Evaluating the effectiveness of an awareness-based intervention on reducing accent bias in students’ evaluations of instructors

Student evaluations of teaching can be biased by the ‘way’ the instructor speaks or their accent. In the current study, we investigate whether a brief awareness-based intervention can be effective in reducing accent-based bias in students’ evaluations of instructors. In a series of controlled laboratory experiments, college student participants were randomly assigned to watch a short lecture narrated by either an instructor who spoke English with a Mandarin accent or an American accent. Prior to evaluating the instructor, participants in the intervention condition were given instructions designed to reduce bias, whereas participants in the control condition proceeded directly to the evaluation form. Although there were no statistically significant differences in performance on a multiple-choice assessment of learning, participants in both experiments showed evidence of bias, rating the Mandarin-accented instructor more negatively than the American-accented instructor. In Experiment 1, the intervention reduced the disparity in participants’ overall ratings of the two instructors; however, in Experiment 2, the intervention was less effective with different lecture materials and a more diverse sample of students. Awareness-based interventions may show promise in reducing real-world biases in college classes and could support efforts to improve diversity and inclusivity in higher education.