Learning to Think Like an Anthropologist? Toward Understanding Student Acquisition of Anthropological Perspectives in Online vs. Face-to-Face Anthropology of Education Courses

In recent years, online approaches to teaching anthropology have become popular in higher education.  In this exploratory account, we consider how student understanding of anthropological ideas differed in online vs. face-to-face modalities of an anthropology of education course.  Through content analysis of student essays and discussion posts over 8 semesters of the course as it was delivered in both formats, we considered patterns in students’ conceptual responses to anthropological ideas. Our analysis revealed differences in student conceptual engagement, with greater acquisition and understanding of anthropological perspectives in the face-to-face course than in the online course. Drawing from recent work in the anthropology of learning that emphasizes interactional and social dimensions of learning, we suggest that a possible explanation for these differences lies in features of the interaction environment in each course. Our study points to ways in which the fine-grained study of online course environments through analysis of student writing may offer significant insights into improving teaching of anthropology in such contexts more generally.