Characteristics of collaborative, interdisciplinary, and engaged research among graduate students in environmental conservation

Research that is collaborative, interdisciplinary, and engaged with non-university partners has emerged as desirable for training graduate students to address complex issues in natural resource management. However, there is a lack of understanding regarding why researchers may participate in various forms of collaborative research, especially among graduate students in environmental conservation. We explored graduate students’ research experiences and the characteristics and attitudes associated with collaborative research and two specific types of collaboration: interdisciplinary collaboration and engaged research. We surveyed 56 graduate students who were affiliated with University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) program on biodiversity conservation under novel ecosystems. We investigated differences between the different categories of collaborative research with logistic regression and decision tree analysis using the classification and regression tree (CRT) algorithm. Students with more collaborators were more likely to feel supported by an intellectual community and view interdisciplinary research as vital for conservation practice. Students with an interdisciplinary collaboration were more likely to be comfortable collaborating with peers but less likely to view collaboration as contributing to their research. Students engaged with non-academics were less comfortable collaborating with faculty and more concerned that becoming engaged with conservation policy or practice may negatively impact them. Of the ten instances in which variables were significant across the three logistic regressions, eight were also identified in the CRT model. This suggests relatively high agreement between the two statistical approaches. The different forms of collaborative research had different predictors and should not be viewed as interchangeable. Further attention is needed on approaches for enhancing graduate students’ training and experience with collaborative environmental research.