Abstract
Many teacher trainers ask their students to evaluate them at the end of their classes. These evaluations are sometimes used to modify course content or delivery style and are sometimes used by peer committees or administrators to make salary, promotion, or tenure recommendations. Three variables possibly impacting upon these evaluations were examined in this study—the gender of the students doing the evaluating, the gender of the professor being evaluated, and the public school experience of the individual being evaluated. Undergraduate special education majors read one of four packets of information describing a hypothetical special education methods course. Dependent upon treatment condition, subjects were told that the instructor was either male or female and either experienced or inexperienced in public school settings. All other instructor and course variables were held constant. After reading the information packet, subjects rated the instructor of the class. Results indicated that male instructors were preferred over female instructors and instructors with public school experience were preferred over those without such experience. The implications of these findings for those involved in teacher training and those involved in reviewing data from student evaluations are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.