Extended Essay 专题论文: Disciplinary Lenses

Academic disciplines play a key role in students’ interdisciplinary work. Students are not expected to achieve comprehensive mastery of disciplines before their interdisciplinary research. However, they are expected to demonstrate a deep understanding of the particular theories, concepts or methods they use.

Theory of knowledge can also help students understand the nature of disciplinary work and decide which disciplinary insights will produce meaningful connections across academic areas.

By grounding their research in disciplines and established areas of expertise, students avoid superficial or solely journalistic accounts of their chosen topic.

In the context of the WSEE, disciplinary landscapes can be mapped according to four fundamental dimensions:

Disciplinary Purpose

Knowledge Base

Disciplinary Methods

Forms of Communication

Disciplinary inquiry is purposeful

• We seek to understand the past and enrich our sense of ourselves (in history).
• We seek to explain, control and predict natural or social phenomena (in physics, biology, economics).
• We enjoy exploring the human condition or expressing an idea or a feeling (in literature or the arts).

Targeted inquiries also serve specific purposes. Concepts and findings in one discipline are often applied in another, novel context to solve problems, create products or explain phenomena.

Questions to ask

When students consider whether to include a specific discipline in the design of their research, they can ask themselves:

• What is the purpose of inquiry in this discipline?
• What is the discipline helpful for?
• How might this discipline contribute to my study?

Disciplines hold a rich knowledge base (concepts and findings) on which to draw.

Disciplinary understanding involves the capacity to move flexibly between theories, concepts and specific examples. For example:

• We understand a historical period like the rise of Nazi Germany when we can offer one or more overarching narratives that explain it and illustrate it with particular events, actors, places and dates.
• We understand a biological phenomenon like genetic inheritance when we can articulate and apply accepted theoretical principles to particular cases and findings.

Questions to ask

When students consider the range of disciplines available to them to form the basis of their research, they can ask:

• What do I need to know about my interdisciplinary topic that may make this disciplinary perspective useful?
• What are some of the big ideas, key concepts or theories in this discipline that may inform my work?
• Are there findings, examples and cases related to these big ideas that will help me understand my topic?

All disciplines have preferred methods—modes of inquiry and criteria by which knowledge is deemed acceptable.

For example:

• History—interpretation of primary and secondary sources, the evaluation of actors’ perspectives.
• Biology/chemistry/physics—designing a laboratory experiment to test a given hypothesis.
• Mathematics—the art of advancing mathematical proof.

Different disciplines also hold distinct criteria for determining what is an acceptable result or a trustworthy conclusion.

In their interdisciplinary research, students must use the inquiry methods of at least one of the disciplines they study.

Questions to ask

When students consider the range of disciplines available to them to decide which of their methods to use, they can ask:

• What forms of inquiry does the study of my problem require?
• What are the methods by which knowledge is constructed in this particular discipline? Could they contribute to my study? How?
• What specific tools and instruments are deemed helpful to inquiry in this discipline and would these help me?
• What is deemed a reliable result in this discipline and would these standards apply to my study?

Disciplines have preferred forms of communication

For example:

• historical narrative
• scientific report
• policy briefing
• curating a museum exhibit.

Each activity employs a particular genre to communicate with its audience effectively. Disciplines favour the symbol system and genre that suit their content and meet the norms of their expert community.

Students’ academic writing is most effective when it reflects such disciplinary norms.

In preparing to write their EEs students will benefit from examining the norms of communication typical of the disciplines they have drawn on.

Questions to ask

1. How can I best communicate my study, results and conclusions?
2. What are the genres, languages and symbols that are typically used in the disciplines I have chosen? For example:
   • essays
   • graphs
   • scientific reports
   • poster presentations
   • videos.
3. Are there particular disciplinary genres that I could use to communicate my results?