Ways of being multidisciplinary in research Richard Watson Todd King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi
Multidisciplinary: A modern buzzword From Google NGrams
Multidisciplinary: A modern buzzword From Corpus of Historical American English
Multidisciplinary research All research combining disciplines Different types of research combining disciplines Multidisciplinary: Researchers from different disciplines work separately on the same problem and then share Interdisciplinary: Researchers from different disciplines work closely together throughout the research process Cross-disciplinary: Borrowing constructs and methods across disciplines
Multidisciplinary fields Mechatronics Bioinformatics Primate archaeology + =
Multidisciplinary social research in Thailand Environmental Impact Assessments Goal: To identify the likely effects of a new factory An environmental scientist predicts the emissions An economist conducts a cost – benefit analysis A sociologist examines the social impacts on local communities The final report brings all aspects together
Interdisciplinary social research in Thailand
Cross-disciplinary research Cross-disciplinary construct borrowing Cross-disciplinary method borrowing Cross-disciplinary method improvement
Cross-disciplinary construct borrowing How to show single unambiguous topic in the middle of the text, but multiple competing topics in rest of text? Look into fuzzy logic (originally from electrical engineering) and use the construct of fuzzy entropy Fuzzy entropy scores 0.255 0.382 0.395 0.085 0.298 0.187
Cross-disciplinary method borrowing Investigating attitudes towards native and non-native English teachers Use the Implicit Association Test (from social psychology)
Cross-disciplinary method improvement Pilot studies Applied linguistics Nursing
Cross-disciplinary method improvement Action research Applied linguistics Nursing
Being multidisciplinary Traditional multidisciplinary research Addressing new problems Creating innovations Difficult to set up and run Cross-disciplinary research Extending own field Creativity within own field Higher quality within own field