LibGuides: World Studies Extended Essay: Making Meaningful Connections

Making Connections Across Subjects, or, Why Integration Matters

Global image - Britannica ImageQuest Interdisciplinary research is:

Integrative - bringing together concepts, methods, or forms of communication from two or more disciplines

Purposeful - connecting disciplines to solve real world problems, or address complex issues in new ways

Grounded - clearly rooted in disciplinary knowledge and understanding

Why integration matters:

Focusing on integration involves being able to identify how, exactly, the concepts, methods, tools and genres of the disciplines combine productively. It invites you to ask important questions:

How are different disciplines related to one another in a study of my selected research area or specific research question?
What insights are gained through the combination of perspectives that could not be achieved by considering each discipline in isolation?
Why does bringing these particular disciplines together in a study of the topic make sense?

With interdisciplinary research you can explain a phenomenon or ask questions that would have been impossible from the perspective of one discipline alone. Successful integration of two or more subjects enables you to reach an understanding that they would not have achieved through single disciplinary means.

WSEE Documents

WSEE Subject Guide and worksheets

IB EE Subject Guide - World Studies, 2018
Making Meaningful Connections
Use this worksheet to help you think about your research plans: the concepts or methods your will be using, the global topic you're focusing on, and the academic disciplines you will be using.

RRS (Researcher's Reflection Space)

Sample Prompts for the WSEE RRS
What should you write in your RRS? Use these questions and prompts to help you think through the various stages of the research for your WSEE: your initial ideas, your thoughts and reflections during the process, and your conclusions.
RRS Example B - World Studies

RPPF (Researcher's Planning and Progress Form) examples: