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The role of gender in students’ ratings of teaching quality in computer science and environmental engineering

  • Linda Price
    ,
  • Ingrid Svensson
    ,
  • Jonas Borell
    ,
  • John T.E. Richardson
  • Lund University
    ,
  • Open University Milton Keynes
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Open access

Abstract

Students’ ratings of teaching quality on course units in computer science and environmental engineering at a large Swedish university were obtained using the Course Experience Questionnaire; 8,888 sets of ratings were obtained from men and 4,280 sets were obtained from women over ten academic years. There were differences in the ratings given by students taking the two programs; in particular, teachers tended to receive higher ratings in subjects that were less typical for their gender than in subjects that were more typical for their gender. There were differences in the ratings given to male and female teachers, differences in the ratings given by male and female students, and interactions between these two effects. There was no systematic trend for students to give different ratings to teachers of the same gender as themselves compared with teachers of the other gender. Nevertheless, without exception even the statistically significant effects were small in magnitude and unlikely to be of theoretical or practical importance. It is concluded that the causes of differences in the career progression of male and female teachers in engineering education need to be sought elsewhere.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 281-287

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

IEEE Transactions on Education (Volume 60, Issue 4)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 03/05/2017

Publication status

Published - 03/05/2017

ISSN

0018-9359

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/622567
  • Scopus: 85019029158

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