Moving Beyond Disciplinary Differences in Group Research

One of the most compelling aspects of Small Group Research and other related interdisciplinary forums (e.g., Interdisciplinary Network for Group Research or INGRoup) is the opportunity for scholars from many disciplines to collaborate with and learn from one another. To be sure, we all study groups. However, the many disciplines (communication, industrial/organizational psychology, management, organizational science, social psychology, etc.) engaged in the study of groups and teams come from unique philosophical and ontological perspectives that illuminate certain group dynamics of interest and guide research endeavors. Our different pursuits benefit group scholarship; importantly, we work to create a more holistic understanding of groups through research studies and methodological approaches that complement, contradict, support, and critique each other.

Although the sharing of our different perspectives is lauded for its interdisciplinary contribution, there are drawbacks as well. Our training and research approaches focus us on some questions while neglecting others. Differences in disciplinary and methodological approaches can make it difficult to publish and present research that fosters collaboration and interdisciplinary findings. With funding organizations emphasizing interdisciplinary research (e.g., Petrie, 2007), it is important to question how our different approaches and methods can complement one another. Mary Waller, Bertolt Meyer, Joann Keyton, and I explored this issue in a panel at the 2012 INGRoup conference. Our presentations have been revised and are presented here in this forum. What we came to understand through our interactions at that panel is that our interdisciplinary efforts are in actuality not very interdisciplinary and we rarely acknowledge this problem. We carry on in our conferences and journals as if we are conducting interdisciplinary work, when in actuality our journals and conferences make us interdisciplinary in name only, as if proximity is equal to collaboration.

For example, I have found that in interdisciplinary forums (i.e., INGRoup panels), important questions about our differences in research approaches and methods often do not come up. It is not that audience members avoid methodological aspects of a presentation; in fact, it is my experience that scholars like to discuss methodological approaches, sometimes more than theoretical content or practical applications. However, the methodological concerns raised are often artifacts of scholars’ unique disciplinary perspectives as to what counts as data. Scholars who share research approaches engage in conversation, as if they were at a conference of their respective discipline. Meanwhile, differences in disciplinary approaches are not directly broached, at least not in public.

In attending the last six INGRoup conferences, I have observed an interesting trend in question-and-answer sessions during INGRoup panels. As an example of this trend, I (a communication scholar) presented a study on the use of questions in military teams in 2011 (Keyton & Beck, 2011). We analyzed interactions in three-person teams from a communicative perspective, examining how questions functioned during these task-oriented exchanges. When it was time for the question-and-answer period, a social psychologist raised his hand and asked a question about cognitive outcomes. There was nothing technically wrong about his question, but it clearly reflected his discipline’s view of group research (and I felt the question ignored the purpose of my research study that focused on behavior). This is not an uncommon phenomenon at INGRoup, and I have certainly taken part. I have asked psychologists and management scholars about communicative aspects to their design, clearly portraying my perspective to conducting research. The problem is that, at the end of the day, group research has not progressed from these discussions; we are still scholars from several different disciplines coming together for a few days in the name of interdisciplinary collaboration, but when we arrive we hold to and critique from our disciplinary silos, and then leave again until the next time we can be interdisciplinary.

Such exchanges can be frustrating for scholars, whether at conferences or in journals. If bringing together different disciplinary perspectives in the name of collaboration is the purpose of these interdisciplinary forums, then how can we produce something more (synergy, if you will) from our individual perspectives? The purpose of this forum is to investigate our ability to use interdisciplinary outlets for the betterment of group scholarship. Importantly, we also consider methodology more specifically as an area that may be preventing true interdisciplinary collaboration in our work.

Following are three essays from prominent group scholars, who also represent different disciplines. They have each written an essay in an effort to improve our interdisciplinary contributions to the field of group research. Two questions have guided their essays:

Following the essays, we have asked Eduardo Salas, INGRoup’s 2012 Joseph E. McGrath Award winner for Lifetime Achievement in the Study of Groups, to respond in hopes of offering additional insight into how we can build toward a more interdisciplinary focus for our research. Our hope is to foster a dialogue that may move us toward a set of best interdisciplinary practices in both our journals and conferences for the betterment of group research.