Student evaluations and gendered expectations: What we can’t count can hurt us

Does teacher's gender impact students' evaluations? We critically evaluated the research literature and concluded that the form gender bias takes may not be easily detectible by quantitative scales. To explore this possibility, we did a qualitative analysis of the words that 288 college students at two campuses used to describe their best-and worst-ever teachers. Although we found considerable overlap in the ways that students talked about their male and female teachers, we also saw indications that students hold teachers accountable to certain gendered expectations. These expectations place burdens on all teachers, but the burdens on women are more labor-intensive. We also saw signs of much greater hostility toward women than toward men who do not meet students' gendered expectations. KEY WORDS: teaching evaluations; student evaluations; gender discrimination. Administrators place increasing emphasis on student evaluation of professors in making personnel decisions. For example, in a nationwide survey of administrators of accredited, 4-year, undergraduate, liberal arts colleges in 1998, 88.1% reported that they "always used" systematic student ratings of teaching in evaluating faculty; in earlier surveys, fewer administrators gave this response: 80.3% in 198880.3% in and 54.8% in 197880.3% in (Seldin, 1999. Reviews of the research literature on the student evaluation of college teaching could easily give the impression that gender is not a major factor in the process (e.g., We argue that a more careful reading of the research literature reveals that the evidence is mixed. Meta-analytic strategies such as In a review of the research, Aleamoni (1999) reported that "a majority of studies" (p. 156) find no relationship between either teacher gender or student gender and student ratings. But the claim of no gender difference was weakly supported with a reference to seven studies cited in an article published in 1971. 77

Structured Knowledges and Strategic Methodologies: Comment on Walby's Against Epistemological Chasms: the Science Question in Feminism Revisited

This is the published version, also available here: http://www.dx.doi.org/10.1086/495603