ORCID Profile
0000-0002-8343-0430
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Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 29-03-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S13384-022-00513-8
Abstract: This article examines the genesis, development and implementation of an interdisciplinary university cross-school research group (three in idual schools) at Federation University in Australia. This CSRG is a consequence of both local and national calls for interdisciplinarity in university research and a direct response to the revised Strategic Goals and Policy document at Federation University. Using a conceptual framework based on a treatise by Jürgen Habermas (The theory of communicative action, Beacon Press, 1987) incorporating three socio-political levels (Lifeworld, Steering Media and Systems), we examined the ideals, processes and challenges in setting up an interdisciplinary research group within a traditional disciplinary-based university environment. Drawing on multiple data sets composed of member survey responses and interviews, email communication, online meetings, policy documents and co-leader feedback, we identified key resonant themes focussing on academic aspiration and motivation, the role of policy and practice, influence of grants and grant development across schools, mentoring and publishing. Using Habermas’ conceptual framework and his overarching notion of Lifeworld with qualitative methods of data analysis, this article explores establishment of the CSRG, deeper academic aspirations and engagement for interdisciplinarity informing the group’s formation and effectiveness of the processes used in this specific case. The impact on systems and policy is addressed together with the processes adopted to bring about interdisciplinary university collaboration. Evaluating the formation of the CSRG, the authors found that researchers placed a high value on opportunities to creatively collaborate in a cross-school and interdisciplinary environment, whereas obtaining grants and publishing research were seen by staff as indirect and less immediate benefits of collaboration. This article contributes to the growing body of research on interdisciplinary collaboration by applying a distinct theoretical and analytical framework to emphasise the potential of grassroots collaboration and the role of power and influence on research within universities.
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 29-04-2022
Abstract: When experimental tasks require intermittent switching between easy and hard trials, people exhibit switch cost asymmetry. This is a tendency to be slower to switch over from a hard task to an easier task than vice versa. Previously, Gustavson and colleagues (2007) found that people higher on trait-anxiety exhibit a stronger switch cost asymmetry. We replicated this task, which was emotionally neutral, in an online experiment with a larger number of participants (N=212 vs. original N = 91), and extended the findings to an affective version of the same task. We found evidence of switch cost asymmetry in both experiments, with only the emotionally neutral one showing a relation to trait anxiety as well as depression. As opposed to the original study, we found that people lower, not higher, on anxiety were driving the effect, by being slower to disengage from the hard trials regardless of whether they needed to switch tasks or not on the following trial. We interpret these results in the context of the effects of anxiety and depression on allostasis, with direct consequences on available energy levels for task performance.
No related grants have been discovered for Angela Higgins.