Interdisciplinary and disciplinary learning in higher education: a diagnostic study with four accredited programs in the sustainable built environment

Interdisciplinarity is a critical component of creating a more sustainable built environment and improving student learning outcomes. Yet, learning interdisciplinarity and measuring it in higher education is challenging. This study implemented a diagnostic tool that allowed educators to measure how both disciplinary and interdisciplinary skills, knowledge, and values would grow in courses related to sustainable built environments. One school containing four different disciplines devoted to the built environment, was selected as the study area to collect emprical data. Pre- and post-semester surveys were conducted. Among 286 students, interdisciplinarity grew most among students within the school’s majors, while among students from outside the school majors interdisciplinary learning decreased. Though disciplinary learning outpaces interdisciplinary learning the closer students are to earning their bachelor’s or higher degrees. The result showed that students’ knowledge, values and skills differ depending on the majors, their affiliational context, and the year of classification. The result suggests that the timing of teaching interdisciplinary contents should be earlier. The diagnostic tool which measured pre- and post- course disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge, skills, and values related to sustainable built environment would also be applicable in other courses in higher education.