Gender and Teaching Evaluation II

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Hi,

I don't know if any course/teaching questions would mediate the gender
factors, but there are studies that suggest that including such things
as sex of student, sex of instructor, type of course content, student
gender attitudes, consistency of professors behavior with sex-role
stereotypes, lecture vs. seminar, tenure status, toughness of grading,
and minority cues (race, ethnicity, sexual orientation) in the analysis
of teaching evaluations might allow you to correct for bias to a degree.
Including questions that would allow you to tease out these influences
might be helpful.

Susan A. Basow has done a lot of work in this area. The list above comes
from her chapters in Career Strategies for women in academe: Arming
Athena, of which I am an editor, but she has also published her work in
Journal of Educational Psychology (1985, 1987, 1995), Psychological
Reports (1979). She also wrote a book entitled Gender: Stereotypes and
roles (1992, Brooks/Cole).

Lynn Collins


Alyson R Buckman wrote:
>
> A colleague and I are working on revamping our department's evaluation
> forms.  Given that we will continue to have these forms and have
> questions upon them, we would like to hear from anyone who has come up
> with questions which negate -- if this is possible -- or perhaps mediate
> the gender bias which has been thoroughly noted in women's studies
> literature.  Are there any questions which are better than others?
> Thanks,
> Alyson Buckman, Cal. State U, Sacramento
> abuckman  AT  csus.edu

--
Lynn H. Collins, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
La Salle University
1900 West Olney Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19141
mailto:Lynn.H.Collins  AT  mindspring.com
http://www.lasalle.edu/~collins/
http://www.lasalle.edu/academ/grad/doc_psych/collins.htm

This is the topic of my pilot study for my dissertation.  So far, I have
examined three semesters of Student Perceptions of Teaching Effectiveness
(SPTE) data.  The SPTE is the evaluation form that is used both at my
University and at a smaller university, and administered through mine.
Interestingly, previous studies of global bias against women has turned up
negative.  That is, there has been no "significant" difference between how
students rate female and male instructors overall.

Part of the discrepancy between global findings, (which are used for tenure
decisions, raises, etc.) and the findings of Basow and D'Agostino are that
these researchers look at particular questions with regard to bias, and not
the larger picture of the overall ratings.  Because it is the larger rating
that is used, individual questions can be "bad" or "biased" and still have a
neutral, or even favorable global outcome for female instructors.  In my
study, I am breaking it down further, by department and by how male and
female students rate male and female instructors.  However, it is important
to identify that the global measures are the ones that are most important,
overall.

Another important consideration is that a priori motivation must be
corrected for prior to evaluation being understood.  In our instrument,
there are several questions that get to these motivations, such as "I really
wanted to take this course" or "I really wanted to take a course from this
instructor" - correcting the surveys for this motivation makes the overall
understanding of the outcomes less biased toward popular (or unpopular)
instructors or classes that are mandatory for degrees vs. those that are
taken for "fun" so to speak.

We will be putting together a workshop at the Southwestern Psychological
Association Convention this spring.  It will cover a lot of these issues,
including the final outcome of my study - which I hope to have the data
analysis finalized by the end of October.

Here are some references that may be a good jumping off point for you:

Basow, S.A. (1995). Student evaluations of college professors: When gender
matters. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87(4), 656-665.

Basow, S.A., & Distenfeld, M.S. (1985). Teacher expressiveness: More
important for males than females? Journal of Educational Psychology, 77,
45-52.

Basow, S.A., & Howe, K.G. (1987). Evaluations of college professors: Effects
of professors' sex-type, and sex, and students' sex. Psychological Reports,
60, 671-678.

Basow, S.A., & Silberg, N.T. (1987). Student evaluations of college
professors: Are female and male professors rated differently? Journal of
Educational Psychology, 79, 308-314.

Bennett, S.K. (1982). Student perceptions of and expectations for male and
female instructors: Evidence relating to the question of gender bias in
teaching evaluation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 74, 170-179.

Centra, J.A., & Gaubatz, N.B. (2000). Is there gender bias in student
evaluations of teaching? Journal of Higher Education, 71, 17-21.

Fernandez, J. & Mateo, M.A. (1997). Student and faculty gender in ratings of
university teaching quality. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 37(11-12),
997-1003.

Kaschak, E. (1981). Another look at sex bias in students' evaluations of
professors: do winners get the recognition that they have been given?
Psychology of Women Quarterly, 5, 767-772.

Kierstead, D., D'Agostino, P., & Dill, H. (1988). Sex role stereotyping of
college professors: Bias in students' ratings of instructors. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 80(3), 342-344.

Lombardo, J., & Tocci, M. (1979). Attribution of positive and negative
characteristics of instructors as a function of attractiveness and sex of
instructor and sex of subject. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 48, 491-494.

Martin, E. (1984). Power and authority in the classroom: Sexist stereotypes
in teaching evaluations. Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 9,
482-492.

Stephanie Hargrave, M.A.
Wichita State University
sjhargrave  AT  wichita.edu

Since people with expertise in this area are weighing in here, I have
another question, although it is not a Women's Studies question per se
(sorry Joan!).  Can someone provide a list of references related to the
general question of the appropriate use of student evaluation data?

At my institution, a big deal is made about hiring people on the basis of
excellent past teaching evaluations.  We boast that *all* our instructors
are excellent.

However, when evaluation time comes, it matters a lot whether the individual
instructor's overall scores are better or worse than the faculty-wide mean.
A tenth of a point or two worse than the mean is fraught with negativity.
And this is despite the fact that the range of variation among faculty in
average scores is not large.  Standard deviation data are not calculated.
However, everybody is expected to be "above average" or expect negative
consequences.  There is beginning to be some grumbling about this system,
and it would be helpful to have some literature to contribute to this
debate.

Thanks.

  -- Gina

This is a scary thought. Can teachers be excellent
without having great evaluations? I think this IS a
feminist issue. The development of new pedagogy, new
theories, new methodolgy is always fraught with
controversy. Raising the barre,  expecting excellent
on-time work, taking attendence, failing students who
do not measure up - these come along with the
possibility of not getting "excellent evals". It seems
that sometimes just maintaining integrity as an
instructor means not getting a "good eval". How then
does this affect education overall? I hope it doesn't
water it down, eliminate creativity, develop fear in
teachers who want to communicate something out of the
norm. How sad that would be.
Carolyn Wright

Carolyn I. Wright, Ph.D., M.F.T.
cw13215  AT  yahoo.com

  Apologies for length of this submission.  If you are concerned about
gender-based bias in instructor evaluations, I encourage you to review
Price-Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989), described below.


Dr. Wright wrote:

> This is a scary thought. Can teachers be excellent
> without having great evaluations? I think this IS a
> feminist issue... sometimes just maintaining integrity as an
> instructor means not getting a "good eval"...


    1.  I recently ran into a similar issue, although the job I was seeking
was a 1/4 time tutor position.  Being that I am a disabled person of color,
about 20 years older than most other students, and have education (B.S. and
J.D.) and career experience to match, it is natural to expect that some
student in a class with me would find me "intimidating" or however they
might term it.  Although the risk of bringing an action against my school
over a $160-280/month position is probably too great, in the course of
reaching that decision, I reviewed the U.S. Supreme Court case
Price-Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989).  This summarizes the facts
of that case:

SUMMARY: A woman who was employed as a senior manager by a nationwide
professional accounting firm was proposed for partnership in the firm by the
partners in the office where she worked, and the firm, following its usual
practice, solicited evaluations of the woman from all of its partners,
nearly all of whom were men. In those evaluations, which split sharply on
the question whether the woman should be granted or denied partnership, her
supporters strongly praised her ability and her record of securing major
contracts for the firm, but a number of evaluations sharply criticized her
interpersonal skills and specifically accused her of being abrasive. Several
of the evaluations on both sides made comments implying that the woman was
or had been acting masculine, and one partner, in explaining to the woman
the firm's decision to hold her candidacy for reconsideration the following
year, suggested that she could improve her chances for partnership by
walking, talking, and dressing more femininely.

    As Dr. Wright indicated, can any female professor or instructor
simultaneously uphold academic standards and satisfy the gender-based
expectations of every single student in her class?  If she does not offend,
she cannot teach--if she teaches, she must offend.  Moreover, because males
are naturally given deference, it is easier for them to be strict and
demanding and be thought of such, and not unfairly harsh or "abrasive."

    2.  The tendency of Women's Studies profs to develop a virtual
"personality cult" of supportive students (usually 80-100% female) serves as
a sort of "academic insulation" for this normally-embattled species of
pedagogical zoology.  Of course, professors do not encourage hostile or even
indifferent students to drop out of their classes--but if they did, they
would materially improve their "institutional survivability."  Moreover,
female professors in less politcally-charged fields--algebra, for
example--will not develop such bands (in both the collective and
circumfrential sense) of student supporters, and will be more subject to the
hazards of gender-based prejudice.

    3.  The evaluation forms I have filled out do not require the student to
include their gender or other demographic information.  It would be
interesting to see the correlation or lack thereof between the evaluation of
a professor or instructor and the social position of the student
interviewed.  (The results might either indicate that either no women should
be professors or that the student evaluation is a worthless evaluatory
tool!)

    4.  I am studying the theories of Max Weber on the functioning (and
dysfunctioning) of bureaucracy.  The focus upon student evaluations is one
potential example of how the rules of a bureaucratic institution can have an
entirely foreseeable, if unintended result--the "dummying-down" of the
post-secondary classroom.  There must be better ways to educate rather than
to focus on whether somebody "likes" somebody else--demonstratable academic
excellence, intellectual formidability and pedagogical creativity should be
more important than personal agreeability.


Hannah Miyamoto, J.D., B.S.C.E.
Social Change and Development, Senior
Women's Studies Emphasis
University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
hsmiyamoto  AT  msn.com
http://www.hannahmiyamoto.com/

Diana Kardia at the University of Michigan Center for Research on
Learning and Teaching has been doing research on gender bias in teaching
evaluations for several years now.  I don't know if her work suggests
question wordings, but I'm sure she'd be a good source for finding out
more about the subject.  The URL for the teaching center is

http://www.crlt.umich.edu/

You can contact her through them.  There's also a link called "For
Evaluation and Research."

Best,
    Joan Sitomer

*************************************************************************************
Joan Sitomer, J.D.
Ph.D. Candidate
Political Science Department
Women's Studies Program
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
jsitomer  AT  umich.edu
*************************************************************************************

Alyson Buckman asked about a source of questions that might be used on
an evaluation form; I think the University of Iowa has a fairly good
way of working with evaluation forms, and I'm happy to recommend the
University's Evaluation and Examination website:
http://www.uiowa.edu/~examserv/evaluat.html with a link to a list of
possible questions: http://www.uiowa.edu/~examserv/acepool.html and
also note the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences' policy statement,
which enables every unit to decide on its own the format of the
teaching evaluation.
http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/faculty/handbook/7/q.shtml

JoAnn Castagna
joann-castagna  AT  uiowa.edu

For anecdotal evidence of the way students figure gender, attractiveness,
etc. in rating instructors, I would suggest a visit to
www.ratemyprofessors.com.  You can vote on a prof's "sexiness" (sexy profs
get "hot tamales" beside their names). In scrolling through my own
department and friends, I was surprised to see comments like "what would
make this class better? Prof. x in leather pants..."  Based on my own
knowledge of individuals, the criteria applied for determining sexy female
and male profs differs. Men can be cuddly, or gangly, or wear frayed
sweaters from 1986 and still get the tamale. Women have to work a little
harder at this. Though there's some definite variation in rating female
profs who teach in women's studies courses. I suspect that if you were to
cross reference "degree of easiness" (grading) and male/female "tamale
distribution," there might also be some interesting developments. I know I'm
being a LITTLE tongue in cheek about this, but I'm also very serious about
how attractiveness and grading and gender all get tied together in
evaluating professors. There are times when I'm reading student evaluations
when I know exactly what gender the person is who is commenting on my
physicality or presentation.

I find it reassuring however, that as of yet there has been no tool
introduced by the site to sort professors by tamale attribution.

All the best,
Jennifer Harris
jharris  AT  yorku.ca