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Dryad

Student Ratings of Teaching by Instructor Gender and Perceived Gender

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Jul 16, 2015 version files 34.92 KB

Abstract

Student ratings of teaching play an important role in decisions about hiring, tenure, and compensation for instructors in higher education. In face-to-face classrooms, researchers are limited in their ability to test for the existence of bias in such ratings, as it is difficult to mask or misrepresent the gender of an instructor in the classroom. However, in the online environment is it possible to disguise an instructor’s gender identity, and therefore isolate the effects of gender bias independent of instructor performance. These data were collected during a controlled pseudo-experiment in which a male and female assistant instructor helped teach an online class, each under both male and female identities. Students were asked to rate their instructors on 12 measures, and overall. Data include the group to which students were assigned, their responses to the evaluation, and demographic information including their gender and birth year. The data also include course grades for each group.