Dissertation

Explicating a model of interdisciplinary collaboration

Keating, Stacen A

2006

Overview

Academic research is being confronted with a changing landscape. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Roadmap Initiative (2002) identified interdisciplinary collaboration as a major priority of all future research efforts. Numerous researchers have noted the increasing complexity of societal problems and the need to collaborate with colleagues across different disciplines to begin to solve these problems. Funding agencies are increasingly asking researchers to collaborate with one another. The current thinking is that this interdisciplinary model of inquiry will yield better results than more traditional models of inquiry. But little is known about the science surrounding interdisciplinary research. Empirical studies need to be done to further our understanding of how to best conduct interdisciplinary research. The current study was able to fill in gaps in the literature by providing evidence of important patterns inherent in interdisciplinary research. In addition, the study explicated a beginning model of collaboration for academic health care researchers working across disciplines to advance aging science. By becoming a participant observer in an interdisciplinary research center at a large urban university, this investigator was able to conduct a naturalistic study involving qualitative and quantitative methods to record research meetings, interview participants, compile field notes and survey members on their experiences as part of an interdisciplinary center. Using a model of team geriatric clinical collaboration developed by Heinemann & Zeiss (2002) as a framework, this investigator looked at structure, context, process and outcome domains for researchers working within an academic interdisciplinary center. Findings revealed a number of important patterns inherent in interdisciplinary research within each of those domains. As a result, a beginning model of collaboration was developed and explicated by this investigator: The Geriatric Interdisciplinary Research Team (GIRT) Model of Collaboration. The most productive research team in the study was shown to have overall high levels of functioning in the model domains. A major finding from this study was the importance of having a common research focus among team members. The study findings provide future researchers an empirical base for building and evaluating their collaborative research teams.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Gerontology / Health education / Nursing
• ISBN: 9780549073550, 0549073558