Reducing discrimination in the field: Evidence from an awareness raising intervention targeting gender biases in student evaluations of teaching

This paper presents the results of a field experiment designed to reduce gender discrimination in student evaluations of teaching (SET). In the first intervention, students receive a normative statement reminding them that they should not discriminate in SETs. In the second intervention, the normative statement includes precise information about how other students (especially male students) have discriminated against female teachers in previous years. The purely normative statement has no significant impact on SET overall satisfaction scores, suggesting that a blanket awareness-raising campaign may be inefficient to reduce discrimination. However, the informational statement appears to significantly reduce gender discrimination. The effect we find mainly comes from a change in male students' evaluation of female teachers. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license

Automated summary

The study found that a normative statement had no significant impact on gender discrimination in student evaluations of teaching, but an informational statement significantly reduced discrimination. Specifically, male students' evaluations of female teachers were notably affected.