Dissecting owl pellets by VSPYCC (CC BY 2.0)
Universities are typically divided up into a number of different disciplines or fields of study that manifest themselves as departments that are grouped together in various colleges. For example, the biology department and is part of the College of Science and the anthropology department is part of the College of Humanities & Social Sciences. Each of these disciplines has a group of professors who are experts in that particular discipline. These faculty members research and teach their particular branch of knowledge here at SUU. At some point during your academic career you declared a major and now have a home department and a core set of courses to take within that major or discipline. Upon receiving your diploma you will become an official member of the discipline.
Each discipline has their own unique perspective or lenses through which they study and interpret the world. This perspective determines what phenomena are being studied, how they are being studied, and what theories exist to explain, predict, and understand these phenomena. A sociologist might study anti-vaccination behavior during a pandemic, something that would probably not interest a physicist in the slightest.
In Module 2 we are delving deeper into our disciplines and sub-disciplines to discover what phenomena are being studied and what concepts and vocabulary your discipline uses. What are the kind of questions that excite the people in your field? What are the big questions? What are the topics that interest you? How do you formulate a research question relevant to your discipline?
Let's take another look at the six defining elements of a discipline (Repko & Szostak, 2021). They are:
Now let's define some of these terms to expand our understanding of these six elements:
In the Module 2 Assignment, you will start to explore your discipline more deeply and come up with a research question about something that interests you. Having a better understanding of the what and how of your discipline will help.
End Notes:
[1] Repko & Szostak (2021). Interdisciplinary Research : Process and Theory
[2] "epistemology, n.". OED Online. September 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.proxy.li.suu.edu:2443/view/Entry/63546?redirectedFrom=epistemology (accessed September 11, 2021).
[3] "assumption, n.". OED Online. September 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.proxy.li.suu.edu:2443/view/Entry/12052?redirectedFrom=assumption (accessed September 11, 2021).
[4] "theory, n.". OED Online. September 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.proxy.li.suu.edu:2443/view/Entry/200431?redirectedFrom=theory (accessed September 11, 2021).
[5] "method, n.". OED Online. September 2021. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed-com.proxy.li.suu.edu:2443/view/Entry/117560?rskey=AEWyjp&result=1 (accessed September 11, 2021).
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