Unconscious Bias
What is unconscious bias?
Human behaviour, beliefs and attitudes are shaped by automatic and unconscious cognitive processes. In order to reach decisions in the face of copious amounts of information, we interpret (sometimes inaccurately) people, behaviour and situations, relying on our implicit assumptions, based on past knowledge or experience (either our own or learned from others). These implicit assumptions tend to be ingrained and until we start to acknowledge and explore them, they tend to lie hidden. Adding further complexity, unconscious biases/implicit assumptions can stand in opposition to a person’s stated beliefs, and so they can say one thing e.g. ‘I like to treat everyone the same’ but then exhibit actions/behaviours which do not allow this to happen.
The following You Tube clips, drawn from different contexts, illustrate aspects of unconscious bias which help to explain its potential impact
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVp9Z5k0dEE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbe5D3Yh43o
Who shows unconscious bias?
Everyone has unconscious biases, some negative and some positive, and so the challenge is to
a) become more aware of them
b) mitigate any stereotypical views and resultant behaviours.
A good way to identify our unconscious biases is to take an Implicit Association Test. This is designed to help explore our own potential bias, hidden attitudes and beliefs that determine our preferences for certain groups over others.
To do this, go to this link https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/research/and then follow the steps below
· Register using your email address and/or login
· The system will try to get you to take a random test but you will need to navigate back to the initial page and select the ‘Take a Test’ tab at the top right
· You will be taken to a Preliminary Information page which will give you some background on IATs
· Click on ‘I wish to proceed’ and you will be taken to a list of tests
· Have a go at the Race IAT and the Gender-Science IAT
· Each will take about 10-15 minutes to complete and then give you some feedback
· If you are interested, and have time, explore some of the other tests on the site.
Having completed one or a number of the above tests, it is highly likely that it is apparent that you have unconscious biases (i.e. everyone has some to a certain degree). Now that you are more aware of these, the section below invites you to reflect on certain aspects of your teaching where you might be able to mitigate against any latent unconscious bias.
How might having unconscious biases impact on the student learning experience?
The following is offered as a focus for reflection both by individuals and teaching teams.
Marketing What progress are we making to ensure that positive and diverse imagery is used in the marketing materials for our courses?
Admissions To what extent does our admissions process allow for student applications to be viewed without name, age, ethnicity gender etc?
Interviewing Before interviewing do I stop to consider whether I might make implicit assumptions about potential students? When interviewing potential students, do I make assumptions about their knowledge or experience, either positively or negatively? If so, what is this based on? How regularly do I review the student interview process to ensure that there is not any latent unconscious bias?
Course design How do I ensure that I design courses/modules which are neither preferential toward or against specific individuals and/or groups of students?
Planning How do I plan to create a more inclusive environment in all aspects of teaching and learning? What steps do I take to periodically review my lesson planning and differentiation strategies so that all students are expected to succeed?
In-class teaching Awareness about unconscious bias: Do I consider making students aware about unconscious bias and the potential impact of this on their behaviour towards each other?
Group-work: To what extent do I design cooperative rather than competitive tasks in order for all students to engage in a safe learning environment? How do I put students into groups? Do I intervene or let them sort this out for themselves? To what extent do I encourage intercultural groups or the integration of mature students and/or disabled students? How do I ensure that my leadership of group-work gives all students an equal chance to succeed and work with others from different backgrounds?
Student representation: How does this happen? Do I intervene? Do I make recommendations and if so, what are these based on?
Expectations: Do I have higher expectations of some students rather than others or do I think they could all succeed equally well? What might these expectations be built on?
Imagery: How do I make sure that the imagery I integrate into my learning materials neither favours or stereotypes certain groups?
Participation in class: How do I encourage full participation from all students and not make assumptions that some will do so more than others?
Communication with students: How do I ensure that I consider potential unconscious bias in either my spoken or written language? What steps do I take to monitor the verbal and written language used in my own teaching so that it does not lead to unconscious bias? To what extent do I learn all student names equally well? Do I learn some student names quicker than others? Do I avoid communication with some students because their names are difficult to pronounce? In a typical teaching session, how aware am I of the percentage of my time I talk with male/female students, disabled students, students from different ethnic backgrounds? Do I (unconsciously) favour talking with some students rather than others?
Placement allocation: If I am responsible for placement allocation, how do I ensure that I do not make the assumption that some students (as opposed to others) will ‘fit in’ better at certain workplaces?
Assessment: What steps do I take to ensure that I am not exhibiting unconscious bias when I am assessing students’ work? Do I use blind marking practices whenever possible? How do I ensure that I mitigate against the possibility of ‘first impressions’ or other aspects of unconscious bias when assessing individual or group presentations and/or practical assessments?
Feedback: How do I use the assessment criteria to ensure that my feedback is consistent and fair to all students?
Reference writing: What steps do I take to review my writing of student references to reduce any potential unconscious bias?
Reflection into action
Now that you are more aware of how unconscious bias and implicit assumptions can affect the student learning experience, what actions might you take?
Changes to be introduced / By when / Indicators that it has made my practice more inclusive