Visual language and reasoning within interdisciplinary dialogue: lessons from SRHE scoping study for interprofessional education to support collaborative practice

This paper reports on the interdisciplinary methodology that facilitated an SRHE funded scoping study on Interprofessional Education to Support Collaborative Practice particularly the use made of visuals to stimulate discussion and clarify analysis. Interview extracts illustrate where visuals enabled metaphoric comparison and diagrammatic reasoning to build a common understanding across differing disciplinary backgrounds and professional perspectives. Because visual language research occurs in several different communities, largely
unaware of each other, visual reasoning races ahead within cognitive sciences and computer design whilst remaining undertapped and undervalued in the humanities and social sciences. This paper addresses the conference theme of conceptual convergence by looking back to draw on linguistic philosophy on the role of metaphor in thought, looking across disciplines to sharpen the terminology used to analyse visual reasoning and looking forward to apply these insights to learning and teaching strategies for graduate preparedness for
interprofessional working.