By: Deborah J. Merritt
Student evaluations of teaching, a common fixture at American
law schools, harbor surprising biases. Extensive
psychological research demonstrates that students’ assessments
respond overwhelmingly to a professor’s appearance and nonverbal
behavior. For example, student ratings of professors’
abilities after viewing just thirty seconds of silent videotape
footage correlate strongly with end-of-semester evaluations from
the same professors’ pupils. Because the nonverbal behaviors
that influence teaching evaluations are rooted in physiology,
culture, and habit, there is a potential for characteristics like
race and gender to affect evaluations. The current method of
gathering evaluations, moreover, allows social stereotypes to
filter students’ perceptions and increases risks of bias because it
taps students’ intuitive cognitive processes—what psychologists
have referred to as “System One” judgments.
To improve the accuracy of student evaluations and reduce the
taint of bias, schools must design new evaluation systems.
Systems based on facilitated group discussion, for example, would
awaken the more reflective, deliberative judgments that
psychologists term “System Two” decisions. This article
illuminates the cognitive processes that underlie all facets of the
legal system as it draws upon research in cognitive decision making
to present the compelling case for reforming the current system of
evaluating professors' classroom performance.