UC professor finds gender bias negatively affects professors’ evaluations
Science, Phys.org report on study led by Oriana Aragon
Professors in the gender minority of university academic departments tend to receive lower scores in their performance evaluations because of gender bias, a study led by a University of Cincinnati professor found.
Oriana Aragon, a social psychologist and assistant professor of marketing in UC’s Carl H. Lindner College of Business, led a study with colleagues from the University of Colorado Boulder and Clemson University that explored the effects of gender bias in student evaluations of professors’ performance, publications including Science, Phys.org, Inside Higher Ed and Higher Ed Dive reported.
Oriana Aragon, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Cincinnati Carl H. Lindner College of Business
For the study, which was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Aragon and her fellow researchers looked at more than 100,000 evaluations from 4,700 courses at Clemson.
They discovered that in departments with more men as professors, women had lower average student evaluation ratings when teaching higher level courses. For departments with more women as professors, men had lower average student evaluation ratings when teaching higher level courses.
In departments with approximately an equal number of men and women as professors, the bias disappeared.
“The fact that women and men alike were penalized illustrates how stereotypes are broadly harmful,” Asia Eaton, a social psychologist at Florida International University, said to Science about the study’s findings. “The studies in this paper do an excellent job of studying gender bias in context.”
Aragon and her colleagues also performed an experiment in which they created a website for a theoretical academic department and enlisted student volunteers. Students were presented descriptions of mock courses with the picture and biography of a male or female instructor.
The students in the experiment evaluated the professors as if they had taken the mock courses. The same gender biases found in the student evaluations from actual courses were shown in the theoretical courses.
The effects of the biases could be very harmful to professors, as student evaluations often are used to help make decisions about which faculty members get promotions and tenure.
“Denying tenure for a small difference in teaching eval scores would be really a tragedy,” Aragón said to Science.
Read more:
Featured image at top courtesy of Unsplash.
Next Lives Here
The University of Cincinnati is classified as a Research 1 institution by the Carnegie Commission and is ranked in the National Science Foundation's Top-35 public research universities. UC's medical, graduate and undergraduate students and faculty investigate problems and innovate solutions with real-world impact. Next Lives Here.
Related Stories
Cincinnati records record rainfall in weekend deluge
July 21, 2026
The Cincinnati Enquirer talks to UC College of Engineering and Applied Science Associate Professor Patrick Ray for context about a July 17 rainstorm that dumped a record amount of rain on parts of Cincinnati.
Putting preschool into perspective
July 20, 2026
Preschool and childcare can be difficult to navigate for parents, as Spectrum News 1 Ohio recently reported. Waitlists are long, and factors like cost, location and transportation can limit options. According to a recent study published by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, only 41% of 3- to 4-year-olds in Ohio were enrolled in preschool between 2020 and 2024 — a 4% decrease from pre-pandemic numbers. For University of Cincinnati early childhood education faculty member Chad Nunamaker, that statistic has caveats.
Engineering magnets for a cleaner future
July 20, 2026
The United States is heavily reliant on imported rare-earth materials to make permanent magnets. Ugochukwu Philip Ochieze, materials science student at the University of Cincinnati, is studying how to use common materials to create permanent magnets, eliminating the need for expensive and scarce rare-earth materials. Pursuing his PhD, Ochieze was named Graduate Student Engineer of the Month by the College of Engineering and Applied Science.