Methodological Troubles with Gender and Sex in Higher Education Survey Research

Garvey, Jason C.; Hart, Jeni; Metcalfe, Amy Scott; Fellabaum-Toston, Jennifer

doi:10.1353/rhe.2019.0088

Cited by 37 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(49 reference statements)

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“…To understand how sexual and gender identities are (not) collected in federal and national higher education survey data collections, I recently conducted two studies focusing on the representation and operationalization of sexual and gender identities in these large-scale surveys (Garvey, 2019;Garvey, Hart, Metcalfe, & Fellabaum-Toston, 2019). Regarding the six U.S. federal government surveys overviewed, none included questions/items for QT people to indicate their sexual identities or sex/gender beyond binaries of male/female or man/ woman.…”

Section: Federal and National Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Imperatives for Studying Queer and Trans Undergraduate Student Retention

Garvey

2020

Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Pr

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The dearth of retention scholarship that centers (or includes) queer and trans (QT) students has resulted in inadequately capturing the nuanced dimensions of student retention. As a scholarly community, we are at a critical juncture where it is academically, administratively, and morally necessary to reexamine assumptions about retention to better acknowledge and center QT people in this body of work. The purpose of this article is to provide critical imperatives for studying QT undergraduate student retention, including methodological, institutional, interpersonal, and individual contexts. I close with implications for education scholars, institutional researchers, and assessment professionals when studying QT student retention.

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Section: Federal and National Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical Imperatives for Studying Queer and Trans Undergraduate Student Retention

Garvey

2020

Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Pr

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“…Retention scholarship and literature are overwhelmingly quantitative in nature. Quantitative methods are not inherently positivistic or postpositivistic but historically are (Garvey, Hart, Metcalfe, & Fellabaum-Toston, 2019), and frequently researchers still utilize them to make claims about correlations that present as truths and facts. Stage (2007) explained, "A positivistic researcher seeks models that nearly completely explain phenomena of interest, aiming for confirmation and verification to explain universal human behavior.…”

Section: Positivistic Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Almost all the quantitative work I surveyed showed little evidence of a critical quantitative approach. Quantitative criticalists seek to ameliorate oppression and ask questions about models, measures, and methods (Garvey et al, 2019;Stage, 2007). Although an especially egregious example, the dangers of relying on positivistic research find expression in the work of Jenicke et al (2013Jenicke et al ( -2014.…”

Section: Positivistic Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Queering College Student Retention

Denton

2020

Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Pr

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Retention literature and concepts warrant examination through the lens of queer theory, a poststructural body of thought about sexuality and gender, to understand their implications for queer students. Five themes found in the retention literature are addressed from a queer perspective: framing retention as an economic and labor problem; campus climate; the focus on programs, policies, and services; psychological traits; and positivistic approaches. Queering retention involves deconstructing retention binaries; problematizing the production of normative subjects through retention theory; focusing on institutional transformation; and examining retention as heteronormative domination. Queer failure and futurity are offered as possible new frames for retention. This essay seeks to raise questions, tensions, and complexities with no clear or simple solutions. Tentative and limited implications for practice and research are offered; however, they raise more questions than provide answers.

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“…It is therefore important in any selection procedure to design the survey instrument following best practices [86,87] with special consideration for known-challenging questions dealing with sex and gender [88], race and ethnicity [89], and any other questions in which responses could place the respondent in a historically stigmatized category. Where specific guidance on questionnaire design by content of question is unavailable, question items might include a write-in option such as "None of these options fits well, I prefer []."…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Entrofy your cohort: A transparent method for diverse cohort selection

Huppenkothen

McFee

Norén³

2020

PLoS ONE

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Selecting a cohort from a set of candidates is a common task within and beyond academia. Admitting students, awarding grants, and choosing speakers for a conference are situations where human biases may affect the selection of any particular candidate, and, thereby the composition of the final cohort. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm, entrofy, designed to be part of a human-in-the-loop decision making strategy aimed at making cohort selection as just, transparent, and accountable as possible. We suggest embedding entrofy in a twostep selection procedure. During a merit review, the committee selects all applicants, submissions, or other entities that meet their merit-based criteria. This often yields a cohort larger than the admissible number. In the second stage, the target cohort can be chosen from this meritorious pool via a new algorithm and software tool called entrofy. entrofy optimizes differences across an assignable set of categories selected by the human committee. Criteria could include academic discipline, home country, experience with certain technologies, or other quantifiable characteristics. The entrofy algorithm then yields the approximation of pre-defined target proportions for each category by solving the tie-breaking problem with provable performance guarantees. We show how entrofy selects cohorts according to predetermined characteristics in simulated sets of applications and demonstrate its use in a case study of Astro Hack Week. This two stage candidate and cohort selection process allows human judgment and debate to guide the assessment of candidates' merit in step 1. Then the human committee defines relevant diversity criteria which will be used as computational parameters in entrofy. Once the parameters are defined, the set of candidates who meet the minimum threshold for merit are passed through the entrofy cohort selection procedure in step 2 which yields a cohort of a composition as close as possible to the computational parameters defined by the committee. This process has the benefit of separating the meritorious assessment of candidates from certain elements of their diversity and from some considerations around cohort composition. It also increases the transparency and auditability of the process, which enables, but does not guarantee, fairness. Splitting merit and diversity considerations into their own assessment stages makes it easier to explain

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Methodological Troubles with Gender and Sex in Higher Education Survey Research

Abstract: We examine the American landscape of higher education quantitative research concerning how gender and sex demographic information is collected. We use a directed content analysis to examine the prevalence and

Cited by 37 publications

References 40 publications

Critical Imperatives for Studying Queer and Trans Undergraduate Student Retention

Critical Imperatives for Studying Queer and Trans Undergraduate Student Retention

Queering College Student Retention

Entrofy your cohort: A transparent method for diverse cohort selection

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