Before the First Lecture: The Effects of Instructor Identity on Course Enrollment

ABSTRACT How do professors’ identities, including gender and perceived race and ethnicity, affect students’ course-enrollment preferences? Political science scholars have illustrated clearly the role that identity bias plays in the political arena, but what about the students we teach? Previous research described how gender, race, and ethnicity can impact professors’ career development and teaching evaluations. However, there is little research in terms of the impact of bias on students’ course selection. This study used a choice-based conjoint experiment of first-year university students and found that an instructor’s gender and perceived race and ethnicity have an impact on the courses they select. These results have significant implications for universities evaluation for faculty career success.