Mitigating gender bias in student evaluations of teaching.
Publication type
journal article
Publication date
2019
Author(s)
Peterson, David A. M.
Biederman, Lori A.
Andersen, David
Ditonto, Tessa M.
Roe, Kevin
Place of publication
United States
Language
English
View point(s)
Student Level
Abstract
Student evaluations of teaching are widely believed to contain gender bias. In this study, we conduct a randomized experiment with the student evaluations of teaching in four classes with large enrollments, two taught by male instructors and two taught by female instructors. In each of the courses, students were randomly assigned to either receive the standard evaluation instrument or the same instrument with language intended to reduce gender bias. Students in the anti-bias language condition had significantly higher rankings of female instructors than students in the standard treatment. There were no differences between treatment groups for male instructors. These results indicate that a relatively simple intervention in language can potentially mitigate gender bias in student evaluation of teaching.
Journal
PloS one
ISSN
1932-6203
Volume
14
Issue
5
Pagination
e0216241