Integrating Anthropology and Biology: Comparing Success Rates and Learning Outcomes for University-Level Human Evolution Courses

Curriculum development in biological anthropology requires instructors to generate learning outcomes for both anthropology and biology majors. However, these students have substantially different backgrounds. Anthropology curricula do not always require biology prerequisites, and many instructors are concerned that anthropology majors may not be as prepared to learn biology content. As bioanthropological research increasingly relies on genetics and phylogenomics, a strong emphasis needs to be put on integrating biological content into anthropology courses. The core-level “Human Evolution” course at Virginia Commonwealth University is taught under an anthropology rubric. The course is divided into four primary units: two units cover topics that are also explored in lower-level biology courses (e.g., DNA inheritance) and two units focus on paleoanthropological topics (e.g., hominin taxonomy). Here, we compare results of course assessments between anthropology and biology majors across four semesters to determine whether students in the two majors performed differently on units with “biology” content versus “anthropology” content. A series of statistical tests reveal that overall, anthropology and biology majors are earning comparable final grades in the course. Additionally, when assessment results for units with differing content are contrasted, anthropology and biology majors scored comparably on “anthropology” content units. However, in some semesters, biology majors scored statistically significantly better in the “biology” units than in “anthropology” units, and in one semester, anthropology majors scored statistically significantly better than biology majors in “biology” content. These results suggest that it is biology majors, rather than anthropology majors, who are deficient in an integrated bioanthropological perspective. We recommend that anthropology and biology departments consider introducing an integrated curriculum that is interdisciplinary rather than multidisciplinary by design.