Interdisciplinary Best Practices for Adapted Physical Activity

ABSTRACT

This article provides an introduction to the literature on interdisciplinary research. It then draws lessons from that literature for the field of adapted physical activity. It is argued that adapted physical activity should be a self-consciously interdisciplinary field. It should insist that research be performed according to recognized interdisciplinary and disciplinary methodologies. Each section of the article addresses an important aspect of the literature on interdisciplinary research and closes with a recommendation for adapted physical activity.

KEYWORDS:

• Communication
• integration
• interdisciplinarity
• interdiscipline
• method
• theory
• transdisciplinarity

Notes

1. Another useful resource is the “About Interdisciplinarity” website of the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies; see http://www.oakland.edu/ais and click on “Resources.”

2. This indeed was the experience at the workshop on which this special issue is based.

3. Repko (2012b) does not devote much attention to the challenges of team research; for this, see Bergmann et al. (2012), Stokols et al. (2010), or the About Interdisciplinarity website (http://www.oakland.edu/ais).

4. Another objection is that most practicing interdisciplinary researchers in the contemporary academy have mastered interdisciplinary research independently and often intuitively. But it was once thought that university teachers needed no guidance on teaching and it is now appreciated that at least some professors can benefit from acquaintance with teaching strategies. As interdisciplinary doctorates become increasingly common, the value of teaching people how to do interdisciplinary research increases.

5. Triangulation is a word borrowed from the practice of surveying: surveyors take readings from different perspectives in order to precisely and accurately identify a particular point. Triangulation is discussed not just in the literature on interdisciplinarity but in the vast literature on mixed methods research. Indeed triangulation is the dominant, though not the sole, justification for mixed methods research.

6. These are the two barriers that are most important when researchers are trying to communicate. There are a host of institutional and psychological barriers that also limit interdisciplinary communication. I might note here the unfortunate tendency of many scholars to assume that their discipline is superior to others.

7. This recommendation thus overlaps with Recommendation 10.