Fascinating and disturbing study by Emily Khazan of the University of Florida. Taking advantage of an online course on natural resource ecology, with no face-to-face contact between students and their teaching assistant, students were assigned either a male or female teaching assistant; Jesse Borden or Emily Khazan. Students saw a photo of each TA, with similar accompanying bios.
At the end of the semester, students gave higher course evaluation scores to Jesse, the male teaching assistant, with Emily receiving five times as many negative reviews.
However, there was no male TA … Khazan was the assistant for the entire class.
“Girls are told throughout their education that they’re not as good at science and math as boys. You have this pool of people who made it through all of that and are still being told by their students that they’re not as good. It can have a compounding effect,” Khazan said.
University of Florida News
The study is to be published in the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture Journal.