Teaching Psychological Concepts Through a Hip-Hop Pedagogy

The goal of this study was to examine the impact on students’ academic performance, student engagement, and overall attendance in a PSYC 1101 “Introduction to Psychology” course taught by incorporating a culturally relevant pedagogical concept of hip-hop into the course content. The study used descriptive statistics to form a comparative analysis of academic performance, class attendance, and student engagement comparisons of two courses taught with the incorporation of hip-hop pedagogy into the course versus two courses without the incorporation of hip-hop pedagogy in the course at an HBCU in Georgia. The study’s outcome showed students whose course used hip-hop pedagogy had better final grades, attended class more regularly, and were more engaged than students whose course did not incorporate hip-hop pedagogy into the course. Findings indicate the incorporation of hip-hop pedagogy is correlated with improved academic performance, class attendance, and student engagement in the course which are all factors that contribute to student success.