Evaluation in Today’s World. Veronica G. Thomas
was interviewed by co-author Patricia Campbell, in fall, 2019.
Reducing Bias
There are some ways to reduce explicit bias and to not give implicit bias the chance to operate. One strategy is for evaluators to “blind” themselves from learning a person’s gender, race, and other such characteristics when analysis is being done or decisions are being made. It is well known that observers rate the same behaviors differently based on the perceived characteristics of the subjects. For example, observers describe and rate behaviors differently based on a child’s race (i.e., Gerwitz & Dodge, 1975; Gilliam, Maupin, Reyes, Accavitt, & Shie, 2016) and on whether they think the child is a girl or a boy. Female musicians are more likely to be hired when a “blind” audition process is used, which means the hiring committee is not aware of the sex of the auditioning musicians. Accents too can make a difference. People view speakers with accents like theirs as more knowledgeable than different-accent speakers, even when the different-accent speaker is actually more knowledgeable. In 1989, Michael J. Zieky concluded that “the potential for bias in the scoring of performance tests is clear. Scorers are human and fallible. Biases both for and against members of certain groups, may be blatant or subtle but they are likely to be present” (quoted in American Association of University Women, 1995, p. 97). His point still holds.
Along with “blind” ratings, which are discussed in detail in Chapter 12, a variety of strategies have been tested to reduce bias. In an analysis of 30 studies of interventions designed to reduce implicit bias, FitzGerald, Martin, Berner, and Hurst (2019) found the most effective categories were intentional strategies to overcome biases, exposure to counter-stereotypical exemplars, identifying the self with the out-group, evaluative conditioning, and inducing emotion. Half of the studies testing appeals to egalitarian values found them to be effective while the other half didn’t. The largest number of studies tested an intervention focused on engaging with others’ perspectives, but fewer than a third of the studies found it to be an effective intervention. Training may help to reduce bias as well. Morewedge and colleagues (2015) found that research participants exposed to one-shot training interventions, such as educational videos and de-biasing games that taught mitigating strategies, exhibited significant reductions in their biases immediately and up to three months later.
The following are some implicit bias training resources.
The Kirwan Institute has a series of four short, free modules on implicit bias. The modules are Understanding Implicit Bias, Real-World Implications, Understanding Your Own Biases, and Mitigating Unwanted Biases. See http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/special-announcement-implicit-bias-training-available/.
Duke University has an online teachers’ workshop on overcoming implicit bias. See https://blogs.tip.duke.edu/teachersworkshop/overcoming-implicit-bias/.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement also provides information and resources on how to reduce implicit bias in health care. See http://www.ihi.org/communities/blogs/how-to-reduce-implicit-bias.
There are ways to reduce our own biases and those of others, but implementing them can be a challenge. As Tenney (2017, p. 54) explains, “Most white people indicate that they have no racial bias, that they treat everyone equally, that they ‘don’t see race,’ and even that they are better than average at not being racially biased.” She asks what it will take for a critical mass of white people to move from being passively not racist to being actively antiracist. In the following activity, readers will hear what three people, two white and one Black, who work to reduce bias and racism say about the challenges tied to working with white people on antiracism, reflect on their response to readings, and if they choose share their responses with others.
Activity: Reflections on Working With White People and Antiracism
Read the following three statements and write a short paragraph about your response to them and any impact they may have on your response to race and racism.
To continue reproducing racial inequality, the system only needs [W]hite people to be really nice and carry on, smile at people of color. Be friendly and go to lunch together on occasion…. Niceness will not get racism on the table and will not keep it on the table when everyone wants it off…. Where do we go from here? I offer that we must never consider ourselves finished with our learning. Even if challenging all the racism and superiority we have internalized was quick and easy to do, our racism would be reinforced all over again just by virtue of living in the culture. (DiAngelo, 2018, pp. 153–154)
When we shift our focus away from determining whether the intentions of individual white people are “good” or “bad” to instead focusing on the negative effects of white supremacy, we can focus on what matters most in the fight against racism. (Tenney, 2017, p. 55)
Every time I stand in front of an audience to address racial oppression in America, I know that I am facing a lot of [W]hite people who are in the room to feel less bad about racial discrimination and violence in the news, to score points, to let everyone know that they are not like the others, to make [B]lack friends. I know that I am speaking to a lot of [W]hite people who are certain they are not the problem because they are there. Just once I want to speak to a room of [W]hite people who know they are there because they are the problem. Who know they are there to begin the work of seeing where they have been complicit and harmful so that they can start doing better. (Oluo, 2019, para. 16)
If you feel comfortable doing so, share and discuss your responses with others.
Culture, Cultural Competence, and Cultural Responsiveness
Throughout the book, there are many references to culture and the importance of cultural competence.
While there are almost as many definitions of culture as there are cultures themselves, this definition, from the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) provides a perspective that may be useful to evaluators. They define culture “as the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group” [CARLA, 2019, para. 1]. While we often think of culture groups in terms of ethnicity or nationality, they can be any group with shared patterns of behavior and understandings such as evaluators, scientists, or even Boston Red Sox fans (Campbell & Jolly, n.d.d, para. 1).
Culture is a powerful organizing framework that both filters and shapes perceptions, communications, values, and subsequent behaviors. As Table 1.3 shows, response to superficial areas such as what protein to have for dinner can cause strong visceral reactions.
Table 1.3
Just as many people in the United States, for example, will have a strong visceral reaction to the idea of eating bugs, many people in India will have the same reaction to eating beef. As part of cultural awareness, it is important to learn more about why those in different cultures make the choices they do. As discussed in more detail in Chapter 5, evaluators must have a genuine willingness to learn about the cultures with which they engage within the evaluation context and, as appropriate, a willingness to suspend judgments. They also need to cultivate a belief that cultural diversity is a source of strength and enrichment rather than a deficit or obstacle to overcome (Handford, Van Maele, Matous, & Maemura, 2019). Evaluators need to be aware of the major culture groups that may have relevance for different evaluations. For example, the culture of different institutions