INFORMED CONSENT INFORMATION
KEY INFORMATION: My name is Cecilea Mun, and I am a Philosophy PhD, conducting research the relationship between race, gender, language employed in a syllabus, student resistance, and student evaluations. I am the principal investigator (PI) for this study, titled “Race, Gender, Syllabus Tone, Student Resistance, and Student Evaluations in Philosophy.” You must be a non-graduate student educator who taught an introductory philosophy course in higher education, during the months between January 2024-June 2024. The survey should also take less than 10 minutes to complete, and will ask you to upload one set of anonymized student evaluations, along with an anonymized version of the syllabus that was actually used in the course corresponding with the uploaded student evaluations. So, you are asked to prepare these in advance, including with an anonymized, although properly descriptive file name. There is also no risk greater than those experienced in daily life, no personally identifying information will be recorded, no need to worry about the confidentiality of your identity, and no compensation will be given for your participation.
PURPOSE: Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) measures have been shown to be biased against women, as well as minority and non-English speaking faculty, and to include such measures as a part of the decision-making process in hiring, promotion, salary increases, and award decisions is to allow the introduction of a systematically disadvantaging mechanism against underrepresented and minority educators (Mun 2020). Yet, the use of SETs persist, and it may continue to do so since some institutions have deemed it to be an important mechanism to provide educators with feedback to further improve their teaching. Given the potential persistence of the use of SETs, this exploratory study aims to determine whether there is any evidence for correlations between an educator’s race, gender, syllabus tone, experience of student resistance, and student evaluations, for the purpose of providing a foundation for future studies which might lead to practical recommendations that can contribute to the increased retention of underrepresented and minority faculty and the improved use of SETs in administrative decision-making.
COMPENSATION: No compensation is provided for participating in this study.
PROCEDURE: Please complete the survey on a personal device to avoid privacy issues, and note that you will be asked to login to Google when uploading your documents. This survey has a total of 12 questions, and it should take no more than 10 minutes to complete. You must also complete the survey in one sitting, and you will only be allowed one attempt to complete the survey. There is no right or wrong answer, we simply ask that you provide the most accurate information that you can. The survey will run from June 23, 2024 to July 31, 2024, Pacific Standard Time, and it would be appreciated if you shared the link to this survey with any qualifying faculty so as to allow the collection of a diverse sample, including a diversity of experiences (positive, negative, neutral).
VOLUNTARY NATURE: Your participation is completely voluntary. You are free to withdraw at any time. You may decide to not answer a question by choosing or stating that you “prefer not to answer,” or discontinue participation at any time by closing your browser window, without explanation or penalty.
ANONYMITY/ CONFIDENTIALITY PROTECTION: Please note that you will be asked to upload student evaluations for one course, and the corresponding course syllabus (as it was actually distributed to your students) during the survey, and you are asked to ensure that these materials are anonymized before they are uploaded. You will also be asked to login to Google when uploading your documents, but your Google email address will not be collected. Furthermore, no personally identifying information, including IP addresses, will be collected, and all responses will remain completely anonymous. So, there is no need to worry about the confidentiality of your identity. Any data collected with this survey will be stored online through Google Forms and on the PI’s personal computer, which is password protected, for an indefinite period of time. The PI will have unlimited access to the stored, anonymized, raw data.
BENEFITS: There are no direct benefits for you participating in the study. This study should help the academic community provide a healthier diverse environment for students, faculty, and staff.
PUBLICATION: Please note that the results of this exploratory study will not be published. This survey is for exploratory purposes only. Any future studies with possibly publishable results will, however, go through IRB approval.
RISK: The risk of participation is no greater than that experienced in daily life.
CONTACT INFORMATION: Dr. Cecilea Mun, Independent Scholar, cecileamun@icloud.edu. Please contact me if you have any questions about the research or your participation in the research. Thank you for your time and consideration.
IRB STATEMENT: Please note that this is an exploratory survey and has not been approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB), although the PI has taken the necessary steps to ensure that this exploratory survey meets IRB standards.
If you would like to participate in this survey, please follow this link:
BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 