Session Agenda•  Goal– Provide both a theoretical framework and a

applied case study addressing the complex impact(s) of diversity on the making and sharing of knowledge and understanding

Session Agenda•  Timeline– Toolbox 1.0 – Michael will introduce the original

toolbox and say something about its motivation(s) – 15 mins.

– Feminist Perspectives – Katie will discuss conceptual and empirical perspectives on diversity, and how it can be leveraged in the context of teams – 30 mins.

Session Agenda•  Timeline– Toolbox 2.0 – Stephanie will introduce the newest

Toolbox and discuss how it responds to some of the points that Katie raises – 20 mins.

– Q&A – 30 mins

Introducing the Toolbox Project

Michael O’RourkeThe Toolbox Project

http://toolbox-project.org/

Outline•  Beginnings– What is interdisciplinary research?–  IGERT at Idaho

•  An Analysis– Disciplinary Styles and Miscommunication

•  A Response– The Leading Idea– The Role of Philosophy– An Instrument and a Workshop

•  Summing up

What is interdisciplinary research?•  Interdisciplinary research (IDR) is research that:–  Involves integrating insight from multiple disciplines,

understood as knowledge cultures–  Is a way of meeting complex problems with complex

responses in an attempt to minimize damaging ignorance–  Is often distinguished from multidisciplinary research

(MDR) and transdisciplinary research (TDR) on the basis of level of integration

–  Is often collaborative, although it need not be

Beginnings

What is interdisciplinary research?•  This creates the conditions for the Challenge of

Different Worldviews

Beginnings

IGERT at Idaho … •  2001 U. of Idaho receives an NSF IGERT

(Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship)–  Barriers to IDR (e.g., student buy in, faculty buy in,

resources) are dismantled–  2004 – IGERT students approach PIs and request

seminar on philosophical approaches to IDR to address the Challenge of Different Worldviews

–  2005 – Seminar, “Philosophical Issues in Interdisciplinary Research”, co-taught by Eigenbrode and O’Rourke

Beginnings

… and Beyond•  Leading to:–  Development of dialogue-based workshops–  Eigenbrode et al. (2007). Employing philosophical

dialogue in collaborative science. BioScience 57: 55­64.

–  Funding from NSF (SES-0823058, 2008; SBE-1338614, 2013)

–  180+ workshops around the world involving over 1500 participants

Beginnings

A Philosophical Diagnosis•  One Take: IDR is difficult because of the conceptual

commitments one makes that frames what one knows (Eigenbrode et al. 2007, O’Rourke & Crowley 2013)– These tend to be imbibed at an adviser’s knee– They are tacit and constitute the invisible framework

of one’s knowledge

An Analysis

A Philosophical Diagnosis•  One Take: IDR is difficult because of the conceptual

commitments one makes that frames what one knows (Eigenbrode et al. 2007, O’Rourke & Crowley 2013)– They form one’s perspective on the issue involved in

the IDR project– They can generate problems when they conflict that

are difficult to diagnose and remediate

An Analysis

A Philosophical Diagnosis•  These commitments can be organized and

described•  They come in at least three flavors:–  Epistemic: What is it about you that enables you to

investigate the world? –  Metaphysical: What is it about the world that enables it to

be investigated by you? (Kornblith 1993)

An Analysis

A Philosophical Diagnosis•  These commitments can be organized and

described•  They come in at least three flavors:–  Axiological: What normative characteristics are relevant

to understanding the investigator and the investigated?•  Dealing with the Problem: make commitments

explicit à enhanced understanding à use that understanding to guide combination of perspectives

An Analysis

Better Science through Philosophy– Leading Idea:

Enhanced understanding à Enhanced communication

– One can enhance understanding by using philosophical concepts & methods to frame reflection on research commitments

– The Goal: Enhance communication and increase collaborative capacity by reducing the amount “lost in translation” across knowledge cultures

A Response

A Philosophical Treatment•  Dialogue methods are a way to fill in the framework –  These use dialogue to understand and address problems

of research integration (McDonald et al. 2010)–  Dialogue is understood here as the use of conversation to

jointly create meaning and understanding –  Dialogue methods differ in how they structure dialogue

and aim it at problematic aspects of research integration–  The Idea: use a boundary object to structure a dialogue in

which participants in an IDR project articulate and share their perspectives for one another

A Response

An Instrument and a Dialogue Session•  The Toolbox Instrument–  A set of modules containing conceptual prompts that

reveal fundamental research and practice assumptions–  They address epistemic, metaphysical, and axiological

dimensions–  They are associated with Likert scales (i.e., Disagree …

Agree)

A Response

An Instrument and a Dialogue Session•  The Toolbox Dialogue Session

–  Begins and ends with participants scoring the Toolbox

–  2 hour dialogue about research assumptions structured by the Toolbox

–  Various follow-up data collected

A Response

Metaphysics IV. Reality

Core Question: Do the products of scientific research more closely reflect the nature of the world or the researchers’ perspective?

17. Scientific research aims to identify facts about a world independent of the investigators. Disagree Agree 1 2 3 4 5 I don’t know N/A 18. Scientific claims need not represent objective reality to be useful. Disagree Agree 1 2 3 4 5 I don’t know N/A 19. Models invariably produce a distorted view of objective reality. Disagree Agree 1 2 3 4 5 I don’t know N/A 20. The subject of my research is a human construction. Disagree Agree 1 2 3 4 5 I don’t know N/A 21. The members of this team have similar views concerning the reality core question. Disagree Agree 1 2 3 4 5 I don’t know N/A

Toolbox ExcerptA Response

Initial Conditions– Conceptual, disembodied response to the

Challenge of Different Worldviews– Emphasis on traditional epistemology as a

framework for the dialogue workshops– Top-down development of a structure for dialogue

among collaborators– Development of “one instrument to rule them all”

Summing Up

ReferencesEigenbrode, S. D., O’Rourke, M., Althoff, D., Goldberg, C., Merrill, K., Morse, W., Nielsen­Pincus, M.,

Stephens, J., Winowiecki, L., Wulfhorst, J. D., Bosque­Pérez, N. (2007). Employing philosophical dialogue in collaborative science. BioScience 57: 55­64.

Kornblith, H. (1993) Inductive Inference and Its Natural Ground. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. McDonald, D., Bammer, G., Deane, P. Research Integration Using Dialogue Methods. Canberra: ANU E

Press.O’Rourke, M., Crowley, S. (2013). Philosophical intervention and cross-disciplinary science: The story of

the Toolbox Project. Synthese 190: 1937-1954. doi: 10.1007/s11229-012-0175-y.