Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Disciplines could broadly be categorized as hard pure/applied and soft pure/applied; however, short stories seem to enable students to transcend conventional disciplinary boundaries. This study determines how four disciplinary groups of students responded to short stories when no apparent pedagogic purpose was explicitly assigned to the stories as supplementary reading. Data were collected through a qualitative survey, and a content analysis method determined and quantified data patterns among a total population sample of natural science, engineering, art, and music students (N = 55). A heterogeneous pattern across disciplines was associated with general critical thinking because no explicit connection to disciplinary literacy could be established. The entire sample demonstrated homogenous thinking patterns when positive critical evaluations were made. Crossdisciplinary homogenous coupling occurred when students conducted negative critical evaluations. The thinking patterns call into question the typology of hard or soft disciplinary families, as unexpected crossdisciplinary associations were identified. The results propose a theoretical shift regarding disciplinary boundaries and a different approach to literacy and critical thinking in higher education.