The Importances of Behavioral Anthropology in Class Learning Efficiency

Year: 2025 | Issue: 86 | pg. 9 - pg. 17

Authors:

Published on: 13/06/2025
The Importances of Behavioral Anthropology in Class Learning Efficiency

Abstract:

The new concept of behavioral anthropology can be used in maximizing the learning efficiency by adapting teaching methods to the way a person behaves in concordance with his habits, cultural and educational background. The objective of the study is to prove that the relationship between our behavior and personality and the way we react to the accumulation of information are connected and can have a positive impact on how students internalize the information they get in class. As a research methodology we used the observational method that it is the primary research method in anthropology, combined with questionnaire method in order to achieve a more accurate result. The focus group have been formed by students from Pedagogy, Communication and Romanian Language Studies from University of Craiova. The results show that when we approached our teaching method by taking into consideration the personality and character of each student, the learning results improved considerably. The research is only the first step taken in this direction. For a more accurate understanding of this new teaching/learning approach it is necessary not only to extend the research to a wider community of students, but also to introduce this method to smaller educational classes.

Keywords:

behavioral anthropology, learning process, teaching methods, behavioral sciences, class efficiency

Behavioral anthropology is a relatively new concept in anthropology. Although it has been used in the past, it has never fully been anchored in basic anthropological research. But, as we grow more and more interested in applying the anthropological questions of Why, What, Who in today’s societies, behavioral anthropology becomes a resourceful tool in researching and understanding our own present inside of communities/societies. Also, because the gap between generations has never been more abyssally than today we figured out that bringing the behavioral anthropology perspective in classes, we will be able to build a bridge that offers us the possibility to improve the learning efficiency of students/pupils. First of all, behavioral anthropology integrates more items that help generate a pertinent conclusion at the end of a research. The main items that must be taken into consideration are cultural background, educational background, psychological status, biological particularities, experiences and interactions. Each main item has a subdivision of other important elements that provides a more detailed map of a certain behavior that arises in a certain situation. Secondly, behavioral anthropology is a concept design to help us find answers as to why someone acts the way he/she acts at a given moment. In order to achieve that, we must not only understand how a person is built (emotionally, culturally, educationally, intellectually) but also how interaction with the given environment (people and situations) affects him/her. Last, but not least, if classic anthropology deals mainly with societies and communities, behavioral anthropology treats an individual as a social-cultural system. It is, if we’re permitted, a micro analysis of the smallest particle that creates the societies. But why is it so important to understand someone else’s reactions and attitude? Well because by doing so we can eliminate the judgmental thinking that could create a wall between us and others, wall that could prevent us from seeing maybe the true value of another person. And where if not when we try to pass on knowledge it is more important to overcome such walls.