Engineering education has become increasingly multidisciplinary in order to prepare future experts to transcend disciplinary boundaries and to co-construct solutions to solve grand challenges. However, faculty members’ perspectives and experiences have been largely ignored in the literature. To understand and support faculty members, the present study investigated faculty members’ conceptualisations of multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary education. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 faculty members from engineering, business, art and design with varied experiences with multidisciplinary teaching, course design, and programme management. We found that while some faculty members conceptualised multidisciplinary education as an encompassing concept, most used disciplinary integration to distinguish multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary education. However, their conceptualisations of the differences between multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary education were nuanced. Summarising the perceived nuances in different aspects of course design, we propose a typology to demonstrate the variety of types in faculty members’ course design. By identifying the diversity and complexities of faculty members’ conceptualisations, this study attempts to help faculty members achieve an in-depth understanding of their conceptualisations and practices, as well as support engineering educators in designing courses with disciplinary integration.

Engineering education requires competent teachers to facilitate students' interdisciplinary learning in solving complex problems and engage students in interdisciplinary teamwork. While most studies in the literature have focused on identifying or measuring students' competencies, few studies have focused on teachers. What teacher competencies are essential for effective interdisciplinary teaching in engineering education? To answer this question and contribute to teacher development and improve student learning, this study analyzes teachers' competencies in interdisciplinary engineering education. We conducted qualitative interviews with 14 teachers in engineering education with diverse disciplinary backgrounds in engineering, design, technology, science and business. Thematic analysis is used to highlight teachers' social, affective, and pedagogical competencies. The results show that all three areas of competencies are considered to be essential for teachers. Teachers appear to have a good level of social competency, as they recognize the importance of effective communication with students and co-teachers across disciplines, as well as with industry partners. Teachers also exhibit a decent level of affective competency through their motivation for learning. In addition, we found that the lack of interdisciplinary-related knowledge added more difficulties for teachers to gain pedagogical competency in interdisciplinary engineering education. The results of this study can be used for designing teachers' professional development programs related to interdisciplinarity.

Interdisciplinary initiatives have been encouraged in higher education curricula, especially in mechanical engineering as a result of the industry’s calls for talent with multidisciplinary competencies to solve complex real-world problems. However, disciplinary distance, due to disciplinary differences, poses great challenges in interdisciplinary teaching and learning. How can interdisciplinary faculty members collaborate effectively in teaching? How can students with different backgrounds learn significant knowledge? Collaboration for interdisciplinary education across disciplines is challenging, as co-teachers are usually affiliated with different departments or even schools, and they tend to speak different disciplinary languages and value different disciplinary cultures. Similarly, students in engineering design teams come from different backgrounds. Consistent with Klein’s concepts of Wide Interdisciplinarity and Narrow Interdisciplinarity, we propose the concept of disciplinary distance to present the research findings of disciplinary differences and their implications on interdisciplinary teaching and learning. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of disciplinary distance, as manifested in interdisciplinary education from faculty members’ perspectives. From 13 semi-structured interviews, we find that disciplinary distance plays a vital role in interdisciplinary teaching and learning. It influences teamwork — both in co-teacher teams and student teams. Interdisciplinary course content and interdisciplinary co-teacher teams can also create a wide disciplinary distance that serves as a barrier for interdisciplinary learning. We further find that interdisciplinary collaboration may help to mediate the negative impact of disciplinary distance.