Making disciplinary perspectives explicit and other best practices for interdisciplinary work in educational neuroscience
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1
Harvard Graduate School of Education, ISB, United States
Education is a field rather than a discipline [2], and therefore lacks a single cohesive set of the defining elements of a discipline as identified by Repko [1], including assumptions, theories, methods, phenomena of interest, and epistemological perspectives. Instead, each of the disciplines that approaches problems in education (such as psychology, sociology or economics) brings its own latent set of disciplinary characteristics to the study of education. As a result, confusion and miscommunication between researchers of different disciplinary backgrounds often arises. This problem is heightened in the area of Educational Neuroscience and may be a serious hindrance to progress in the field.
In previous work, we have attempted to make explicit the defining elements of disciplines contributing to educational neuroscience (such as developmental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and educational psychology inter alia) and demonstrate how they may conflict or cause confusion when not acknowledged, using the example of each discipline’s contributions to the study of reading disorders. Here, we build on that understanding by comparing the still-emerging interdisciplinary field of Educational Neuroscience to more established interdisciplinary fields; we will use this comparison to infer best practices for interdisciplinary work in Educational Neuroscience as well as to examine pitfalls we can avoid as the field goes forward. We believe that a wider understanding of the importance of making disciplinary perspectives explicit will lead to greater productivity in the field of Educational Neuroscience in the future.
References
1. Repko, A. F. (2008). Interdisciplinary research: Process and theory. London: Sage Publications, Inc.
2. Shulman, L. S. (1981). Disciplines of inquiry in education: An overview. Educational Researcher, 10(6), 5 -12.
Conference:
EARLI SIG22 - Neuroscience and Education, Zurich, Switzerland, 3 Jun - 5 Jun, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Perspectives on educational neuroscience
Citation:
Kalra
P and
O'Keefe
JK
(2010). Making disciplinary perspectives explicit and other best practices for interdisciplinary work in educational neuroscience.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
EARLI SIG22 - Neuroscience and Education.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.11.00017
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Received:
28 May 2010;
Published Online:
28 May 2010.
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Correspondence:
Priya Kalra, Harvard Graduate School of Education, ISB, Paris, United States, prk597@mail.harvard.edu