Task 1

Cross disciplinary

Involving two or more academic disciplines

source: http://dictionary.reference.com


Interdisciplinary

It involves the combining of two or more academic disciplines into one activity (a research project). It it about creating something new and thinking across new boundaries. It's related to interdiscipline or an interdisciplinary field which is an organizational unit that crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought, as new needs and professions have emerged.

Source: en.wikipedia.org


Transdiciplinary

It suggest a research strategy that crosses many disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic approach.

Source: en.wikipedia.org



Qualitative research

It is a method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts. Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior. The qualitative method investigates the why and how of decision making, not just what, where, when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are more often needed than large samples.

In the conventional view, qualitative methods produce information only on the particular cases studied, and any more general conclusions are only propositions (informed assertions). Quantitative methods can then be used to seek empirical support for such research hypotheses. This view has been disputed by Oxford University professor Bent Flyvbjerg, who argues that qualitative methods and case study research may be used both for hypotheses-testing and for generalizing beyond the particular cases studied

Source: en.wikipedia.org

Ethnographic studies/research

Ethnography is a qualitative research design aimed at exploring cultural phenomena. The resulting field study or a case report reflects the knowledge and the system of meanings in the lives of a cultural group. Anethnography is a means to represent graphically and in writing, the culture of a people.

Ethnography, as the empirical data on human societies and cultures, was pioneered in the biological, social, and cultural branches of anthropologybut has also become a popular in the social sciences in general—sociology,communication studies, history—wherever people study ethnic groups, formations, compositions, resettlements, social welfare characteristics, materiality, spirituality, and a peoples ethnogenesis. The typical ethnography is an holistic study and so includes a brief history, and an analysis of the terrain, the climate, and the habitat. In all cases it should be reflexive, make a substantial contribution toward the understanding of the social life of humans, have an aesthetic impact on the reader, and express a credible reality. It observes the world (the study) from the point of view of the subject (not the participant ethnographer) and records all observed behavior and describes all symbol-meaning relations using concepts that avoid casual explanations.

Source: en.wikipedia.org