The revelation of Gender Gap Index 2013 is quite alarming where India stands 101 out of 136 countries across the global ratings (The Global Gender Gap Report, 2013) and has been placed at 111 ranking for enrolment in tertiary education (Female –to- male ratio: 0.73). The underrepresentation of female students in Indian Universities leads to further pipeline leakage where fewer females end up taking teaching as their profession (not even half of the total teachers’ population as per DISE 2010-2011). These statistical data couple up with the fact that educators are themselves products of cultural expectations about sex roles tutored since childhood. As a result, the cultural stereotypes remain powerful in shaping the classroom climate. The present purposes to analyse how gender roles colour student opinion about teacher performance and what empirical evidences has to say about teacher performance. Simultaneously, two studies were conducted seeking student opinion and rating about teachers. The instrument used was same set of 30 items with different set of instructions for each . Student opinion is found to be associated with gender on two of the dimensions of teacher effectiveness. However, no significant effect of gender on student evaluation of teachers on any of the dimensions. Because opinion means a judgment based on insufficient evidence to imply certainty, the revealed that student opinion was conditioned with preconceived gender role whereas female teachers defied those imposed roles with their performance as teaching professional.
Keywords: student opinion, student evaluation, teacher effectiveness
Performance of Women in Classroom: Opinion versus Evaluation The first female teacher in first women school during 1847, Savitri Bai Phule, gets her long awaited tribute by India with the release of postal stamp in 1998. Since then, the female teachers have transverse a long journey, especially, after independence in India. However, the overall representation of female school teachers is quite humble as out of 1,823,692 permanent teachers, female teachers contribute to 699, 085 (Source: Seventh All India School Education Survey, 2007). The status of female teachers could further be understood as women are often marginalized to low status positions within schools, usually teaching the lower grade classes and subjects considered ‘soft.’ This means that men still dominate higher status positions, teaching higher grade classes and subjects with a higher prestige, such as Mathematics and Science (Sridhar, & Badiei, 2008) and thus, the cultural stereotypes remain powerful tool in shaping the classroom climate. As per 7th AISES
* Associate Professor, Department of Education, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, E-mail: [email protected]
(2007), female teachers slowly out number their male counterpart in Higher Secondary schools with the representation of 431,381 out of total number of 1, 027, 384 full time teachers. Gender inequality is very much prevailed in Uttar Pradesh (India) which ensured only 15653 female teachers out of 60382 higher secondary school teachers (State Report Cards 2010- 2011). Gradually, status and representation of women in academe have improved in India since 1970s; still female teachers are underrepresented in most of the campuses and the male perspective in policy development, performance evaluation and interpersonal interaction is very much prevailed. Quite apart from their relative numbers in the teaching profession and differences of distribution in teaching levels, males are brought up differently from females in Indian society. They are expected to, and generally do, acquire sex-role learning that defines the nature of socially acceptable behavior for male differently from that for females (Yogev, 1985). Women may be moving into traditionally male-dominated positions of authority, but they are carrying with them all the baggage of gender expectations.
Educators, both as individuals and as products certainty of organizations, are themselves products of cultural expectations about sex roles which are tutored from the very beginning and hence, students may perceive male and female teachers possessing different personality traits. This perception may be framed on the basis of observation and opinion formed in and out of the classroom. The term ‘opinion’ means a judgment based on insufficient evidence to imply certainty. Hence, Student opinion about teachers needs an immediate attention in terms of personality traits and social characteristics are attached to each of sexes by tradition. A complex picture emerges when teacher gender associates with student gender in establishment of opinion. Researchers find descriptions of best and worst professors varied by professor and student gender (Basow et al, 2006). Male students chose a female professor as “best” less often than expected whereas female students chose a female professor as often as expected.
Review of related literature also suggests that women faculty members can maintain their authority in classroom only when they confirm to traditional cultural stereotypes. Students may feel betrayed, confused, and / or angered. As ‘opinion’ is based on insufficient evidence, it is needed to be verified with empirical evidence. This empirical evidence is collected by direct appraisal of what is going on in the classroom. This direct appraisal of teachers can be done by ‘evaluation’ of teachers by their beneficiaries, which is assigning empirical value to a teacher performance. To understand the general status of women coupled with concern to change women’s position in society directs research to student evaluation of teachers. Similarly, female faculty appears to be more negatively impacted by student evaluations than male faculty. These gender differences support previous research that suggests males and females
receive and react differently to personal evaluation (Kogan et al, 2010). Although the most frequently used descriptive qualities of best and worst professors showed similarities to those found in previous research, the hidden gendered patterns raise troubling questions for the use of student nominations and comments to choose superior teachers (Basow etal, 2006).
Tracing the trend for preferential rating for teacher gender, nothing could be concluded confidently. A contradictory scenario is obtained when researchers find higher mean ratings for women than men and a handful of studies on student evaluation indicate women’s classroom performance is evaluated more critically than men (Hensel, 1991; Sandler, 1991). Similarly, Ludwig and Meacham (1997) the impacts of instructor gender and find no support for the hypothesis that student would rate women lower but the same material is thought to be more controversial when taught by women. Investigating the effect of gender, male and female professors may behave differently in the classroom, and that male and female students may react differently to their professors’ behaviors (Basow, 1998). From researches on gender bias in social perceptions, it is known that gender bias existing in student evaluation of teachers is often subtle and occur in interaction with variable, i.e., gender of the rater (Amin, 1994; Bachen, McLoughlin & Gracia, 1999; Das & Das, 2001; Eagly, Makhijani & Klonsky, 1992; Kaschak, 1978; Lott, 1985; Swim, Borgida, Maruyama & Myers, 1989). Regarding the gender of the rater, male students have shown more bias against women educators and against people violating gender prescribed behavior than have women (Dobbins, Cardy & Truxillo, 1986; Kaschak, 1978). Researches reveal female professors would be rated more poorly by male but not female students (Basow & Silberg, 1987; Bennett, 1982). Lucek, Endres and Caplan (1993) show that male students rate male instructors higher and those female students rated female instructors higher. Basow (1995) points that the pattern of female and male students rating female professor differently while rating male professors may be marked for gender in ways male professors are not. Perhaps because college teaching is still predominantly a male profession, female professors are seen atypical and therefore their gender is notable (i.e., men are professors, and women are female professors). Bachen, McLoughlin and Gracia (1999) reveal that female students rate female faculty high and male faculty lower, whereas male students do not evaluate male and female professors as significantly different. Thus, a general pattern is observed for female and male students to rate same- sex instructors than other-sex instructors (Basow & Silberg, 1987; Feldman, 1993; Tatro, 1995). Sometimes, no interaction is found between professor sexes with student sex (Arbuckle & Williams, 2003). Reviewing the literature ,only one reported research is found in Indian setup by Balachandran (2000) which reveals that female teachers have noticeably improved themselves than male teachers when received feedback from students. Nothing more could
be concluded about the interaction with the gender of the rater from the conducted .
The present analyses the trend of student opinion and their evaluation of teachers in relation to teacher-taught gender. The is conducted over students of Higher Secondary classes in Varanasi which is situated in Northern Province of India, i.e., Uttar Pradesh. The wide gender gap in Uttar Pradesh could be understood by the fact that 3,376 female teachers are recruited in Higher Secondary classes against total 9,937 teachers. Sons are valued more highly than daughters in most of the communities in India, especially so in Uttar Pradesh where there are 898 females per 1,000 males. The low equity of female students and a pipeline leakage suffered by female students during their educational sojourn ensure low number of female teachers in Higher secondary classes.
Hence, the attempts to find out the status of female teachers in student opinion when gender matters and how this opinion about teachers agreeing with the assessment of teacher effectiveness in a tradition bound society. Therefore, the reported structure three broad set of objectives to: (i) find out association of teacher-taught gender on student opinion about teachers; (ii) find out student evaluation of teachers in relation to teacher-taught gender; and (iii) compare student opinion with student evaluation of teachers across gender.
Methodology Study 1
Sample: A sample of 210 Higher Secondary level students from five co- educational schools from urban area of Varanasi district (India) was selected.
Tool: The opinionnaire is consisted of 30 items from Teacher Rating Form to be used in 2. Each item represent teacher behaviour in and out of the classroom dispersed equally over six dimensions of teacher effectiveness, namely, Scholarship, Organization/Clarity, Teacher-Group Interaction, Teacher-Individual Student Interaction, Enthusiasm/Dynamism and Personal Qualities.
Procedure: For each item, students are requested to mark (√) where do they find specific behavior in: (a) male teacher; (b) female teacher; and (c) both. Students are asked to mark their opinion for occurrence of each behaviour across 30 items. The data thus are analyzed using percentages and test of association. Percentages are computed in order to the frequency of student opinion about teachers in relation to gender. Data are subjected to
c2-tests to analyze the association of teacher-taught gender on students’ opinion. Sample is consisted of 43% female students with df= (3-1)(2-1)= 2.
Study 2
Sample: The Teacher Rating Forms were distributed among 1750 Higher Secondary school students rating 93 teachers from randomly selected 17 schools from Varanasi district (India). Because 39 forms were eliminated due to incomplete response, final sample consists of 889 male and 832 female students from Higher secondary classes.
Tool: The Teacher Rating Form, responded over a 5- point Likert-Scale, is used to collect essential data. The Rating Form is composed of 30 items ranging from Very Poor (1) to Excellent (5). Items were equally dispersed over six dimensions of teacher effectiveness: Scholarship, Organization/ Clarity, Teacher-Group Interaction, Teacher-Individual Student Interaction, Enthusiasm/Dynamism and Personal Qualities. Reliability of the scale is established through Cronbach Alpha which is 0.7486 and content validity is established through the consultation with experts. Procedure: From randomly selected 17 Higher Secondary schools, students
are made to evaluate 51 male teachers and 42 female teachers. Overall, each teacher is rated by an average of 18.37 students. For statistical analyses, univariate two-way ANOVA used to find out interaction effect of gender (student gender X teacher gender) and effect size (h2) which is total variance in the scores accounted for the two-way interaction. Results
Data obtained from Study 1 are subjected to c2-tests (making contingency tables) shown in Table 1 which is the summary table for c2 – values administered over student opinion about teachers in relation to teacher gender and student gender.
Table 1: Summary table as a function of teacher gender and student gender
Variables df p c2 Scholarship 3 0.3701 3.1429 Organization /Clarity 3 0.0004 18.26* Teacher-Group Interaction 3 0.2541 4.07 Teacher-Individual Student Interaction 3 0.1034 6.18 Enthusiasm/Dynamism 3 0.0012 15.81* Personal Qualities 3 0.1785 4.91 * Significant at 0.01 level
As shown in Table 2, there is a significant association of teacher gender with student gender found in student opinion for the dimensions: Organization / Clarity and Enthusiasm / Dynamism. Further, Table 2 presents the student opinion about teachers in percentages as a function of teacher gender and student gender.
Table 2: Percentage of student opinion about teachers as a function of teacher gender and student gender
Variables Male Students (%) Female Students (%) Male
Teacher TeacherFemale TeacherMale TeacherFemale
Scholarship 56.87 29.26 56.27 40 Organization /Clarity 51.50 37.27 37.06 33.39 Teacher- Group Interaction 39.19 39.86 41.19 32.93 Teacher- Individual Student Interaction 37.42 46.45 34.66 38.69 Enthusiasm/ Dynamism 61.11 32.03 39.06 36.60 Personal Qualities 38.71 37.70 36.36 36.36
From Table 3, it is found that percentage of both male (56.87%) and female student (56.27%) are appreciably high who associate ‘Scholarship’ with male teachers. For Organization / Clarity, percentage of male students is 51.50% who find the dimension in male teachers where female students are equally divided in their opinion. Similarly, male students are equally divided in their opinion about the occurrence of ‘Teacher-Group Interaction’ with teacher gender whereas the percentage of female students is a little high who associate the dimension with male teachers. A high percentage of male students (46.45%) associate the dimension, Teacher-Individual Student Interaction, with male teachers. It is noteworthy that percentage of male students (61.11%) is very high who find ‘Enthusiasm/Dynamism’ in male teachers. However, female students do not opt for any differential preference for teacher gender. It is found that students are equally divided in opinion in the occurrence of ‘Personal Qualities’ in relation to teacher-taught gender.
Data obtained from Study 2 are subjected to univariate two-way ANOVA to find out the effect of teacher-taught gender on student evaluation of teachers across six dimensions. Results are shown in Table 3.
Table 3. Univariate two – way analysis of variance and effect size Source Teacher Effectiveness Dimensions
Scholar
ship Organ-iza tion/ clarity Teacher- group interac- tion Teach- er- indi- vidual student interac- tion Enthu- siasm/ dyna- mism Personal qualities Teacher gender F h2 0.119 0.001 0.631 0.008 0.001 0.000 0.013 0.005 0.025 0.000 0.740 0.009 Student gender F h2 0.064 0.001 0.369 0.005 0.612 0.007 0.068 0.001 0.032 0.000 0.0835 0.010 Teacher gender × Student gender F h2 0.129 0.002 0.011 0.000 0.083 0.001 0.008 0.000 0.030 0.000 0.629 0.008 * Significant at 0.05 level
From Table 3, it could be concluded that there is no significant effect of teacher- taught gender interaction on student evaluation in any of the six dimensions. With statistical significance, the effect sizes (h2) for the interaction across six dimensions are less than 0.01 which is less than even 1% of the total variance in the scores accounted for the two-way interaction. The insignificant univariate in Teacher Gender X Teacher Gender interaction indicates that
insignificant univariate main effect for teacher gender. The effect sizes (h2) are also very low. Similarly, student gender is not a significant main effect on the univariate analysis. Effect sizes for the effect of student gender are low for all the dimensions except for Personal Qualities (accountability for 1% of the variance). The mean ratings given by students as a function of teacher gender and student gender are shown in Table 4.
Table 4: Summary table for student evaluation of male and female teachers in relation to student gender.
Variable Male student Female student
Male teacher Female
teacher Male teacher Female teacher Scholarship Mean S.D. 16.543.20 17.064.08 16.994.08 16.983.36 Organisation/ clarity Mean S.D. 17.763.10 17.254.28 18.292.34 17.623.91 Teach- er-group interaction Mean S.D. 16.07 2.84 16.31 4.04 16.072.86 16.063.01 Teacher-indi- vidual student interaction Mean S.D. 16.912.60 16.57 2.46 17.134.23 16.393.55 Enthusiasm/ dynamism Mean S.D. 18.192.59 17.514.15 18.072.43 17.263.95 Personal qualities Mean S.D. 18.372.30 18.324.08 18.282.91 17.153.21
It appears from Table 4 that male students have given different ratings as a function of teacher gender on Scholarship and Teacher- Group Interaction
whereas female students have rated male and female teachers more similarly. However, both male and female students have given different ratings as a function of teacher gender in Organization/ Clarity, Teacher-Individual Student Interaction and Enthusiasm/ Dynamism. Moreover, male students have evaluated both male and female teachers equally on Personal Qualities whereas female students have given high rating to male teachers. These differences in mean ratings as a function of teacher gender and student gender is so small that there is no significant effect of the interaction of teacher- taught gender along with main effect as teacher gender and student gender is found on student evaluation of teachers.
Discussion
Since last few decades, there is an increased participation of women in various professions in Indian workforce. However, India ranks (101) the bottom half among 136 countries in terms of gender equality as per the Global Gender Gap Index (2013) according to a survey conducted by World Economic Forum to asses distribution of resources and opportunities among males and females. Although there is a significant increase in enrolment of female students in higher education, India Universities are still underrepresented by female scholars resulted in less representation of women teachers in post secondary classes in schools. Though students’ voices are an important resource in improving quality in teaching and learning, they have another side as well. When student evaluations of teaching are viewed through a feminist theoretical frame, a potential danger becomes evident: they can be tools of oppression that continue to reinforce the social hierarchy that privileges the dominant culture (Fox, 2008).
Draft prepared on teacher training in India through a gender lens, by UNICEF officials and women trainers and teachers demonstrate, that women teachers to be true role models and pass on the values of gender equity to the next generation, they must be able to consciously deconstruct and reconstruct their own roles and to facilitate their own empowerment in both private and public life. This document illustrates how continuing interaction between men and large numbers of women on an equal footing can help them to accept change and respect women as equals. Overall, comparable results are obtained by conducting Studys (1 & 2) revealing that student opinion is not in agreement with student evaluation of teachers. While Study 1 indicates that there is a significant association of teacher gender with student gender on student opinion about teachers, Study 2 clarifies that teacher gender does not interacts with student gender on student evaluation of Higher Secondary school teachers. As every culture defines certain roles for each gender, the opinion about the duties of male and female teachers may be conditioned by these expectations without realizing what actually may happen in classroom.
As these opinion are based on insufficient evidence, they are in contradictory to the rating made by students which is the empirical evidence based on a teacher’s classroom performance. The result obtained in Indian context is in accordance with the previously conducted which shows possible bias due to the gender of teachers and students, only small differences were found in evaluations, and because these were related to self-reported student learning, bias did not exist (Centra & Gaubatz, 2000). The commitment of female teachers towards the teaching profession in Varanasi, could not subdue the