Abstract

Student evaluations are often used by administrators to make important career decisions for professors such as offers of tenure, increase in salary or other monetary reward (see Frick, Chadha, Watson, & Zlatkovska, 2009). Research has consistently shown that helpfulness in its various operational definitions is one of the most important traits to students when evaluating a professor (For example Silva et al., 2008). Previous findings have demonstrated that inequalities exist among subjective student evaluation ratings of men and women, (see Bennet, 1982). The present study extended this research by manipulating the instruction styles (strict vs. permissive), as well as the gender of the instructor, in a hypothetical syllabus. Participants were randomly assigned to read 1 of 4 syllabi which varied only by instruction style and gender of the instructor. Subsequently, participants answered follow up questions on the content of the syllabus which emphasized the gender of the instructor. Evaluations were collected in the form of both Likert scale ratings and responses to open ended questions. The written evaluations were analyzed for emotional content using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Software (LIWC, Pennebaker, Francis, & Booth, 2007). A 2 (male vs. female) X 2 (strict vs. permissive) between subjects ANOVA was applied to the data collected. The results support the hypothesis that gender inequalities do exist, particularly when the professor was established as having a strict style of student interaction.

Notes

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Thesis Completion

2013

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Whitten, Shannon N.

Degree

Bachelor of Science (B.S.)

College

College of Sciences

Degree Program

Psychology

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Sciences;Sciences -- Dissertations, Academic

Location

UCF Palm Bay

Format

PDF

Identifier

CFH0004392

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Length of Campus-only Access

5 years

Document Type

Honors in the Major Thesis

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Included in

Psychology Commons

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