Research report: Transdisciplinary team science: a field study in understanding and improving complex scientific problem solving

The study, conducted by Stephen Martin Fiore of the University of Central Florida, Deborah DiazGranados of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, and Troy Hartley of the Renewable Energy Wildlife Institute, is set to appear in Frontiers in Psychology in the journal's organizational psychology section. The research team framed their field study around a set of foundational competencies required for scientific teamwork, and around methods for developing and training those competencies in teams of graduate students drawn from different disciplines. The authors report that graduate students who took part in the training program reported improved collaboration competencies after their participation, a self-reported outcome measured within the study itself.

A key strength of the design was that the researchers did not rely solely on participants' own impressions. The study also collected independent expert evaluations of the teams' scientific output. When the authors compared the two sources of information, they found that participants' self-ratings of their teamwork correlated with those independent expert assessments.

The findings are discussed by the authors in the context of developing and testing principles of team science, and of how researchers should study this form of complex collaborative problem solving. Because the study was a field study with graduate student participants, its scope is limited to that population and setting, and the reported outcomes are self-reported competency improvements and correlations rather than demonstrated causal effects on scientific quality. The article was received on 5 February 2026 and accepted on 28 September 2026, and the final formatted version will be published soon under the journal's open-access terms.

Subject of Research: Training graduate students in transdisciplinary teamwork competencies in a field study of collaborative science

Article Title: Transdisciplinary team science: a field study in understanding and improving complex scientific problem solving

Article References: Fiore, S. M., DiazGranados, D., & Hartley, T. (2026). Transdisciplinary team science: a field study in understanding and improving complex scientific problem solving. Frontiers in Psychology, 17, Article 1804489. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1804489

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1804489

Keywords: team science, transdisciplinarity, team training, team reflexivity, graduate students, collaboration competencies, field study, organizational psychology, science of team science, conceptual framework, Transdisciplinary, team