Presentation 1
28 - Exploring the Process of Integration in an Interdisciplinary Translational Science Team
Presented by: Colleen Cuddy, Fielding Graduate University
Authored by: Colleen Cuddy, Fielding Graduate University

Integration is a team process that contributes to team effectiveness. To study this process, a qualitative case study was designed and conducted with an interdisciplinary academic translational science team at a research-intensive university. Data was collected via interviews with the team members using the critical incident technique and a group reflection session in order to determine how integration was enacted in the team.

Sixty-five unique incidents were generated and classified by integration type, setting, and effectiveness. Interview and group session transcripts were then coded. Forty-four first-order themes emerged, which were combined into six second-order themes; proximity, connectedness, intentional behaviors, planned integration, knowing the expert/scientist, and knowing the person. Ultimately, three aggregate dimensions or drivers of integration were revealed; being together, being intentional, and knowing each other as people and scientists.

A significant finding of the study was the importance of social processes to facilitate integration. The research builds upon and extends existing research on effectiveness in interdisciplinary teams, particularly Salazar's integration capacity theory (Salazar et al., 2012), Klein's "depth/breadth/synthesis" model (Klein, 2005), Gittel's theory of relational coordination (Gittell, 2006, 2016), and Pennington's discussion of collaborative mutualism (Pennington et al., 2013). Key study findings and implications for future research and practice in team science will be shared.

Presentation 2
37 - Knowledge Sharing and Technology as Teammate in Multidisciplinary Teams Creating Research Cyberinfrastructure: Initial Findings from Exploratory Research
Presented by: Chris Lenhardt, Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), UNC-CH
Authored by: Chris Lenhardt, Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), UNC-CH

Significant resources from research funding agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, have been devoted to projects creating research information infrastructure, also referred to as cyberinfrastructure. This development parallels trends in digital technologies such as networking, storage, and compute, as well as related sociological shifts towards open science and open data. The science teams building research cyberinfrastructure vary in size, complexity, geography, and ambition. However, all share some common characteristics such as the need to integrate domain knowledge and technical knowledge and most rely on some form of information-related technology as part of their work. Studying how these teams go about creating cyberinfrastructure represents a rich area for science of team science research with potential benefits adding to understandings of team science. Teams and outcomes may benefit from the incorporation of practical knowledge gleaned from science of team science community. Sociotechnical perspectives may be enhanced by the shift in the unit of analysis suggested by the science of team science to team dynamics.

Sociotechnical perspectives on the development of cyberinfrastructure include computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), infrastructure studies, communities of practice, and sociomateriality. These perspectives reveal important aspects of science teams building research cyberinfrastructure, but focus on how the infrastructure comes to ‘be’ in the sociomaterial sense or focuses more on outcomes and interactions with the cyberinfrastructure being created in more functional terms of use and users. Team science perspectives, on the other hand, offer potential insights by examining teams in terms of their dynamics, shared cognition, and processes. These views are not antithetical to sociotechnical perspectives, but offer the potential to add to the broader understanding of sociotechnical interactions in multidisciplinary teams creating research cyberinfrastructure.

This paper will present early results from analysis of data gathered as part of exploratory research focused on knowledge sharing in multidisciplinary teams creating research information infrastructure. As part of the exploratory research a small number of individuals who are members of multidisciplinary teams creating cyberinfrastructure were interviewed using an open-ended interview protocol. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed with a goal to identify critical incidents from the participant’s perspective that provide insight into how these teams function. The initial results suggest that the teams and their work may be represented by networks of individuals and technologies that form sociotechnical assemblages. The assemblages reflect the relationships between individuals, materiality of the information technology used, as well as the technology configuration efforts on the part of team members. The findings suggest that the ways different team members use the technologies within the assemblages provides evidence of the role the technology plays in externalizing cognition across the team in advancing the project and suggests ways the technology influences how different team members conduct their work. This initial effort will provide the base for additional research to delve more deeply within teams to examine these types of networks.

Presentation 3
41 - Measuring Perspective Integration Capability among Team Science Participants
Presented by: Theresa Lant, Pace University
Authored by: Theresa Lant, Pace University
Maritza Salazar Campo, University of California, Irvine

Collaboration across knowledge boundaries underlies team science and innovation (NRC, 2015 1). Successful collaborations depend on team members’ having the ability to integrate their knowledge. Team members must not only recognize and value the diverse perspectives and insights of others, but also have the interest and skills to consider how the knowledge of other team members is relevant to their common problem. Work in knowledge intensive areas, such as science, engineering, and medicine, increasingly requires individuals to collaborate across fluid boundaries. Individuals may be members of temporary project-based teams or may work with multiple teams simultaneously. More work is needed to examine the skills individual knowledge experts need to collaborate, share, and integrate their knowledge with others, even without the benefit of prior collaboration. Knowledge integration requires accommodation and assimilation, the willingness of the individual to adapt their own frameworks of understanding in response to the contributions of others. We develop a theoretically based measure of perspective integration capability (PIC) construct developed by Salazar, Lant, Fiore, & Salas (2012 2). We propose that this individual level cognitive process is an important precursor to knowledge integration in expertise diverse teams. This construct is unique in that it includes two components, knowledge consideration and knowledge accommodation/assimilation. Measuring PIC of team members is important as the shift in individual member cognition within an expertise diverse team can affect the extent to which they are open, willing, and able to find synergies between themselves and others within the team. That is, expertise diverse teams in which members exhibit greater PIC can better leverage their expertise, which should yield improved innovation outcomes.

To date, there is a lack of available, feasible measurement alternatives to assess changes to individual-level cognition brought about by exposure to expertise-diverse teammates. Using data gathered as part of the NSF funded BRIDGES (3) project, we follow established steps for scale development and validation to create a valid and reliable measure of PIC. We explore the nomological network surrounding PIC by examining convergent and discriminant validity of our measure, testing its incremental validity relative to similar constructs, and by assessing a model of antecedents and outcomes of PIC. We conducted five studies on four independent samples totaling 899 individuals. Three studies involved teams of professionals reflecting on past participation in expertise-diverse teamwork and two composed of students and professional medical researchers, respectively, participated in separate six-month longitudinal studies of interdisciplinary teamwork. This study fills a gap in the literature by providing a theoretically derived and empirical test of perspective integration capability. 

1. National Research Council 2015. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/19007.
2. Salazar, M., Lant, T., Fiore, S., & Salas, E., (2012) Integrative Capacity: A New Perspective for Understanding Interdisciplinary Team Processes and Outcomes," Small Group Research. October 2012 vol. 43, no. 5; 527-558
3. BRIDGES: Building Resources through Integrating Disciplines for Group Effectiveness in Science, NSF SciSIP, Award #1262754, PIs: Lant, T & Salazar, M.

Presentation 4
59 - Understanding the Relationship Between Attitudes and Behaviors Towards Interdisciplinary Research and Perceptions of Team Learning
Presented by: Olivia Newton, University of Central Florida
Authored by: Stephen Fiore, University of Central Florida
Olivia Newton, University of Central Florida

Interdisciplinary science teams are brought together to leverage concepts, theories, and methods from varied disciplines to uncover a richer understanding of some complex problem. But there is too often an insufficient overlap of knowledge to help members coordinate their scientific actions and integrate approaches. This requires understanding how scientists learn from each other and the learning processes engaged by scientists over time at different stages of collaboration. Furthermore, members of interdisciplinary science teams may hold attitudes and engage in behaviors that are more or less conducive to team learning and, in turn, collaboration effectiveness. Based on this, we collected survey data from interdisciplinary scientists to identify differences in attitudes and behaviors towards interdisciplinary research as they relate to perceptions of team learning. Survey participants were first asked to share information about their attitudes towards collaboration, their perceptions of research outside their discipline, and the degree to which they engage with research outside of their own discipline. They were then asked to rank a set of team learning processes and behaviors along a continuum of relative importance for two stages of collaboration: team formation and team problem resolution. Lastly, participants were asked to elaborate on what they felt were the most significant gaps in knowledge on how to support and improve team science. Participant responses suggest that differences in attitudes and behaviors towards interdisciplinarity vary based on area of expertise and may influence the perception of team learning processes. Additionally, participants identified a number of factors that they believe are not sufficiently well understood in the science of team science, including disciplinary tolerance and disciplinary multilingualism. The findings of this research have implications for facilitating team science as well as training and professional development for scientists doing interdisciplinary research.