Interdisciplinary teaching

This exploratory study compared cognitive style and teaching technique when 25 doctoral students taught a class session within their field of study and a class session outside their field of study. Methodologies used were a narrative and an analysis comparing in-field teaching with out-of-field teaching. Results revealed that out-of-field teaching produces anxiety which respondents attempted to overcome by changing from less structured to more structured fields and from less formal to more formal teaching techniques. Inferences are that out-of-field teaching may be more appropriately described as traditional than nontraditional, and that out-of-field teaching may be inappropriate for nontraditional, student-oriented institutions.