Interdisciplinary Connections and Academic Performance in Psychology–English Learning Communities

Abstract

We investigated whether students in psychology-based learning communities (LCs; i.e., cohorts who took introductory psychology and English together) performed better on psychology tests than those in standard classes. There were two types of LC; in one (connected LC), we created links between English and psychology by using English class readings that related to the social psychology unit, and by requiring students to produce interdisciplinary group podcasts. In the other (unconnected LC), there were no interdisciplinary connections. Students in the connected LC had higher mean test scores in psychology than both students in unconnected LCs and those in standard classes. Our results suggest that students perform better on psychology tests when efforts are made to consolidate information through interdisciplinary links in an LC.