Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students
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Implication
Randomized trial demonstrates gender bias in faculty evaluations of student applications, suggesting implications for recruiting women in science.
Key Points
- The study aims to investigate whether science faculty display gender bias against female students and how this impacts recruitment in academic science.
- Conducted a randomized double-blind study with n = 127 faculty participants.
- Faculty evaluated application materials of identical students with randomly assigned male or female names.
- Assessed preexisting subtle bias using a standard instrument.
- Male applicants were rated significantly more competent and hireable than identical female applicants.
- Male students received higher starting salary offers and more career mentoring.
- Preexisting subtle bias was linked to less support for female students but did not affect perceptions of male students.
Cite This Study
Moss‐Racusin et al. (2012) studied this question.