Examining Racism and Sexism in STEM
Higher Education:
The Process of Collecting Information that
People Would Rather Not Know
Brandi N. Geisinger and Mari R. Kemis
Research Institute for Studies in Education
Iowa State University
Background
• The struggle in STEM fields to create racial and gender parity is welldocumented in the educational and evaluative literature.
• We were approached by a group of stakeholders who were interested
in conducting an evaluative climate study to uncover issues related to
gender and diversity in a STEM department at a large Midwestern
university.
Challenge
Administrators
Faculty/Staff
Evaluators
Evaluator Role
• Meet the needs of both groups of stakeholders
• Conduct an evaluation that upholds the program evaluation standards
• Reduce stakeholder anxiety
Strategies
• Provide research support for proposed evaluation methods and history
of use
• Visualization changes
• Provide pilot information
• Compromise
Survey Information
• Rating of the campus climate
• Demographic and background information
• Identity-based experiences on campus
• Based on your identity (e.g., race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion,
ability/disability, military status, or socioeconomic status), have you personally
experienced any disrespectful, offensive, hostile, or intimidating conduct in this
department?
• Belonging, connectedness, and involvement
Resolution
• Conducted the survey
• Provided a technical report and additional analysis as requested
• Committee used the report to make specific recommendations to
learn more about racial and gender disparities in the department,
take steps to attempt to reduce these disparities, and conduct
follow-up evaluations after making changes
References
• Carter, R. K. (1971). Clients’ resistance to negative findings and the latent
conservative function of evaluation studies. The American Sociologist, 6(2), 118124.
• Donaldson, S. I., Gooler, L. E., and Scriven, M. (2002). Strategies for managing
evaluation anxiety: Toward a psychology of program evaluation. American Journal
of Evaluation, 23(3), 261-273.
• Yarbrough, D. B., Shulha, L. M., Hopson, R. K., and Caruthers, F. A. (2011). The
program evaluation standards: A guide for evaluators and evaluation users
(3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.