Gender-biased evaluation or actual differences? Fairness in the evaluation of faculty teaching

Abstract

How do we know if a faculty teaching evaluation is biased? Biasing factors studies are an influential source of evidence for arguing about biased teaching evaluations. These studies examine existing evaluation data and compare the results by gender, race, or ethnicity, interpreting a significant difference between subgroups as evidence of bias. However, only a difference explained by irrelevant aspects embedded in the evaluation would compromise its fairness. The study aims to amend how practitioners and researchers address gender bias concerns in faculty teaching evaluations by defining fairness , disparate impact , and statistical bias from an educational measurement standpoint. The study illustrates the use of differential item functioning (DIF) analysis, a strategy to examine whether the meaning of an item changes depending on the gender of the instructor. The study examines instructor’s gender bias using responses to a course evaluation questionnaire from education graduate students from two academic departments within the same institution. In one of the departments, the analysis suggested a fair evaluation and no gender gap. In the other department, four of the eight items in the rating scale were easier for women than men with similar teaching ability, and women achieved better evaluations than men. The discussion addresses the conceptual and methodological advantages of adopting an educational measurement perspective on fairness in faculty teaching evaluation. Findings encourage practitioners and administrators to use the best available tools to strengthen the credibility of faculty teaching evaluations and prevent unfair personnel decisions affecting underrepresented subgroups in academia by gender, race, or ethnicity.

Abusive comments in student evaluations of courses and teaching: the attacks women and marginalised academics endure

“…The largest group negatively impacted in SET results is almost universally accepted to be women, with many studies finding that women are disadvantaged by a statistically significant amount (Adams et al, 2021;Valencia, 2021). Boring et al (2016) found that higher performing women academics were often graded harsher in SETs to such an extent that they were placed in lower grading brackets (excellent, very good, good etc.)…”

Trends in medical education: integrating medical humanities in all curricula——A new curriculum evaluation index system

“…School education administrators or teachers may evaluate the teaching quality of courses according to the evaluation score. However, in the evaluation process, attention should be paid to the issue of fairness to avoid the interference of subjective factors of teachers and students (30).…”

Criteria for Teaching Performance in Psychology: Invariance According to Age, Sex, and Academic Stage of Peruvian Students

“…Students may have biases in their assessment depending on whether they are female or male when evaluating the performance of their teachers, in which the female teacher has also been more affected (Potvin and Hazari, 2016;Heffernan, 2021;Kreitzer and Sweet-Cushman, 2021). According to Valencia (2021), this situation may encourage students to accept and reproduce these gender biases in other social contexts. However, Kreitzer and Sweet-Cushman (2021) point out that the effect of student gender on teaching evaluation is conditioned to other factors.…”

“…To date, little is known about possible differences according to the age of the student body in the appraisal of teaching in the context of University education, but differences in students' appraisal of teaching according to their level of advancement in their studies have been reported (Marsh and Hocevar, 1984;Kamran et al, 2012;Kalender, 2015;Müller et al, 2017;Kitto et al, 2019;Mocanu et al, 2021;Pérez-Villalobos et al, 2021). Similarly, differences have been reported according to the gender of the student body, with respect to the students' assessment of teaching and the performance of their teachers, in the context of higher education (Boring, 2015;Boring et al, 2016;Potvin and Hazari, 2016;Eouanzoui and Jones, 2017;Heffernan, 2021;Kreitzer and Sweet-Cushman, 2021;Valencia, 2021).…”