Banks, Sophie and Komljenovic, Janja (2024) Men are good for university reputation; women are good for emotional labour : Student-Led Teaching Awards and the role of gender. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.
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Abstract
Student-Led Teaching Awards are recognition schemes which allow students to nominate their lecturers for supporting their university experiences in various ways, such as teaching and supervision. This research study contributes to the growing literature in this area by analysing how students perceive their lecturers and lecturers' teaching practice. Additionally, as Student-Led Teaching Awards are an informal form of student evaluation of teaching, which research finds to be commonly gender biased, this study aims to investigate potential gender bias within the nominations. The data of this study consisted of Best Lecturer Award nominations for 750 lecturers during the years 2016-2020 at a UK teaching-oriented university. The nominations were analysed using thematic network analysis to decipher how students perceived their lectures in their nominations. Examining the frequency of mentions of each theme found in the dataset determined how students perceived their female and male lecturers differently. The findings of the study showed four distinct areas in which students nominated their lecturers: students as consumers, students as learners, lecturers as academics, and lecturers as educators. Female lecturers' nominations contained more references to being motherly, caring, offering personal help, and organisational skills were often compared to other lecturers. Male lecturers' nominations contained more references to giving engaging lectures, being knowledgeable, having a sense of humour, being professional, and being good for the university's reputation. These findings are depicted in six personas using creative nonfiction: The Professional Man, The Confident Expert, The Penalised Woman and The Performing Woman, The Perfect Woman, The Mother and the Friend, and The Quiet Woman. This study contributes to knowledge in the field of students evaluation of teaching as it demonstrates that gender bias is also found in Student-Led Teaching Awards. This research study also makes an original contribution by using creative nonfiction in the form of short stories to analyse and communicate the findings of this study. It demonstrates an innovative approach of bringing creative writing into educational research.