Event Title

Sexism Towards Female Professors on the Minnesota State University, Mankato Campus

Location

CSU 203

Start Date

20-4-2015 1:05 PM

End Date

20-4-2015 2:05 PM

Student's Major

Psychology

Student's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Mentor's Name

Kristie Campana

Mentor's Email Address

kristie.campana@mnsu.edu

Mentor's Department

Psychology

Mentor's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Description

The purpose of the current study was to observe the prevalence of sexism towards female professors at Minnesota State University, Mankato. The present study looked at this through email correspondence between professors and students. The participants of this study consisted of 143 Minnesota State University, Mankato undergraduate students. These participants were instructed to write an email to a professor about a test score that was missing on D2L. In the scenario, students were told they had contacted the professor previously, but that the problem had not been addressed. Within these instructions, the gender of the professor was manipulated. The emails collected were then given ratings on eight variables by five undergraduate psychology students who were blind to both the hypothesis and the conditions of the study. These variables were respect, informality, threatening, entitlement, understanding, detail, whether the student said thank you, and whether the professor’s proper title was used. There were no statistically significant differences in the way students treated male and female students through email. While the results are encouraging in that they fail to demonstrate sexism, more research should be done examining how male and female professors are treated.

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Apr 20th, 1:05 PM Apr 20th, 2:05 PM

Sexism Towards Female Professors on the Minnesota State University, Mankato Campus

CSU 203

The purpose of the current study was to observe the prevalence of sexism towards female professors at Minnesota State University, Mankato. The present study looked at this through email correspondence between professors and students. The participants of this study consisted of 143 Minnesota State University, Mankato undergraduate students. These participants were instructed to write an email to a professor about a test score that was missing on D2L. In the scenario, students were told they had contacted the professor previously, but that the problem had not been addressed. Within these instructions, the gender of the professor was manipulated. The emails collected were then given ratings on eight variables by five undergraduate psychology students who were blind to both the hypothesis and the conditions of the study. These variables were respect, informality, threatening, entitlement, understanding, detail, whether the student said thank you, and whether the professor’s proper title was used. There were no statistically significant differences in the way students treated male and female students through email. While the results are encouraging in that they fail to demonstrate sexism, more research should be done examining how male and female professors are treated.

Recommended Citation

See, Justine and Lauren Bach. "Sexism Towards Female Professors on the Minnesota State University, Mankato Campus." Undergraduate Research Symposium, Mankato, MN, April 20, 2015.
https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/urs/2015/oral_session_09/2