Students' Perceptions of Expressiveness: Age and Gender Effects on Teacher Evaluations

In this study we investigated the relationship between college students' perceptions of professors' expressiveness and implicit age and gender stereotypes. Three hundred and fifty-two male and female students watched slides of an age- and gender-neutral stick figure and listened to a neutral voice presenting a lecture, and then evaluated it on teacher evaluation forms that indicated 1 of 4 different age and gender conditions (male, female, “old,” and “young”). Main and interaction effects indicated that students rated the “young” male professor higher than they did the “young” female, “old” male, and “old” female professors on speaking enthusiastically and using a meaningful voice tone during the class lecture regardless of the identical manner in which the material was presented. Implications of biased teacher-expressiveness items on student evaluations are discussed.

[1]  Philip C. Abrami,et al.  Current concerns are past concerns. , 1999 .

[2]  S. Basow.  Best and Worst Professors: Gender Patterns in Students' Choices , 2000 .

[3]  Susan A. Basow,et al.  Student evaluations of college professors: When gender matters. , 1995 .

[4]  David R. Roskos-Ewoldsen,et al.  Attitudes, Perception, and Attention , 1994 .

[5]  R. Davis.  The genetic development of patterns of voluntary activity. , 1943 .

[6]  Kenneth A. Feldman,et al.  The perceived instructional effectiveness of college teachers as related to their personality and attitudinal characteristics: A review and synthesis , 1986 .

[7]  S. Basow,et al.  Teacher Expressiveness: More Important for Male Teachers Than Female Teachers? , 1985 .

[8]  J. Best,et al.  A preliminary study of perceived warmth of professor and student evaluations. , 2000 .

[9]  J. Centra,et al.  Is There Gender Bias in Student Evaluations of Teaching? , 2000 .

[10]  A. Greenwald,et al.  Grading leniency is a removable contaminant of student ratings. , 1997, The American psychologist.

[11]  P. Devine,et al.  Automaticity and control in stereotyping. , 1999 .

[12]  J. Kalavar.  EXAMINING AGEISM: DO MALE AND FEMALE COLLEGE STUDENTS DIFFER? , 2001 .

[13]  Laura L. B. Barnes,et al.  Academic discipline and generalizability of student evaluations of instruction , 1993 .

[14]  Klaus R. Scherer.  On social representations of emotional experience: Stereotypes, prototypes, or archetypes? , 1992 .

[15]  J. Bargh.  The cognitive monster: The case against the controllability of automatic stereotype effects. , 1999 .

[16]  D. Dunning,et al.  Stereotypes and tacit inference. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[17]  H. Marsh,et al.  Making students' evaluations of teaching effectiveness effective: The critical issues of validity, bias, and utility. , 1997 .

[18]  E. R. Welfel,et al.  Age, Gender and Health Bias in Counselors: An Empirical Analysis. , 2000 .

[19]  Hari Das,et al.  Business Students' Perceptions of Best University Professors: Does Gender Role Matter? , 2001 .

[20]  Christopher D. Moore,et al.  Categorizing the Neighbors: Identity, Distance, and Stereotyping* , 2001 .

[21]  C. Peterson.  Are Young People Biased against Older Teachers , 1980 .

[22]  Robin Wilson,et al.  New Research Casts Doubt on Value of Student Evaluations of Professors. , 1998 .

[23]  S. Basow.  Effects of teacher expressiveness: Mediated by teacher sex-typing? , 1990 .

[24]  M. Ferguson,et al.  Beyond behaviorism: on the automaticity of higher mental processes. , 2000, Psychological bulletin.

[25]  J. Dovidio,et al.  Automatic Stereotyping: Category, Trait, and Behavioral Activations , 2002 .

[26]  Susan A. Basow,et al.  Student evaluations of college professors: Are female and male professors rated differently? , 1987 .

[27]  M. Gurtman,et al.  Evidence for the automaticity of ageism , 1990 .

[28]  E. Martin.  Power and Authority in the Classroom: Sexist Stereotypes in Teaching Evaluations , 1984, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.

[29]  S. Basow,et al.  Evaluations of College Professors: Effects of Professors' Sex-Type, and Sex, and Students' Sex , 1987 .

[30]  Mark E. Johnson,et al.  Effects of inclusive vs. exclusive language on evaluations of the counselor , 1996 .

[31]  S. Bennett,et al.  Student perceptions of and expectations for male and female instructors: Evidence relating to the question of gender bias in teaching evaluation. , 1982 .

[32]  P. Costa,et al.  Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: robust and surprising findings. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[33]  H. Oyer,et al.  Ratings of vocal pleasantness and the aging process. , 1991, Folia phoniatrica.

[34]  Brian A. Nosek,et al.  Harvesting implicit group attitudes and beliefs from a demonstration web site , 2002 .

[35]  Clayton N. Tatro.  Gender effects on student evaluations of faculty , 1995 .

[36]  Harvey R. Freeman.  Student evaluations of college instructors: effects of type of course taught, instructor gender and gender role, and student gender , 1994 .

[37]  Wendy M. Williams,et al.  “How'm I Doing?” Problems with Student Ratings of Instructors and Courses , 1997 .

[38]  P. Ekman,et al.  Strong evidence for universals in facial expressions: a reply to Russell's mistaken critique. , 1994, Psychological bulletin.

[39]  C. Wilcox,et al.  Gender differences in public attitudes toward the Gulf War: A test of competing hypotheses , 1996 .

[40]  David J. Martin,et al.  Identifying Significant Predictors of Student Evaluations of Faculty Through Hierarchical Regression Analysis , 2001, The Journal of psychology.

[41]  Mary E. Kite,et al.  Changing times, changing gender roles: Who do we want women and men to be? , 2001 .

[42]  B. Avolio,et al.  The impact of blatant pay disclosure in a university environment , 1985 .

[43]  V. Helgeson.  Prototypes and dimensions of masculinity and femininity , 1994 .

[44]  Luigi Castelli,et al.  On the Activation of Social Stereotypes: The Moderating Role of Processing Objectives , 1997 .

[45]  P. Abrami,et al.  Navigating student ratings of instruction. , 1997 .

[46]  S. J. Lachman,et al.  Processes in Perception: Psychological Transformations of Highly Structured Stimulus Material , 1996, Perceptual and motor skills.

[47]  Corrine I. Voils,et al.  Implicit associations as the seeds of intergroup bias: how easily do they take root? , 2001 .

[48]  Curtis D. Hardin,et al.  Implicit Stereotyping in Person Judgment. , 1993 .

[49]  An Empirical Test of the Gender-Linked Language Effect in a Public Speaking Setting , 1982 .

[50]  H. F. Chabot.  Predicting ageist and sexist attitudes and the conditions for their existence , 1999 .

[51]  W. Levin.  Age Stereotyping , 1988 .

[52]  B. Levy.  Eradication of ageism requires addressing the enemy within. , 2001, The Gerontologist.

[53]  M. Messner.  White Guy Habitus in the Classroom , 2000 .

[54]  Martin E. Amin.  Gender as a Discriminating Factor in the Evaluation of Teaching , 1994 .

[55]  J. Dovidio,et al.  The Reliability of Implicit Stereotyping , 2001 .

[56]  Diane Kierstead,et al.  Sex Role Stereotyping of College Professors: Bias in Students' Ratings of Instructors. , 1988 .

[57]  Laura K. Guerrero,et al.  Associations between Nonverbal Behaviors and Initial Impressions of Instructor Competence and Course Content in Videotaped Distance Education Courses , 1998 .

[58]  A. Greenwald.  Validity concerns and usefulness of student ratings of instruction. , 1997, The American psychologist.

[59]  Janet K. Swim,et al.  Overt, Covert, And Subtle Sexism , 1997 .

[60]  N. Ambady,et al.  Will a Category Cue Affect You? Category Cues, Positive Stereotypes and Reviewer Recall for Applicants , 2000 .

[61]  B. Levy.  Improving memory in old age through implicit self-stereotyping. , 1996, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[62]  J. Bargh,et al.  Automaticity of social behavior: direct effects of trait construct and stereotype-activation on action. , 1996, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[63]  A. Dijksterhuis,et al.  The knife that cuts both ways: Facilitated and inhibited access to traits as a result of stereotype activation , 1996 .

[64]  David M. Sanbonmatsu,et al.  On the automatic activation of attitudes. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[65]  E. Aries,et al.  Men and Women in Interaction: Reconsidering the Differences , 1996 .

[66]  W. McKeachie.  Student ratings: The validity of use. , 1997 .