TSAL Toolkit

Learn to integrate your knowledge with that of others

Transdisciplinary Orientation is a skill set that enhances interdisciplinary research outcomes.  There are 5 behaviors that it encompasses:

• “Transdisciplinary values are core guiding principles that incline an individual to participate and work effectively in cross-disciplinary research and incorporate theories and methodologies from other fields into one’s own research.
• Transdisciplinary attitudes include willingness to invest time in learning about fields other than one’s own and tackling complex problems even though doing so requires expending additional time and effort.
• Transdisciplinary beliefs that the benefits of team scholarship outweigh its costs and that they are more (or less) productive when they work in teams versus alone.
• Transdisciplinary conceptual skills and knowledge include being able to view research problems and questions holistically from distinct vantage points and traverse multiple levels of analysis.  Create conceptual frameworks that account for many causes and consequences of research problems, build on multiple fields, and synthesize diverse philosophical paradigms.  It includes systems thinking, knowledge management strategies, as well as stakeholder analysis and anticipatory governance skills for engaging in community based participatory research.
• Transdisciplinary behaviors include reading journals and books from different fields, attending conferences and meetings outside one’s own field, and engaging with colleagues from other disciplines to share and integrate ideas. Using research methods from other fields.