Evaluating courses: an examination of the impact of student gender

Previous research into the effects of gender differences on course evaluations has failed to take into account a number of intervening variables. In part one of the present study a questionnaire was administered to 504 female and male students measuring whether they noticed, remembered things, and related to others. These are all measures which have been linked to evaluation abilities. Females were found to score more highly on all three. In part two of the study 23 presentations of a course were evaluated and it was shown that females and males do respond differently. Females evaluated certain, but not all, aspects of the courses more favourably, but the pattern of differences varied depending whether the measure used was a structured or an open-ended evaluation.