence in the organisation of work shaped whether the students’ collaboration became interdisciplinary or remained multidisciplinary. By adopting a sociomaterial view of learning, the paper conceptualises learning as changes in shared practices rather than solely in individual competencies. The study contributes a process-oriented framework for understanding how interdisciplinary collaboration is enabled or constrained in engineering education contexts.