(Non-)biased evaluations: The effect of cover stories on gender bias in students when evaluating professors.

Abstract

Theory shows that when students evaluate their professors, a gender bias among students makes them evaluate female professors less positively than male professors. This has negative consequences for the careers of female professors. This study investigated whether reading an explicit or implicit cover story can influence a gender bias in students when they evaluated professors. The cover stories seemed to have small effects on how positively students evaluated professors, but did not work to counteract a gender bias. In addition, this study investigated to what extent the gender of students influenced gender bias when they evaluated professors. The students' gender did not have much influence on the evaluations, but male students used more negative words when describing male professors than when describing female professors.