Undergraduate instructors needed for study on SEI bias

A new research study, supported by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion seeks to study inplicit bias in student evaluations of instruction (SEI) at Ohio State during the Spring 2021 semester.  All undergraduate instructors in Arts and Sciences and CFAES are eligible to participate. 

If you elect to participate, students in your undergraduate courses will be randomly assigned to treatment and control groups and then asked to complete the standard SEI form. Students in the treatment groups will receive expanded introductory materials for the SEI reminding them of (1) the importance of SEIs for instructors, (2) the role of implicit bias in evaluation, and (3) both factors together.

A prior study conducted at Iowa State University and published in PLOS One found that students assigned to treatment group (3) provided significantly higher ratings of female instructors compared to other students taught by the same instructors who did not receive the prompt, with no impact on the ratings of male faculty.

This study will assess the impact of a similar intervention at OSU, as well as disentangling the impact of treatments (1) and (2). Participating in the study may increase, decrease, or have no effect on your SEI scores. If you are interested in participating, please see the informed consent form for additional information regarding study design and potential risks and benefits associated with your participation. Please note: if a course session has multiple instructors, all instructors must agree to participate to be included in the study.

Please reply by Wednesday, Feb. 24 to be included in the study.  
For more information, contact odi@osu.edu 

LINK TO CONSENT FORM