Board 244: Do DEI Efforts Count in Tenure Evaluations? An Experiment in Two STEM fields

Damani White-Lewis; Jennifer Wessel; Alexandra Kuvaeva; KerryAnn OMeara

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: June 26, 2024
Conference Session: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Tagged Topics: Diversity and NSF Grantees Poster Session
Page Count: 11
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--46815
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/46815
Download Count: 78

Paper Authors

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Damani White-Lewis University of Pennsylvania

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Damani White-Lewis is an assistant professor of higher education in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. He studies racial inequality in academic careers and contexts using theories and methods from organizational behavior and social psychology. His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), and has appeared in The Journal of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, American Educational Research Journal, and Teachers College Record, among others. As a public scholar, he has won several awards from educational organizations, been featured in outlets such as Inside Higher Ed and Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, and regularly advises college campuses and external organizations on addressing issues related to the academic profession, racial equity, and institutional transformation and systemic change.

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Jennifer Wessel University of Maryland, College Park

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Alexandra Kuvaeva University of Maryland, College Park

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Alexandra Kuvaeva, PhD is a Postdoctoral Associate in the department of Psychology in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences. Dr. Kuvaeva has over 10 years of experience in research, quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, measurement, statistics and evaluation. After completing her M.A. in Education Leadership and Policy Studies, Dr. Kuvaeva went on to earn her doctoral study in International Education Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park. Prior to her doctoral studies, Dr. Kuvaeva enriched her hands-on experience of conducting research in the Global Research department at the International Baccalaureate (IB), Bethesda. As a graduate research assistant at the University of Maryland, she worked for ADVANCE Program for Inclusive Excellence, an NSF supported campus-wide project promoting institutional transformation with respect to the retention and advancement of women faculty in STEM.

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KerryAnn OMeara

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Abstract

Do DEI Efforts Count in Tenure Evaluations? An Experiment in Two STEM fields

In light of broader recognition of systemic racism in and outside academe, universities are urgently investing in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts. Many STEM fields have called for reform to tenure policies and practices to include DEI as part of promotion and tenure decisions (NASEM, 2020; Segarra et al., 2020). Yet faculty consistently report that when it comes to tenure and promotion, DEI does not “count,” or they are not sure how DEI efforts counted in decisions made (Griffin et al, 2013; Jimenez et al, 2019). In this study, we use behavioral design techniques (e.g., Bohnet, 2016) to understand which “nudges” (Thaler & Sunstein, 2009) are most effective in influencing tenure decisions, and whether any of these interventions shape the weight of DEI in recommendations for tenure. Our study was guided by the following research questions:

RQ1: Can certain “nudges” result in strong DEI efforts compensating for slightly-below average research accomplishments? RQ2: Do the race and gender of the candidates influence the effect of any nudges?

Methods To examine our research questions, we conducted a 4 (CV qualification manipulations: (1) control CV with no DEI information, (2) CV with above-average DEI scattered throughout, (3) CV with above-average DEI concentrated in specific section in the CV, and (4) CV with above-average DEI scattered evaluated with a rubric intervention) x 2 (candidate gender manipulation: female vs. male) x 2 (candidate race manipulation: Black vs. white) between-subjects experimental study. Our study uses an experimental vignette methodology (EVM) known as “paper people” study (Aguinis & Bradley, 2014) in which participants make an explicit decision about a fictional candidate. We created a base CV for two fields (mechanical engineering, and ecological and evolutionary biology [EEB]), with each CV including the candidate’s name, chosen to signal the race and gender of the applicant, as guided by past studies (Butler & Homola, 2017).

Analyses We aim to collect 2000 participants who are currently tenure-track/tenured professors in the two fields at research universities. We currently have responses from 815 EEB participants and 468 mechanical engineering participants. We conducted preliminary analyses to approach our research questions using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with a 4 X 2 X 2 factorial design on all evaluation variables. For significant main effects, we use post-hoc Tukey tests to probe which specific conditions are significantly different from one another.

Results and Discussion Preliminary evidence reveals that DEI efforts do count in some decisions about tenure recommendations and that interventions aimed at highlighting DEI efforts were effective for some evaluations related to the candidate’s specific institution. There were no statistically significant differences in the interventions based on the race and gender characteristics of the faculty, but we may find more evidence of these differences with a larger sample size as we continue to collect data. We also plan to expand our findings on participants’ decision-making process with qualitative data analysis of open-ended responses that is currently in progress.

Citation
Format

White-Lewis, D., & Wessel, J., & Kuvaeva, A., & OMeara, K. (2024, June), Board 244: Do DEI Efforts Count in Tenure Evaluations? An Experiment in Two STEM fields Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--46815

TY - CPAPER
AB - Do DEI Efforts Count in Tenure Evaluations? An Experiment in Two STEM fields

In light of broader recognition of systemic racism in and outside academe, universities are urgently investing in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts. Many STEM fields have called for reform to tenure policies and practices to include DEI as part of promotion and tenure decisions (NASEM, 2020; Segarra et al., 2020). Yet faculty consistently report that when it comes to tenure and promotion, DEI does not “count,” or they are not sure how DEI efforts counted in decisions made (Griffin et al, 2013; Jimenez et al, 2019). In this study, we use behavioral design techniques (e.g., Bohnet, 2016) to understand which “nudges” (Thaler &amp;amp; Sunstein, 2009) are most effective in influencing tenure decisions, and whether any of these interventions shape the weight of DEI in recommendations for tenure. Our study was guided by the following research questions:

RQ1: Can certain “nudges” result in strong DEI efforts compensating for slightly-below average research accomplishments?
RQ2: Do the race and gender of the candidates influence the effect of any nudges?

Methods
To examine our research questions, we conducted a 4 (CV qualification manipulations: (1) control CV with no DEI information, (2) CV with above-average DEI scattered throughout, (3) CV with above-average DEI concentrated in specific section in the CV, and (4) CV with above-average DEI scattered evaluated with a rubric intervention) x 2 (candidate gender manipulation: female vs. male) x 2 (candidate race manipulation: Black vs. white) between-subjects experimental study. Our study uses an experimental vignette methodology (EVM) known as “paper people” study (Aguinis &amp;amp; Bradley, 2014) in which participants make an explicit decision about a fictional candidate. We created a base CV for two fields (mechanical engineering, and ecological and evolutionary biology [EEB]), with each CV including the candidate’s name, chosen to signal the race and gender of the applicant, as guided by past studies (Butler &amp;amp; Homola, 2017).

Analyses
We aim to collect 2000 participants who are currently tenure-track/tenured professors in the two fields at research universities. We currently have responses from 815 EEB participants and 468 mechanical engineering participants. We conducted preliminary analyses to approach our research questions using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) with a 4 X 2 X 2 factorial design on all evaluation variables. For significant main effects, we use post-hoc Tukey tests to probe which specific conditions are significantly different from one another.

Results and Discussion
Preliminary evidence reveals that DEI efforts do count in some decisions about tenure recommendations and that interventions aimed at highlighting DEI efforts were effective for some evaluations related to the candidate’s specific institution. There were no statistically significant differences in the interventions based on the race and gender characteristics of the faculty, but we may find more evidence of these differences with a larger sample size as we continue to collect data. We also plan to expand our findings on participants’ decision-making process with qualitative data analysis of open-ended responses that is currently in progress.

AU - Damani White-Lewis
AU - Jennifer Wessel
AU - Alexandra Kuvaeva
AU - KerryAnn OMeara
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Board 244: Do DEI Efforts Count in Tenure Evaluations? An Experiment in Two STEM fields
UR - https://peer.asee.org/46815
DO - 10.18260/1-2--46815
ER -