22. Research in Higher Education
Paper
Preparing Students for Responsible Participation in a Democratic Society: Perceptions of Academics in Iceland
Guðrún Geirsdóttir1, Anna Ólafsdóttir2
1University of Iceland, Iceland; 2University of Akureyri, Iceland
Presenting Author: Geirsdóttir, Guðrún
Higher Education has been described as “a key contributor to the development of democracy, human rights protection and sustainable growth” (Bologna Process, 2012). However, the importance of higher education, is increasingly justified in terms of economic gain suggesting a notion of the university´s role as a strategic rather than a democratic one (White, 2017). This marks, as claimed by critics, a shift from public good to private good (Englund, & Bergh, 2020) as well as increased government directions and monitoring of Higher Education operations (Hazelkorn and Gibson, 2018). In Iceland, the case in point in our paper, similar concerns have been expressed (Jónsson, 2011, Skúlason, 2015). Jónsson (2011) has pointed out that one of the challenges that the university is faced with due to various changes in society, is that the laws of the market seem to have a kind of "sneaked" into the very core of it (p. 160). Skúlason (2015) has also drawn attention to this very development, arguing that the "powerful trend" to look upon universities as business enterprises that should be managed in the same way as other profit-driven organizations, raises concerns about "what it might suggest about their nature and function" (p. 18).
In recent decades, the role of universities as responsible actors in facing contemporary challenges has been increasingly highlighted (Biesta 2009; Nussbaum 2002). In that very context, democracy, and democratic education has commonly been put at the forefront of the discussion (Sugrue & Solbrekke, 2020), part of which has been to emphasize academics´ role as key players in providing such education (Skúlason, 2015). Thus, the way of responding to those challenges has been linked to civic participation and solidarity which has been considered to call for institutional practices where students are provided with opportunities to develop competences which prepare them for responsible citizenship.
Democratic education has been defined in multiple ways based on different ideological, epistemological, and relational notions of the links between education and politics (Sant, 2019). Giroux (2016), for example, claims that such education must mobilize students to be critically engaged agents, attentive to important social issues and alert to the responsibility of deepening and expanding the meaning and practices of a vibrant democracy. While definitions may vary, the democratic role of university education is specifically addressed in legislation frameworks for Icelandic universities as well as within European and international policy discourses (Bologna Process, 2018) and strongly emphasized by the Council of Europe. In 2018, the Council of Europe published the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC) to strengthen the capacity of education institutions to sustain democracy in the wider society. The fourth volume of the RFCDC will focus on higher education and the competences students need to become engaged citizens (Council of Europe website. (2018).
In Iceland, the following statement was added to article 2. of the Higher Education Act 2006 No 63 in 2012: Higher education institutions shall prepare students for responsible participation in a democratic society. A recent discourse analysis of policy documents of higher education institutions in Iceland, however, revealed that there was no mention of democratic participation, or indication on what that participation might include (Bjarnadóttir, Ólafsdóttir & Geirsdóttir, 2019). In the light of this discrepancy, we decided to explore how academics perceive their role of preparing university students for responsible participation in a democracy, and the ways in which those perceptions translate into their teaching, by their own reports. The study is part of a larger research project on the democratic role of universities, funded by the The Icelandic Research Fund.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe paper presents an analysis of semi structured interviews with 26 academics, 14 females and 12 males, from three universities in Iceland. The selected universities, The University of Iceland, Reykjavík University, and the University of Akureyri are the three largest universities in Iceland. Although having different structure within schools, and departments, all three offer programmes in a) social sciences, and b) natural sciences, engineering, and technology. Therefore, the participants were selected from those two disciplinary fields. The interviews were conducted in December, January, and February during the school year 2019-2020. They lasted from one to nearly two hours each. In the interviews, the participants reflected on the democratic role of universities in society, the meaning of responsible participation in a democratic society (the addition to article 2), and how the university, and especially their respective disciplines prepared students for responsible participation in society. Moreover, the academics were asked if, and then how these ideas were reflected in the curriculum and their teaching practices.
The authors of this paper conducted the interviews, either individually or collectively, adhering to an interview guide jointly discussed and developed. Most of the questions were open and threads were followed by probing questions (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2015).
The study followed the ethical guidelines set by the University of Iceland Research Ethics Committee (2014). The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The analysis followed Braun and Clarke’s (2013) phases of thematic analysis, using what Braun and Clarke (2013, p. 178) call “top-down” approach. Thus, the analysis was interpretative, aiming to explore assumptions and meanings by identifying patterns in the participants' words. Through the analysis, the focus was on understanding the general patterns and themes rather than on presenting opposing views or contrasts in the interviewees’ perceptions.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsPreliminary findings indicate that while academics stressed the important role of the university in modern society, their ideas of how to prepare students for responsible participation seemed vague and rather unclear. The democratic role of the university and its disciplines were reported as being rarely a topic of formal discussion within faculties although internal and external events sometimes did raise the need for such a dialogue.
The addition in article 2 was unknown to the interviewees, and democracy as a concept was not seen as a part of common institutional discourse but its meaning was familiar to them, and seen as a part of normal, every-day educational practices.
The findings also demonstrated that many of the participants found it difficult to elaborate on the connection between the democratic role of the university and the educational practices carried out within their courses. This might be explained by their unfamiliarity with the topic, i.e. that of discussing pedagogy and teaching practices in general.
Educating the professionals was commonly claimed as being an important contribution of higher education to the society. Various other competences were however, of those, critical thinking was stressed by interviewees. Analytical skills, competences in working with others, data literacy, communication skills were also frequently mentioned as a part of democratic preparation, as well as values and attributes such as confidence, respect for the truth, reflexivity, open-mindedness, and being courageous and rational.
Various teaching methods such as problem-based teaching were seen as feasible when preparing students for active participation in democratic society. While equity in teacher-student relations were stressed as a part of democratic processes, students input and agency regarding teaching and curriculum decisions were rare. This was explained by student characteristics, students´ lack of necessary knowledge, students´ lack of interest and time, and their unavailability due to distance teaching.
ReferencesBjarnadóttir, V., Ólafsdóttir, A. & Geirsdóttir, G. (2019). Þrástef, þagnir og mótsagnir um lýðræðishlutverk íslenskra háskóla. Stjórnmál & stjórnsýsla 15(2), 183-204. DOI: 10.13177/irpa.a.2019.15.2.3
Bologna Process. (2012, April). Bucharest communiqué, Final Version, Bucharest.
Bologna Process (2018), “Paris Communiqué”, available at www.ehea.info/pid34363/ ministerial-declarations-and-communiques.html, accessed 30 March 2020
Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. 2013. Successful qualitative research. A practical guide for beginners. London: Sage.
Brinkmann, Svend, and Steinar Kvale. 2015. InterViews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing. Third edition ed. Los Angeles: SAGE.
Council of Europe (2018). Presentation of the project “Competencies for Democratic Culture”. Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture, from, https://www.coe.int/en/web/education/competences-for-democratic-culture Council of Europe.
Englund, T. & Bergh, A. (2020). Higher education as and for public good: Past, present and possible futures. In T. D. Solbrekke & C. Sugrue (Editors), Leading higher education as and for public good- Rekindling education as praxis (pp. 53-69). London: Routledge.
Hazelkorn, E. & Gibson, A. (2019). Public goods and public policy: what is public good, and who and what decides?. Higher Education 78, 257–271, DOI: 10.1007/s10734-018-0341-3
Jónasson, Jón Torfi. 2011. "Háskólar og gagnrýnin þjóðfélagsumræða." Ritið 1:47-64.
Ólafur Páll Jónsson. (2011) Lýðræði, réttlæti og menntun [Democracy, justice and education]. Reykjavík, Háskólaútgáfan.
Sant, E. (2019). Democratic Education: A Theoretical Review (2006–2017). Review of Educational Research, 89(5), 655 –696.
Skúlason, Páll. 2015. A critique of universities: Reflections on the status and direction of the modern university. Reykjavík: University of Iceland Press.
Solbrekke, Tone Dyrdal & Ciaran Sugrue. 2020. "Leading higher education as, and for, public good: New beginnings." In T. D. Solbrekke & C. Sugrue (Editors), Leading higher education as and for public good: Rekindling education as praxis. London: Routledge.
Sugrue, C & Solbrekke, T. D. (2020). Leading higher education: Putting education centre stage. In T. D. Solbrekke & C. Sugrue (Editors), Leading higher education as and for public good- Rekindling education as praxis (pp. 18-37). London: Routledge.
White, M. (2017). Towards a Political Theory of the University: Public Reason, Democracy and Higher Education. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
22. Research in Higher Education
Paper
What Have we Learned About Instructor Gender Differences in Student Teaching Evaluation From Experimental Peer-reviewed Research?
Edgar Valencia, Alicia Ibañez, Martín Navarro
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile
Presenting Author: Valencia, Edgar
Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) is a method of teaching evaluation critical to enhancing an instructor’s ability to improve teaching, it is crucial to career success, but it is reportedly biased against women (American Sociological Association, 2019; Stark & Freishtat, 2014). Women tend to accumulate less human capital than men due to the tension between family obligations and work ambitions. Fewer human capital accumulation implies slower career advancement (Bertrand, 2017). Therefore, a fair teaching evaluation could reveal differences (if any) between men and women in teaching performance. On the contrary, biased teaching evaluation could affect women’s access to academic positions and promotion, contributing to the “glass ceiling effect,” women’s lack of access to better wages, power, and opportunities than men.
A few literature summaries conclude that students favor male instructors due to a gender bias in SET (American Sociological Association, 2019; Stark & Freishtat, 2014). However, studies report mixed evidence of differences in SET scores by gender (Spooren et al., 2017). A major problem affecting the interpretation of findings relates to the limitations of the observational study design. The observational/correlational design do not measure instructors’ gender bias but the difference between male and women. Observational studies report a difference between male and female teachers between instructors with different levels of teaching ability (Centra, 2003; Haladyna & Hess, 1994; MacNell et al., 2015; Marsh, 1987), for instance, due to initial differences and training.
A more effective way of revealing the instructor’s gender effects on SET is through experimentation. Experiments manipulate instructors’ gender and therefore compare teachers who are only different in that attribute. Thus, experimental studies isolate the instructor’s gender effect on SET from potential confounders such as age, race, subtle differences in teaching delivery, or students’ enrollment characteristics across classrooms.
Reviews of empirical research on instructors’ gender bias in SET summarize experimental and observational studies without addressing the severe limitations of the latter design. This study aims to comprehensively understand gender differences in faculty teaching evaluation by systematically reviewing experimental and quasi-experimental gender-bias studies in SET. Our research questions are:
1) What are the reasons or mechanisms explaining instructors’ gender differences in SET literature?
2) What does experimental and quasi-experimental peer-reviewed research say about instructors’ gender differences in SET?
3) What are the conclusions/recommendations from peer-reviewed experimental and quasi-experimental research about SET instructors’ gender bias?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedA systematic literature review is a comprehensive and transparent synthesis of a relevant phenomenon. We conducted a systematic literature review following various guidelines published in the literature (Alexander, 2020; Pigott & Polanin, 2020; Polanin et al., 2019). The stages are the development of systematic review questions (these are presented in section 1), identifying our eligible studies, data collection, which comprises the literature search and screening, and analysis and interpretation. Following the UTOS framework (Units, Treatments, Outcomes, and Study design), the scope of our systematic literature review is: 1) empirical studies in higher education institutions with students as units of analysis, 2) featuring a manipulation of the instructor’s gender as the treatment, 3) using SET or equivalent as outcomes, and 4) featuring either a randomized controlled trial or a quasi-experimental design. We further narrowed the type of publications using the inclusion criteria: peer-reviewed, published in academic journals, and published in English between 2000 and 2021.
We identified studies using two strategies: database search and snowballing. We included two multidisciplinary databases (EBSCO and ProQuest Central) and one education-specialized database (ERIC) in the database search. The search keywords are: “student evaluation of teaching,” “gender,” “bias,” and “experiment.”
The database search occurred in July 2021. The number of articles found by each search engine was: 8.510 publications in ProQuest Central, 82.367 in EBSCO, and 39.527 in ERIC. We kept the predefined search engine priority sorting, displaying pages with 100 results each. The results from each search engine were title screened and saved using the blocks of 100 results. The title screening looked at compliance with the UTOS and inclusion criteria. We stopped keeping search results after a group of 100 articles contained no relevant publication.
The snowballing strategy involves identifying relevant studies from one or a few seminal articles. Specifically, we employed the study by MacNell, Driscoll, & Hunt (2015) that matches the scope and inclusion criteria of our literature review. We used backward snowballing and forward snowballing. The search produced a total of 1153 studies for screening. We run an independent double-blind screening process for each title/abstract, reaching a Brennan & Prediger agreement coefficient between .62 and .98 for every round of 300-350 studies. We solved our inconsistencies through discussion and consensus among the principal researcher and research assistants. Finally, we identified 24 studies for full paper review.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsStudies report either no theory or at least one of two psychological theories to explain why students may favor men in SET. The first leading theory is gender stereotypes. These culturally determined beliefs define attributes inherent to women and men. Gender stereotypes often define men as assertive and ambitious and women as altruists and sensitive (Chávez y Mitchell, 2019). According to theory, students automatically believe that men instructors are more stringent and colder, while female instructors are warm and altruistic regardless of their actual level of warmth (Anderson, 2010). Thus, differences in teaching evaluation by gender favor men when a SET comprises an aspect of teaching related to competence and brilliance, and SET may favor women when a SET contains aspects targeting care (Arbuckle y Williams, 2003). A smaller group of studies explain SET gender differences due to the gender expectations violations theory (Burgoon, 1995). Instructors with behaviors that depart from the expectation (stereotype) are often punished in their SET (Anderson, 2010). In addition, men are less severely punished when they challenge a gender expectation than when women do.
As a summary, 10 out of 24 studies report a statistically significant effect of gender, with students favoring men in SET overall score or SET subscales (on occasions, single item responses); 6 out of 24 studies report no gender effect and no gender bias; and eight studies report mixed results favoring women in various attributes of teaching.
Summaries of gender differences in SET suggest that these questionnaires should be banned entirely (American Sociological Association, 2019) or that SET is resilient to bias (Marsh, 2007). A compelling argument about the presence or lack of gender bias in SET requires a comprehensive review of the best available empirical research. Unfortunately, to our knowledge, no such systematic review exists thus far.
ReferencesAlexander, P. A. (2020). Methodological Guidance Paper: The Art and Science of Quality Systematic Reviews. Review of Educational Research, 90(1), 6–23. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654319854352
American Sociological Association. (2019, September 9). Reconsidering Student Evaluations of Teaching. American Sociological Association. https://www.asanet.org/press-center/press-releases/reconsidering-student-evaluations-teaching
Bertrand, M. (2017). The Glass Ceiling. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3191467
Centra, J. A. (2003). Will Teachers Receive Higher Student Evaluations by Giving Higher Grades and Less Course Work? Research in Higher Education, 44(5), 495–518. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025492407752
Haladyna, T., & Hess, R. K. (1994). The detection and correction of bias in student ratings of instruction. Research in Higher Education, 35(6), 669–687. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02497081
MacNell, L., Driscoll, A., & Hunt, A. N. (2015). What’s in a Name: Exposing Gender Bias in Student Ratings of Teaching. Innovative Higher Education, 40(4), 291–303. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-014-9313-4
Marsh, H. W. (1987). Students’ evaluations of University teaching: Research findings, methodological issues, and directions for future research. International Journal of Educational Research, 11(3), 253–388. https://doi.org/10.1016/0883-0355(87)90001-2
Marsh, H. W. (2007). Students’ Evaluations of University Teaching: Dimensionality, Reliability, Validity, Potential Biases and Usefulness. In R. P. Perry & J. C. Smart (Eds.), The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: An Evidence-Based Perspective (pp. 319–383). Springer Netherlands. http://link.springer.com/10.1007/1-4020-5742-3_9
Pigott, T. D., & Polanin, J. R. (2020). Methodological Guidance Paper: High-Quality Meta-Analysis in a Systematic Review. Review of Educational Research, 90(1), 24–46. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654319877153
Polanin, J. R., Pigott, T. D., Espelage, D. L., & Grotpeter, J. K. (2019). Best practice guidelines for abstract screening large‐evidence systematic reviews and meta‐analyses. Research Synthesis Methods, 10(3), 330–342. https://doi.org/10.1002/jrsm.1354
Spooren, P., Vandermoere, F., Vanderstraeten, R., & Pepermans, K. (2017). Exploring high impact scholarship in research on student’s evaluation of teaching (SET). Educational Research Review, 22, 129–141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2017.09.001
Stark, P., & Freishtat, R. (2014). An Evaluation of Course Evaluations. ScienceOpen Research. https://www.scienceopen.com/document/id/ad8a9ac9-8c60-432a-ba20-4402a2a38df4
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