Evaluating faculty performance under the equal pay for equal work doctrine

The issue of sex discrimination in faculty employment has become a prominent legal and political concern, necessitating the development of objective empirical methods to determine the existence of patterns of discriminatory treatment. In this study, regression techniques are employed to apply the equal pay for equal work interpretation of the fair employment doctrine. Specifically, faculty promotion and salary policies at the University of Texas at Austin are analyzed to determine whether male and female faculty members are rewarded equally for equal academic qualifications and performances. This regression analysis tends to support the discrimination hypothesis with respect to both promotion and salary policies.     

‘That happened to me too’: young people’s informal knowledge of diverse genders and sexualities

Abstract

This paper explores how young people of diverse genders and sexualities share information about sex, sexualities and genders. Formal approaches to education often fail to consider young people’s communication and information exchange practices, including the circulation of peer knowledge through social media. In the wake of recent Australian backlash against the Safe Schools Coalition, we can observe how homophobia and queerphobia in the broader community can impact upon young peoples’ ability to learn about themselves and their bodies through formal education. Yet young people of diverse genders and sexualities can be observed to support each other in peer spaces, utilising their knowledge networks. This paper explores young people’s informal learning practices, the capacity of peer networks to support and educate young people, and the challenges of recognising such networks in a culture in which health and education discourses present them as ‘risk subjects’ rather than ‘health agents’. These issues are discussed in relation to our own experiences in research and health promotion, including one author’s role as a youth peer educator. Drawing on our workplace experiences, we provide a number of anecdotal examples which highlight the complexities of informal knowledge practice and information circulation, and the ways these can challenge and reform professional health, education, and research approaches.     

Evaluation of Courses by Whole Student Cohorts: a case study

In a climate of unprecedented change in higher education (HE), accurate and immediate course feedback information is vital to the management of institutions, in assisting the development of course material relevant to present student needs. Student contribution to qualitative course evaluation is commonplace although use of relatively small representative groups of students is usual. However, with class sizes increasing — between 100 and 200 is now common — the ability to acquire accurate qualitative evaluation, representatively, is a major issue. This paper describes a methodology providing opportunity for whole cohort groups of students to be involved simultaneously in the generation of feedback. It considers the effectiveness of student consultation meetings as a collection method, the utility of the results in the course development process, how the issues raised and discussed compare with matters included on a university‐wide questionnaire, and whether participating students feel inhibited in discussing matters so publicly.     

Human Self-Assessment in Multiple-Choice Testing

Research indicates that the multiple-choice format in itself often seems to favor males over females. The present study utilizes a method that enables test takers to assess the correctness of their answers. Applying this self-assessment method may not only make the multiple-choice tests less biased but also provide a more comprehensive measurement of usable knowledge-that is, the kind of knowledge about which a person is sufficiently sure so that he or she will use the knowledge to make decisions and take actions. The performance of male and female undergraduates on a conventional multiple-choice test was compared with their performance on a multiple-choice self-assessment test. Results show that the difference between test scores of males and those of females was reduced when subjects were allowed to make self-assessments. This may be explained in terms of the alleged difference in cognitive style between the genders.