Culture of Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Nursing Research Training

Background Establishing and maintaining collaborative scientific environments that can cultivate and benefit from a full range of talents is essential for the quality and influence of science. Inclusion of research training and career development interventions to expose nursing PhD students, postdocs, and junior faculty to team science stands to prepare graduates to effectively engage with interdisciplinary colleagues to conduct cutting-edge nursing research and compete successfully for precious research resources. To be effective, nursing research workforce development programs need to recognize and share a culture of interdisciplinarity. Objectives This project aims to develop, validate, and disseminate a theoretically grounded and methodologically rigorous tool for a cultural consensus analysis (CCA) of the culture of interdisciplinary collaboration in nursing research. Methods Culture can be defined as shared cognitive structures and consensus around culturally correct values, attitudes, and normative behaviors. This mixed-methods study employs CCA to assess construct validity and empirically determine a set of underlying socially learned and shared notions about the cultural domain of interdisciplinary collaboration in nursing research. The study will include three phases: (a) qualitative data collection and analysis to define the cultural domain of interdisciplinary collaborations in nursing research; (b) validation of the CCA tool with the use of cultural knowledge statements; and (c) application of the CCA tool to assess cultural differences among nursing trainees, junior faculty, and training directors. The study participant pool consists of National Institutes of Health-National Institute of Nursing Research awardees, including training directors of institutional training grants, pre- and postdoctoral trainees with individual fellowship training grants, and junior faculty with career development awards. Qualitative data will be analyzed to formulate cultural statements about the values and behaviors that promote interdisciplinary collaboration in nursing research. Subsequent survey data will be assessed using matrix algebra, principal component analysis, and the Stuart-Maxwell Marginal Homogeneity Test. Discussion The development and validation of a CCA tool is a novel approach to assess, support, and systematically examine interdisciplinary collaboration and team science in nursing research and training. However, the investigation of culture needs to remain value neutral, refrain from being prescriptive, and be sensitive to the emergence and dominance of one "right" culture.