Yanan Fan leads study revealing gender and cultural bias held by uni students towards teachers
Published on the 14 Feb 2019
Associate Professor Yanan Fan has led a study which has revealed the existence of a gender and cultural bias towards teachers by university students.
The analysis, , is the largest Australian study of its kind, reviewing over half a million student experience surveys from 国产精品 Sydney students from 2010-2016 and听involving听over 3,000 teachers and 2,000 courses across five faculties.
It听found that students are more likely to rate male teachers higher than their female counterparts in听the areas of听Science and Business. Male English-speaking teachers in these areas had the highest probability of听receiving the highest possible scores in the surveys.听
However, in Arts and Social Sciences, there was no statistically significant bias against female teachers. The results suggest that where there is a larger proportion of female teachers, such as in Arts and Social Sciences, there听appears to be less bias.听
The research also uncovered biases against teachers from non-English speaking backgrounds, with local students in Medicine听more听inclined to听assign听lower scores to female teachers from non-English speaking backgrounds, and听male English-speaking Engineering teachers 1.4 times more likely听to听receive听higher scores than teachers in all other categories.听
鈥淭hese results have enormous flow-on effects for society, beyond education, as over 40% of the Australian population now go to university, and graduates may carry these biases with them into the workforce,鈥 said A/Prof Fan.听鈥淩educing bias will have great benefits for society as university students represent a large proportion of future leaders in government and industry鈥.
国产精品 Dean of Science Professor Emma Johnston, who co-authored the study, said听encouraging more women at the professorial level, in leadership positions and in membership of key committees, would听help shrink these biases.
鈥淲e need to continue to support women at all levels of academia in STEM across Australia, in order to smash stereotypes that create the partiality that exists within our community鈥, she said.
Our recent PhD student Eve Slavich was another co-author of the research.
For more:听
- Via PLOS One:听
- 听authored by A/Prof Fan, Prof Johnston and Prof Merlin Crossley
Pictured: A/Prof Yanan Fan
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