Differentiation between Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Concepts

Post by: Wasla Zainab Awan
March 1, 2022
1 Comment

There are different ways to understand certain concepts especially when it comes to grabbing complete understanding of an academic concept coming straight out of a complicated research. To make this process of understanding clear and smooth, numerous techniques defined by certain terminologies have been introduced, and out of those, we have listed out some of the approaches defined ahead.

• Multidisciplinary:

People from different disciplines working together, each drawing on their disciplinary knowledge.

• Interdisciplinary:

Integrating knowledge and methods from different disciplines, using a real synthesis of approaches.

• Transdisciplinary:

Creating a unity of intellectual frameworks beyond the disciplinary perspective.

• Intra disciplinary:

Working within a single discipline.

• Cross disciplinary:

Viewing one discipline from the perspective of another.

Following are some of the most commonly used terminologies in scientific and research based concepts. We are going to elaborate “Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Concepts ” out of these with a brief description.

• Interdisciplinary Concepts:

Interdisciplinary concepts or inter-disciplinary education refers to the concepts or teaching of those concepts which requires learning a single subject from multiple perspectives.

Interdisciplinary concepts or interdisciplinary education is considered best when it comes to boosting the learning outcomes and making the whole understanding process interesting and enthusiastic for the students.

Interdisciplinary teaching allows students to think critically, identify their own prejudices, accept the unknown and respect ethical quandaries with enabling the students to understand different insights and perceptions of different disciplines, also synthesizes information surrounding a topic and, ultimately, offers a more complete understanding of an issue.

Interdisciplinary teaching goes beyond multi-disciplinary or cross-disciplinary teaching which is a bit more complicated due to its requirement of multiple teachers or educators and their mutual collaboration to execute the approach properly.

• Transdisciplinary Concepts:

Transdisciplinary concepts or transdisciplinary education that brings integration of different disciplines in a harmonious manner to construct new knowledge and uplift the learner to higher domains of abilities and sustained knowledge and skills.

An approach to curriculum integration that dissolves the boundaries between the conventional disciplines and organizes teaching and learning around the construction of meaning in the context of real-world problems or themes.

Both of these techniques have got different point of views and perceptions by researchers and educationists belonging to different disciplines and research paradigms.

For everyone, the preference is different. For example, a very common perception about the interdisciplinary concept or interdisciplinary education is that it seems very costly in aspects of both time and money. Students trained by the domain of interdisciplinary concepts often experience lack in sufficient knowledge or skills.

Therefore it is quite early to make a statement regarding the best approach out of these. All we can do is to keep the research pace smooth and constant to find out further processions that can be made in the education and research sector.