1) Cross-Disciplinary
Term: Involving two or more academic disciplines.
Cross-Disciplinary describes any method, project and research activity that examines a subject outside the scope of its own discipline without cooperating or integrating any other relevant disciplines. In this discipline field, topics are studied using foreign methodologies of unrelated disciplines.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cross-disciplinary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossdisciplinarity
2) Inter-Disciplinary
Term: Relating to or involving two or more distinct academic fields into one single discipline. This field crosses traditional boundaries between school of thoughts or academic fields, as new needs and professions emerged.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/interdisciplinary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdisciplinarity
3) Trans-Disciplinary
Term: Research study that involves many disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic approach.
Applies to research efforts focusing on problems that cross the boundaries of two or more disciplines. For example, Geography is often portrayed as a trans-disciplinary subject but many geographers argued that, with increasing specialization, the gulf between physical and human geographers has become very wide.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/transdisciplinary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transdisciplinarity
http://www.answers.com/topic/transdisciplinary
(30th October 2011)
4) Qualitative research
Term: Pertaining to or concerned with quality or qualities.
Qualitative research seeks not only the 'why' and 'how', but also 'what', 'where' and 'when' of its topic through the analysis of unstructured information. It is a method of inquiry employed in many different disciplines, in social science traditionally, but also in market research and further contexts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_research
http://www.qsrinternational.com/what-is-qualitative-research.aspx
(30th October 2011)
5) Ethnographic research
Term: A qualitative method and a branch of anthropology that aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena and reflecting the knowledge and system of meanings behind the life of the cultural group.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnography
http://www.aipmm.com/html/newsletter/archives/000339.php
(30th October 2011)
