1. Ways of being multidisciplinary in research
Richard Watson Todd
King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi

2. Multidisciplinary: A modern buzzword
From Google NGrams

3. Multidisciplinary: A modern buzzword
From Corpus of Historical American English

4. 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

5. Multidisciplinary fields
Mechatronics
Bioinformatics
Primate archaeology + =

6. 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

7. Interdisciplinary social research in Thailand

8. Cross-disciplinary research
Cross-disciplinary construct borrowing
Cross-disciplinary method borrowing
Cross-disciplinary method improvement

9. 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

10. Cross-disciplinary method borrowing
Investigating attitudes towards native and non-native English teachers
Use the Implicit Association Test (from social psychology)

11. Cross-disciplinary method improvement
Pilot studies
Applied linguistics
Nursing

12. Cross-disciplinary method improvement
Action research
Applied linguistics
Nursing

13. 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