Revisiting the International TA Problem: Acknowledging Intergroup Biases and Testing the Effectiveness of Perspective-Taking in Reducing Biases

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session III
  In Interactive Paper Session: Instructional and Developmental Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

International teaching assistants (TAs) continue to be negatively evaluated by American undergraduate students. Countering the conventional framing of this issue as a matter of language incompatibility, an intergroup communication approach is proposed to investigate this phenomenon through two experiments. In the first experiment, American undergraduate students (N=90) evaluated three international TAs based on photographs alone and indicated a preference for the European TA over Asian TAs. A second experiment using video recorded narratives of the same international TAs found that a perspective taking intervention was able to eliminate the impact of the international TAs’ ethnicity on undergraduate students’ (N=125) evaluation of the TAs. Also, male students who engaged in imagine-target type of perspective taking had the most favorable attitudes towards the TAs, and were most willing to be supportive of all international TAs as compared to male students who engaged in imagine-self perspective taking or those in the control group. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in the light of social identity theory.

Authors

• Uttara Manohar, Ohio State U

• Osei Appiah, Ohio State U