Multidisciplinary Teamwork

Posted on July 7, 2008

Working in a team allows you to see issues from different angles, says Margarita Alegría (bio).


I have to say I started in a multidisciplinary team, so that helped me. I started even when I was in my Masters. Some people were economists, some people were sociologists, some people were psychologists, statisticians. And it really, we sat and did projects together and started from the very beginning. I got a very good idea that it's a rich way of seeing a problem from different angles.

I think it is very hard. First, the assumptions people make in their career or disciplines might be very different. You have to negotiate a lot about what are going to be the priorities in the research, giving those different feels in ways of seeing the problem.

And I think also in how you actually devote resources to the project. You have different people from different view points. It requires you to go to a place that feels different because it's not exactly how you've been trained. It's not exactly how you necessarily see the problem, but then you're recognizing that there are other possibilities in how the problem works out.

Viewing Preferences

Downloads


Excerpted from an interview with researcher at the 2008 Developing Interventions for Latino Children, Youth, and Families Conference in St. Louis, MO.

 

More About "Building and Maintaining Teams"

 

More From Margarita Alegría (bio)