Are Students Really Biased against Female Professors? - Experimental Evidence from India

We investigate the presence of gender bias in student evaluation of teaching (SET) scores with a natural field experiment in India. We employ a novel experimental design, randomly assigning 504 economics students to an identical audiovisual class taught either in a female or male voice. We find no significant differences in ratings given between female or male professors across any teaching dimension. However, when additional information about a professor’s professional accomplishments is provided, female professors receive higher ratings on average. The effect comes mainly from female students, who increase the ratings of female professors and lower the ratings of male professors. Our findings suggest that gender bias is context-dependent and provide evidence of the effectiveness of an information mechanism that can help shift perceptions about female professors