Interdisciplinary education researched: meet the researchers
Interdisciplinary education plays an increasing role at UU. At UU, we educate students to become critical global citizens with an eye for an open society and other perspectives. Interdisciplinary education teaches a student to value their own discipline and embrace insights from outside their own. To further develop this form of education at UU, the Interdisciplinary Education programme has been established. The programme works as research-informed as possible: interventions and forms of education are scientifically researched. This research is done, among others, by three postdocs who started this summer. Meet these postdocs and their research.
Jael Draijer
What is your academic background?
I started with Pedagogical Sciences at UU. I found education most interesting and therefore continued with the research master's in Educational Sciences, also at UU. I did my PhD in Educational Sciences (first at ICLON in Leiden, and then back at UU) and it was about interest development in young people.
What kind of research are you going to do?
I will investigate how students at UU perceive and experience interdisciplinary education. This includes both students in interdisciplinary programmes, and disciplinary students taking an interdisciplinary minor or course in their free space. In doing so, I want to look at both the period before interdisciplinary education (e.g. which students consider interdisciplinary education in their elective space and why?), during (how do they experience this type of education?) and after (how do they subsequently move on to the master's degree and the labour market?).
In what ways do you hope your research will contribute to interdisciplinarity at UU?
I hope that at the end of my research, we will have a better understanding of what different students encounter with regard to interdisciplinary education. Based on this, I want to develop tools that we can use to reduce barriers among students. In this way, I hope that more students will have the opportunity to get acquainted with interdisciplinarity and that they will see its value (even more).
What appeals to you about interdisciplinarity?
Interdisciplinary education gives students space to engage with multiple and diverse interests in their studies. During my bachelor's I followed an interdisciplinary honours programme, which allowed me to study all kinds of subjects (outside pedagogical sciences) that I also found very interesting. I also really like the fact that in interdisciplinary education you often deal with social issues. This way, education is more involved with society and it becomes clear how relevant each discipline is in the bigger picture.
Jessica Oudenampsen
What is your academic background?
I studied medicine at the Radboudumc in Nijmegen. In my PhD research, I combined educational sciences with communication and information science and with medicine.
What kind of research are you going to do?
I will focus my research at UU on the teacher perspective within interdisciplinary education. This includes, for example, exploring how we prepare teachers properly to teach interdisciplinary education (teach the teacher), developing interdisciplinary education and evaluating interdisciplinary education.
In what ways do you hope your research will contribute to interdisciplinarity at UU?
To create an interdisciplinary culture at UU, it is important that students, lecturers and the organisation all see the added value of it. Once that added value is clear, it is important that interdisciplinary education is also of good quality. That quality can be improved by training lecturers, knowing how best to shape education and how to evaluate it.
What appeals to you about interdisciplinarity?
In my medical education, I was trained in an incredibly disciplinary way. In my own training, I greatly missed the input of other perspectives and insights. In my opinion, this is a missed opportunity; it is precisely by coming into contact with other perspectives that you get to know your own discipline better, that you know better what your own expertise is and where the other person can help you in the collaboration. It makes working together so much more fun (and effective)! I would like every student, lecturer and staff member at UU to experience this too.
Zowi Vermeire
What is your academic background?
I started my academic career at Amsterdam University College where I focused on film, cultural studies, political science and sociology. I then did a masters in film and philosophy at King's College London, followed by a research masters in Media and Performance Studies at Utrecht University. My dissertation is at the intersection between anthropology, media studies and pedagogical sciences.
What kind of research are you going to do?
I will investigate the governance structure of interdisciplinary education both at UU and also outside UU. I want to do this through an interview study and an organisational ethnography.
In what ways do you hope your research will contribute to interdisciplinarity at UU?
I hope to clarify the underlying visions of interdisciplinary education and how these (can) feed policy at different universities, in order to better understand and justify the choices UU makes. In addition, I hope to uncover underlying patterns (hierarchies, assumptions about other disciplines, infrastructure) that thwart or facilitate interdisciplinary education at UU. I also want to provide tools that contribute to the sustainability of embedding an interdisciplinary educational culture within UU.
What appeals to you about interdisciplinarity?
The creativity you need to work and think interdisciplinary really appeals to me, as does the inherent curiosity about the knowledge of others. Because of my own interdisciplinary background, I feel that I have learnt to combine concepts and ideas from different fields that can provide valuable insights that otherwise would not come, for example on social media and learning.