Gender and cultural bias in student evaluations: Why representation matters

Gendered and racial inequalities persist in even the most progressive of workplaces. There is increasing evidence to suggest that all aspects of employment, from hiring to performance evaluation to promotion, are affected by gender and cultural background. In higher education, bias in performance ev...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	PloS one Vol. 14; no. 2; p. e0209749
Main Authors:	Fan, Y, Shepherd, L J, Slavich, E, Waters, D, Stone, M, Abel, R, Johnston, E L
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	United States Public Library of Science 13-02-2019 Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects:	Analysis Australia Bias Biology and Life Sciences Colleges & universities Culture Education Employment Engineering and Technology Faculty Female Gender equality Graduates Humans Language Male Minority & ethnic groups Minority Groups People and Places Performance evaluation Personnel Selection Race relations Representations Research and Analysis Methods Science Policy Sexism Social Sciences Studies Surveys Teacher evaluations Teachers Teaching Universities Universities and colleges Workplace Workplaces Australia Sydney New South Wales Australia United States > US
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Summary:	Gendered and racial inequalities persist in even the most progressive of workplaces. There is increasing evidence to suggest that all aspects of employment, from hiring to performance evaluation to promotion, are affected by gender and cultural background. In higher education, bias in performance evaluation has been posited as one of the reasons why few women make it to the upper echelons of the academic hierarchy. With unprecedented access to institution-wide student survey data from a large public university in Australia, we investigated the role of conscious or unconscious bias in terms of gender and cultural background. We found potential bias against women and teachers with non-English speaking backgrounds. Our findings suggest that bias may decrease with better representation of minority groups in the university workforce. Our findings have implications for society beyond the academy, as over 40% of the Australian population now go to university, and graduates may carry these biases with them into the workforce.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:	1932-6203 1932-6203
DOI:	10.1371/journal.pone.0209749