How Students Evaluate Male v. Female Professors

Given that prevalent use of student evaluations concerning teaching ability of instructors significantly impacts career outcomes for those in higher education, it is paramount that awareness of potential biases present in these evaluations is exposed. Currently, student evaluations are used as an effort to systematize reviews of professor performance and evaluate teaching methods. Studies frequently demonstrate implicit gender biases in evaluations as students tend to perceive, evaluate and treat female instructors significantly differently than their male counterparts. Past research indicates that the perceptions of women are typically feminine, or ‘interpersonal’ whereas perceptions of men are masculine, professional and objective (MacNell et al., 2015). MacNell et al. (2015) found students often hold their instructors to these gender role expectations and as a result, instructors that adhere to gendered expectations often receive favorable reviews. Similarly, instructors who fail to meet the gendered expectations receive less favorable reviews. Though some empirical work has been conducted to reveal student implicit biases; more are needed. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine the differences present in student evaluations of male versus female professor performance. Participants included typical aged college students who participated in an online questionnaire. As a prompt, participants were presented with a professor description accompanied by a photograph of the professor and were then were instructed to complete the attached questionnaire based on their initial perceptions of the professor. Data collection is ongoing and will be presented via poster. Keywords: student, evaluation, bias, professor, performanc