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I want you personally to know I have hated every day in your course, and if I wasn’t forced to take this, I never would have. Anytime you mention this course to anyone who has ever taken it, they automatically know that you are a horrific teacher, and that they will hate every day in your class. Be a human being show some sympathy everyone hates this class and the material so be realistic and work with people.
∼Excerpt from a student e-mail to a female online professor
Are student evaluations of teachers (SETs) biased against women, and what are the implications of this bias? Although not unanimous in their findings, previous studies found evidence of gender bias in SETs for both face-to-face and online courses. Specifically, evidence suggests that instructors who are women are rated lower than instructors who are men on SETs because of gender. The literature examining gender bias in SETs is vast and growing (Basow and Silberg 1987; Bray and Howard 1980; Miller and Chamberlin 2000), but only more recently have scholars focused on the potential of gender bias in the SETs of online college courses. The use of online courses to measure gender bias offers a unique opportunity: to hold constant many factors about a student’s experience in a course that would vary in a face-to-face format.
The importance of SETs varies among institutions as well as among positions. Even with this variation, SETs can influence decisions on hiring, tenure, raises, and other employment concerns. Moreover, universities that place great emphasis on the results of SETs may be promoting discriminatory practices without recognizing it.
This article explores sources of gender bias and argues that women are evaluated differently from men in two key ways. First, women are evaluated based on different criteria than men, including personality, appearance, and perceptions of intelligence and competency. To test this, we used a novel method: a content analysis of student comments in official open-ended course evaluations and in online anonymous commentary. The evidence from the content analysis suggests that women are evaluated more on personality and appearance, and they are more likely to be labeled a “teacher” than a “professor.” Second, and perhaps more important, we argue that women are rated more poorly than...