Facilitating collaborative interdisciplinary research: exploring process and implications for leisure scholars

ABSTRACTMany institutions encourage interdisciplinary research (IDR) to maximize organizational resources and to develop more practical approaches to address transdisciplinary ‘real world’ issues such as obesity. Leisure researchers have joined fields such as public health and kinesiology to address increased rates of obesity and physical inactivity with the perspective that these issues require integrated cross-disciplinary knowledge. This case study examined the collaborative process throughout an IDR project involving leisure, health education, physical education and STEM education faculty (five members). The major research questions addressed are as follows: (1) What are the synergies, opportunities and/or obstacles identified by faculty throughout the development, implementation and evaluation of the IDR program? (2) What are the implications of these findings for leisure researchers working in IDR? Faculty responded to email questions and surveys and were interviewed individually before and during t...