He Taught, She Taught: The effect of teaching style, academic credentials, bias awareness and academic discipline on gender bias in teaching evaluations

Nigel Burnell, Irina Cojuharenco () and Zahra Murad
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Nigel Burnell: University of Surrey

No 2020-05, Working Papers in Economics & Finance from University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth Business School, Economics and Finance Subject Group

Abstract: Gender bias in teaching evaluations leads to unfair decisions during academics􏰀 careers. In four controlled experiments, we examine the role of academics􏰀 teaching style, academic credentials, academic discipline and bias awareness on gender bias in teaching evaluations. In Study 1, we test competing hypotheses regarding the effect of teaching style on gender bias. We find that a high warmth teaching style increases female academics􏰀 perceived warmth, but decreases their perceived competence, so gender bias in evaluations persists. In Study 2, we find that gender bias disappears for academic with senior credentials. Additionally, we find no evidence of less biased evaluations by those who anticipate gender bias. In Study 3 and Study 4, we test the robustness of our results in a different academic discipline and using different evaluation measures. In these latter studies, we do not find any evidence of gender bias in evaluations. We discuss our findings in the higher education context and make recommendations to mitigate gender bias in teaching evaluations.

Keywords: Gender bias; teaching evaluations; teaching style; academic credentials; bias awareness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 68
Date: 2020-04-18
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