Gender Bias in Student Evaluations

Many universities use student evaluations of teachers (SETs) as part of consideration for tenure, compensation, and other employment decisions. However, in doing so, they may be engaging in discriminatory practices against female academics. This study further explores the relationship between gender...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPS, political science & politics Vol. 51; no. 3; pp. 648 - 652
Main Authors Mitchell, Kristina M. W., Martin, Jonathan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.07.2018
Subjects
Bias
Coding
College faculty
College students
Colleges & universities
Compensation
Competence
Content analysis
Educational evaluation
Educational psychology
Employment
Evidence
Exhibits
Faculty Evaluation
Faculty Promotion
Females
Gender
Gender Bias
Gender Discrimination
Intelligence
Internet
Males
Men
Online Courses
Online instruction
Perceptions
Personality
Personnel Selection
Political science
Quantitative analysis
Stereotypes
Student attitudes
Student Evaluation
Student Evaluation of Teacher Performance
Teacher Characteristics
Teacher Effectiveness
Teacher evaluations
Teaching
Teaching methods
Teaching Styles
Tenure
The Teacher
Women
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Summary:Many universities use student evaluations of teachers (SETs) as part of consideration for tenure, compensation, and other employment decisions. However, in doing so, they may be engaging in discriminatory practices against female academics. This study further explores the relationship between gender and SETs described by MacNell, Driscoll, and Hunt (2015) by using both content analysis in student-evaluation comments and quantitative analysis of students’ ordinal scoring of their instructors. The authors show that the language students use in evaluations regarding male professors is significantly different than language used in evaluating female professors. They also show that a male instructor administering an identical online course as a female instructor receives higher ordinal scores in teaching evaluations, even when questions are not instructor-specific. Findings suggest that the relationship between gender and teaching evaluations may indicate that the use of evaluations in employment decisions is discriminatory against women.
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ISSN:1049-0965
1537-5935
DOI:10.1017/S104909651800001X