Techniques of Integrating Insights

Repko’s extensive research and interdisciplinary practice has led him to identify specific techniques that help integrate insights to form a deeper, interdisciplinary understanding of a complex issue. Practice in integration and justification will help you to begin taking an interdisciplinary, rather than a disciplinary, view of your problem statement or focus question. In this week’s Discussion, you will select one of these integrative techniques, justify how it will apply to your insights, and explain why other techniques would not be adequate.

To prepare for this Discussion:

•Review the assigned pages of Chapters 9 and 11 in the course text, Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory. Pay particular attention to the examples on pages 328–336, which apply techniques for integrating insights.

•Review your Capstone Milestone 3 assignment. How did the integrative technique(s) you chose help to create a common ground between conflicting insights?

•Investigate disciplinary literature (from the Walden library, books, professional magazines, newspapers, etc.) to justify your choice of technique for integrating insights based on your problem statement or focus question.

•Consider the application of each integrative technique to the insights you identified when creating common ground. Why is one technique (expansion, extension, or redefinition) more applicable than others to the common ground you discovered in the Capstone Milestone 3 assignment?

With these thoughts in mind:

Post by Day 3 2 or 3 paragraphs justifying your choice of an integrative technique when merging insights. In your post, be sure to:

•Identify the technique you intend to use to integrate insights.

•Justify why this is the best choice of the three techniques to integrate insights based on your problem statement or focus question.

Be sure to support your ideas by connecting them to the week’s Learning Resources, or something you have read, heard, seen, or experienced.

Learning Resources

This page contains the Learning Resources for this week. Be sure to scroll down the page to see all of this week’s assigned Learning Resources. To access select media resources, please use the media player below.

Readings

•Course Text: Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory

◦Chapter 5, “Explaining the Importance of Integration” (pp. 123–125, 131–133)

◦Chapter 12, “Integrating Insights and Producing an Interdisciplinary Understanding” (pp. 295–310)

These chapters explain how and why to integrate insights and will serve as resources for this week’s Discussion and Capstone Milestone assignments.

◦Carey, M. (2009). Latin American environmental history: Current trends, interdisciplinary insights, and future directions. Environmental History, 14(2), 221–252.

Located in the Walden Library, Research Library database. Document ID: 1801948741.

This article demonstrates how interdisciplinary integration has been accomplished at real-world practice, and will be a useful example for understanding how to integrate insights for this week’s Capstone Milestone assignment.

•Documents

◦Week 3 PPGP assignment

◦The PPGP Process (Word document)

This document contains a map of how the PPGP assignments connect to each other and a brief explanation of the purpose of the PPGP process.

•Websites

◦APA Style

◾APA General Format

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01

◾APA Research Style Crib Sheet

http://google.wooster.edu/search?q=APA+style+crib+sheet

Review these websites for proper APA style for Week 4 assignments.

Media

•Integrated Model of the Interdisciplinary Research Process Map

This Flash-based animation will allow you to make choices at each step of the Repko Model of Interdisciplinary Research that will demonstrate how that step works and relates to other elements in the Interdisciplinary Research process. This model will be used in all of the Capstone Milestone assignments.

•Video: Laureate Education (Producer). (n.d.). Taking an interdisciplinary approach to identifying comprehensive solutions [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 9 minutes.

In this interview, Dr. June Maul and Dr. Farideh Mohajer continue to outline the IDS process. In this segment, they discuss the importance of researching and locating insights to find the best solution and identifying personal bias. They also suggest how identifying what hasn’t been tried in the past can be useful in finding a new solution to a problem. To view this video program, use the media player located at the top of this page.

Accessible player–Downloads–Download Video w/CCDownload Audio

Optional Resources

•Course Text: Essential guide to APA style for Walden students

◦Chapter 3, “Following APA Editorial Style Guide” (pp. 39–59)

◦Chapter 4, “Preparing the Reference List and In-Text Citations” (pp. 60–72)

◦Chapter 5, “Citing Periodicals” (pp. 74–81)

◦Chapter 6, “Citing Books and Other Separately Published Materials” (pp. 82–95)

◦Chapter 8, “Citing Electronic Sources” (pp. 102–1 12)

These chapters are useful resources to accurately cite sources in all course assignments.

Please proceed to the Discussion.

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