Addressing implicit bias of college faculty

• In Event: From Access to Completion: Causal Evidence from Financial Aid and Transfer Interventions in Higher Education

Abstract

Researchers have documented racial and gender gaps in college enrollment decisions, choice of major, degree attainment, and earnings—despite narrowing gaps in test scores and course-taking in K-12 settings (Goldin et al., 2006; Kane, 2004; Page & Scott-Clayton, 2016).  Faculty—who shape the classroom experience and play important roles in students’ aspirations, academic success, and career prospects—may be well-positioned to prevent or close gaps in student achievement (Astin, 1993; Lamport, 1993). This is especially true in community colleges, where students predominantly commute to campus and rely on the classroom setting for learning (Hagedorn et al., 2000). Studies show that having faculty role models who share similar backgrounds and experiences may also increase academic outcomes for students of color and women (Bettinger & Long, 2005; Carrell et al., 2010; Dee, 2005; Fairlie et al., 2014; Porter & Serra, 2020). However, existing evidence on how to close educational disparities rarely involves in-classroom or faculty interventions. 

Studies have documented how faculty from all backgrounds may—even without awareness of intent to harm—treat students differently based on their backgrounds (Baker et al., 2021; Milkman et al., 2015; Moss-Racusin et al., 2012; Quinn, 2020). These behaviors did not differ by faculty’s gender or race, suggesting that representation alone may not eliminate implicit bias in higher education. Despite extensive documentation of different faculty-student engagement and treatment by race and gender, few to no sustainable debiasing solutions exist (Bertrand & Duflo, 2016). 

Many colleges have offered faculty unconscious or implicit bias trainings in recent years in attempts to promote more equitable academic outcomes, but little is known about its impact on students. Although evidence about faculty’s diversity or de-biasing trainings showed promising results on improving faculty’s implicit associations and climate for gender bias, studies have not evaluated trainings’ effects on student outcomes (Carnes et al., 2012, 2015; Jackson et al., 2014). Furthermore, there is limited to no research on whether such unconscious bias training programs can address implicitly biased behaviors long-term (Lai et al., 2016). 

We partner with three public community colleges to test the impacts of faculty participation in unconscious bias training on gaps in student outcomes using a randomized controlled trial that involved 653 faculty and 12,970 students. Half of the faculty were randomly assigned to receive an invitation for voluntary participation during the 2020 and 2021 academic years. We measure the impacts on college completion, course grades, and gaps in those outcomes by race and gender. We also measure the impact using endline surveys on faculty teaching and advising choices and student perceptions.

Author

• Lena Shi, University of California, Irvine
  Presenting Author