Gender, Teaching Evaluations, and Professional Success in Political Science

PSC 492 Cover_PosterGender, Teaching Evaluations, and Professional Success in Political Science

Lisa L. Martin

Evaluations of teaching effectiveness rely heavily on student evaluations of teaching. However, an accumulating body of evidence shows that these evaluations are subject to gender bias. Theories of leadership and role incongruity suggest that this bias should be especially prominent in large courses. “Gender, Teaching Evaluations, and Professional Success in Political Science” examines publicly available data from two large political science departments and finds that female instructors receive substantively and significantly lower ratings than male instructors in large courses. The author discusses the implications of apparent gender bias in teaching evaluations for the professional success of female faculty, since many decisions about promotion and other professional rewards take student evaluations of teaching into account. Findings of gender bias in evaluations in other fields also hold in political science and are particularly problematic in the evaluation of large courses.

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PS: Political Science & Politics / Volume 49 / Issue 02 / April 2016, pp 313-319 / Copyright © American Political Science Association 2016