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ID: 181082

Political Professors and the Perception of Bias in the College Classroom / Giersch, Jason; Liebertz, Scott

Giersch, Jason	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

This article addresses three related questions. Does voicing a political ideology in class make a professor less appealing to students? Does voicing an ideology in class make a professor less appealing to students with opposing views? Does the intensity of professors’ ideology affect their appeal? We conducted survey experiments in two public national universities to provide evidence of the extent to which students may tolerate or even prefer that professors share their political views and under which conditions these preferences may vary. Results from the experiments indicate that expressing a political opinion did not make a professor less appealing to students—and, in fact, made the professor more appealing to some students—but the perception that a professor’s ideology is particularly intense makes the class much less favorable for students with opposing views. Students are indifferent between moderately political and nonpolitical professors.

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ID: 172697

Professors’ Politics and Their Appeal as Instructors / Giersch, Jason

Giersch, Jason	Journal Article
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Summary/Abstract

As more universities view students as customers and as more critics accuse universities of political bias, it is important to learn how students respond to professors’ politics. Does a politically active professor make a course more or less appealing? In this experiment, I randomly presented descriptions of course instructors to current university students and asked them to describe their appeal. Subjects expressed greater interest in professors who were politically ambiguous or whose politics matched their own. Conservative professors were more polarizing than liberal professors, and liberal students rejected conservative professors more than they preferred liberal professors. Based on these results, political neutrality is the safest bet for attracting a broad set of students, especially when a professor is conservative.

Key Words

Politics and Their Appeal ; Instructors

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