Back to: Phase 1: Gathering the Team
Assess your own attitudes about being part of a collaboration
There are two assessment scales that apply to individuals’ propensity to do well in collaboration: the Research Orientation Scale and the Transdisciplinary Orientation Scale, below.
These scales are intended to get people in a collaboration to realize what is desirable and perhaps to both reflect and to talk among themselves about these features. Neither has official scoring levels with inferences made explicit. For example, one can tell whether one collaborator is more ready for interdisciplinarity than another, but not how much is “enough.” They are eye-opening if taken individually, and background for a group discussion if taken together.
References
Stokols, D., Fuqua, J., Gress, J., Harvey, R., Phillips, K., Baezconde-Garbanati, L., . . . Trochim, W. (2003). Evaluating transdisciplinary science. Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 5 Supplement 1, S21-39.
Stokols, D., Harvey, R., Gress, J., Fuqua, J., & Phillips, K. (2005). In vivo studies of transdisciplinary scientific collaboration: Lessons learned and implications for active living research. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 28(2S2), 202-213.
Hall, K., Stokols, D., Moser, R., Taylor, B., Thornquist, M., Nebeling, L., . . . Jeffery, R. (2008). The collaboration readiness of transdisciplinary research teams and centers: Findings from the National Cancer Institute TREC baseline evaluation study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 35(2S), 161-172.
Misra, S., Stokols, D., & Cheng, L. (2015). The Transdisciplinary Orientation Scale: Factor structure and relation to the integrative quality and scope of scientific publications. Journal of Collaborative Healthcare and Translational Medicine, 3(2) 1042, 1-10.