“College Professors Tried To Reduce Gender Bias In Evaluations—But Couldn’t,” featured research by Ann Owen, the Henry Platt Bristol Chair of Public Policy and Professor of Economics; Associate Professor of Government Erica De Bruin; and Stephen Wu, the Irma M. and Robert D. Morris Professor of Economics that was published online recently in the journal Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education.
Their paper, “Can you mitigate gender bias in student evaluations of teaching? Evaluating alternative methods of soliciting feedback,” presents findings from their randomized experiment to assess whether either intervention can mitigate gender disparities in qualitative evaluation comments.
Using data from 40 faculty members across disciplines in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences at selective U.S. liberal arts colleges, the researchers varied both the instrument and the timing at which student evaluations of faculty were solicited.
The qualitative student comments showed that:
- Female faculty receive less positive evaluations than male faculty.
- Female faculty pay a larger penalty for being harsher graders and teaching big classes, and no evidence that male faculty are penalized by students for teaching big classes.
- Female faculty, especially harsh graders, receive more specific evaluations.
- None of the study conditions reduced this bias.
They said their findings “highlight the difficulty of removing bias from student feedback.”
In the Forbes article by Senior Contributor Kim Elsesser, Owen shared that Hamilton's use of student evaluations has shifted over time, and that the College "requires departments to use multiple types of evidence in tenure and promotion decisions so student evaluations would not be the only source of evidence."
“We also explicitly prohibited using student feedback to compare faculty—we can no longer conclude that one person is a better teacher than another because that person receives more positive feedback from students,” Owen said.
Professors Tried To Reduce Gender Bias In Evaluations—But Couldn’t
The researchers found that female faculty and others underrepresented in their fields receive lower numeric scores and more negative comments about their personality, appearance, competence, and professionalism.
