Do professor’s age and gender matter or do students give higher value to professors’ experience?

Abstract

Purpose Many higher education institutions (HEIs) have constructed their internal evaluation systems to secure teaching quality. This paper aims to analyze teaching quality, HEIs use students to evaluate their professors as they have direct contact with the professors during the whole semester. The authorities hope to receive valuable information, which can be used for many administrative purposes. The bias in the evaluation toward professors’ gender and attractiveness has already been proven. However, there is only limited evidence whether students give higher value to teaching quality over the professors’ personality. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, the authors go further in the gender-attractiveness evidence and put the evaluation in contrast with professors’ experience, age, etc. Findings The results indicate that the effect of experience predominates the effect of gender and in some areas also the effect of age. What is more, a semester in which a course is taken also influences the evaluation as different professors’ abilities are required in teaching in a different semester. On the other hand, the results do not fully confirm the effect of gender on the evaluation. Originality/value The results reveal that it is important to consider the course structure to assign professors to the right courses.