The objective of the present research was to explore underlying gender biases that may affect essay assessment. A review of previous research (Goldberg 1968, King 1998) reported that essay assessors typically graded female-authored essays lower than their male-authored counterparts, despite both essays consisting of the same content. However, a recent research study (Birch et al, 2016) did not corroborate with the earlier findings, and found no such bias. This could be explained by the change in attitudes towards women within the educational realm, or the lack of power due to only having ten participants. This study attempted to recruit 200 adult participants, through both snowball and opportunistic sampling methods primarily from a student population. An independent groups design was used, consisting of two groups; both grading the same essay. Participants were randomly assigned to their group via Qualtrics and asked to read the essay and complete the essay grading online. The chosen essay was on the effects of boarding school on development, and was either authored by a female or male name. The dependent variables were the overall grades awarded to the essay using a five-point scale scoring rubric from Francis et al (2003). Demographic information was also collected from participants including age, gender and familiarity with the essay content. The results will give an indication as to whether gender bias still exists in essay assessment using a large sample. The size of the sample will allow examination of other demographic factors that may interact with gender and essay assessment.
Permanent link to this resource: https://doi.org/10.24384/000507
Mehmood, Maryam
Supervisors: Connelly, V.
Faculty of Health and Life Sciences\Department of Psychology, Health and Professional Development
Year: 2018
© The Author(s) Published by Oxford Brookes University