Beware! Teacher’s Bias and Favoritism

by Mariah Cole, PharmD, PGY1 Community Pharmacy Practice Resident, Mississippi Department of Public Health

“Ugh, ____ is such a teacher’s pet.”

Does this ring a bell for you? The teacher’s pet was a title given to any student who had a “preferential” relationship with the teacher. What does the teacher’s pet relationship look like? The teacher's pet could be the child who was consistently picked to pass out papers or lead the lunch line. It wasn’t just the most helpful students but the “smart” students as well. The “smart” students seemed to know the answers to all the questions asked during class or were consistently recognized by the teacher for scoring the highest on quizzes or tests. Not every student called a “teacher’s pet” was actually given any form of favoritism. None-the-less, such preferential treatment can have a positive effect on students. But just as importantly, favoritism impacts the rest of the students in class.  Thus, teachers need to be mindful of how their relationships with students are perceived.

Teachers and students are human and subject to bias, whether intentional and/or unintentional.  This trickles into their interactions with and among each other.¹ Bias arises from both positive and negative attitudes towards people based on their socio-cultural and economic background, gender, and many other factors. For example, students or teachers from differing geographical regions may experience bias due to beliefs about regional dialects or accents. And bias can lead to barriers to effectively working together.¹ In addition, teachers and students may have interfering dynamics that arise during interactions such as approval seeking, competition, excessive dependency, and psychological withdrawal or reactance.¹ Thus bias and interfering dynamics culminate in favoritism, neglect, or prejudicial actions towards others.

Teacher favoritism may be defined as “the act of giving preferential treatment to someone or something; the tendency to favor a person or group for factors “such as a characteristic they possess, or their personal contacts, or merely out of personal preferences”.¹ Thus, the “teacher pet” relationship is a type of teacher favoritism. It may be noted that there are various definitions within the literature for the “teacher pet” relationship. One author defines it as, “a phenomenon of a special emotional relationship (often a love relationship) between the teacher and a particular student (or two) in the classroom.”¹ Meanwhile, another author defines the concept as “student favored by teachers because they have actual and/or alleged characteristics that are highly valued by teachers but not necessarily by classmates.”¹ Favoritism may also manifest from teachers’ affectionate ties to a student, which derive from the pleasure that the student brings to the teachers’ work.² One study characterized teacher’s pets are more likely to be girls who come from higher socioeconomic backgrounds but may not be considered the best academic students.²

While overt favoritism toward particular students may not be seen in the same way in college and professional degree programs, the mentoring relationship has the potential to be interpreted as a teacher’s pet or favoritism relationship. A few students, by virtue of their background or preferential characteristics, are given more access to the instructor or professor and are given opportunities not afforded to other students.  The development of a friendship may complicate or compromise the mentoring relationship. One author notes that a professional mentor is a position of power. Thus, a hierarchy should predominate and the mentor should not be considered equal to the mentee. For this reason, a friendship-type relationship should never be established during the mentorship period.³  This is not to say that mentors should not act in a friendly, helpful manner to mentees and that these relationships should not have a personal dimension.⁴ Befriending mentees increases the psychosocial support provided to students. However, befriending is not equivalent to friendship. Befriending is about building a positive relationship that is collegial.  Thus, the mentoring relationship can still be cordial, personal, and enjoyable.

As the mentoring relationship progresses, the relationship should evolve. Setting clear expectations of the relationship at the beginning may increase the effectiveness of the mentoring relationship. Heidrun Stoegar explains “effective mentoring relies on mentors and mentees having clear ideas about what mentoring entails, how it is distinct from other support measures, and what expectations for a given mentoring experience are realistic”.⁵ One method of setting expectations includes creating a mentoring contract which would include “defining relationship’s boundaries, reduce confusion about roles and expectations, clarifies commitments including time, and defines relationship’s objectives. However, making formal contracts may stifle informal support”.^6,7 Thus, a conversation about expectations, rather than a written contract, is probably more appropriate.

Favoritism is cultivated by our conscious and unconscious biases. Bias may lead to positive and negative attitudes toward various groups of students and differences in the way they are treated. Favoritism may manifest within undergraduate, professional, and graduate education in the form of mentoring. If the boundaries of the mentoring relationship cross into friendship, students may interpret this relationship as favoritism. Setting boundaries and expectations can help prevent perceptions of favoritism and maintain a professional relationship with all learners.

References

1. Cheng E. Teacher Bias and Its Impact on Teacher-Student Relationships: The Example of Favoritism [Internet]. [cited 2021Mar8].
2. Tal Z, Babad E. The teacher’s pet phenomenon: Rate of occurrence, correlates, and psychological costs. Journal of Educational Psychology. 1990;82(4):637–45.
3. Detsky AS, Baerlocher MO. Academic mentoring--how to give it and how to get it. JAMA. 2007;297(19):2134–6.
4. Mullen CA, Klimaitis CC. Defining mentoring: a literature review of issues, types, and applications. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 2021;1483(1):19–35.
5. Stoeger H, Balestrini DP, Ziegler A. Key issues in professionalizing mentoring practices. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 2021 Jan 1;1483(1):5–18.
6. MacLeod S. The challenge of providing mentorship in primary care. Postgrad Med J. 2007 May;83(979):317-9.
7. Burgess A, van Diggele C, Mellis C. Mentorship in the health professions: a review. Clin Teach. 2018 Jun;15(3):197-202.

Should Standardized Patients Score Student Performance?

by Ashley Miller, PharmD, PGY1 Community Pharmacy Resident, University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy

It's the end of the semester, and the last thing standing between you and your summer break is the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). You know that you’ll be entering multiple interactive stations that will assess your ability to perform patient care-related activities. Who do you hope will be grading your performance – a teacher you’ve had, or a stranger — a standardized patient (SP)? I know what I preferred when I was the one undergoing these evaluations, but I was curious to learn more about what other professional students, faculty, and researchers had to say about who is the best person to evaluate and score a student’s performance.

OSCEs date back to the 1960s and were first used as assessments in medical schools.  Each OSCE station is intended to represent a realistic clinical scenario during the student interacts with a “patient.”^1,2  At many schools, the patient role is played by an experienced actor known as a standardized patient (SP).  An OSCE allows students to "practice" in an environment safe for both them and patients.¹ OSCEs are reliable and valid assessment tools and predict students' future success.^1,2  Their use was expanded to other health professional programs including dentistry, pharmacy, and nursing.^1,2 They were designed to comprehensively evaluate clinical, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills and consistently portray the clinical scenario so that every student has the same experience (and opportunities).^1,3 While preparing and delivering an OSCE is very time-consuming, both educators and students alike agree that OSCEs are a valuable learning and assessment tool.³

One thing not always agreed upon when considering OSCEs is whether a faculty member or SP should grade performance. In some instances, an SP may interact with the student while a faculty member grades the interaction while observing the encounter either remotely or in the same room. Some argue that having faculty graders introduces additional bias and negatively influences students' performance when compared to a more neutral grader.³ Others claim SPs do not have the skillset or training needed to properly assess students.³ Previous studies involving faculty versus SP graders have not provided a clear answer as to who makes the “best” grader.

Different evaluator factors contribute to variability when scoring OSCE encounters, including lack of defined criteria, lack of training, and the number of items to be assessed.⁴  One study looked at factors that affected student scores during an OSCE when evaluated by faculty versus SPs.⁴ Before grading began, all examiners were first put through a series of training on the OSCE process and the criteria they were to use for scoring students.⁴ The researchers found that the scores given by SPs were higher than those given by faculty members, suggesting that the type of grader does influence scores.⁴ Another interesting finding was that the faculty evaluators assessed technical skills more strictly, yet were not as strict when grading communication skills when compared to SP evaluators.⁴ The technical skills assessed included history-taking, physical examination, and patient education.⁴ Communication skills that were graded include the attitude of the student, active listening, ability to build rapport, and effective questioning.⁴ Notably, faculty members who were scoring items related to their specialty tended to assign lower grades.⁴ The authors hypothesized that these differences are seen because faculty graders are more familiar with assessing the technical skills (particularly if it was relevant in their specialty) and have higher expectations for performance, while SPs are not as comfortable giving lower scores on technical matters.⁴

While some faculty members believe that their presence does not impact student performance, students often report that knowing teachers are grading OSCEs increases testing anxiety.³ The increased stress then impacts performance which, in turn, affects students’ grades.^3,4 In a study conducted using student questionnaires to survey the use of SP versus faculty graders, McLaughlin et al. found that the majority of students felt SPs helped create a less stressful testing environment, were as good at giving feedback as faculty graders, and felt they were adequately equipped to assess their skills.² The findings of this study demonstrate that students generally prefer to be graded by an SP and believe that an SP can competently assess their performance.²

So, who should grade a student’s performance during an OSCE? It likely depends on who you are asking. Overall, it seems that most students feel SPs are equipped for the task, are fair graders, and help them to feel more at ease. Much like how I felt when I was a student, it seems students would prefer an SP in these encounters since it is a more realistic experience — similar to interacting with patients in the “real world.”³  However, some may contend that, while students may not be as comfortable, having professors performing the assessment is in the student's best interest long-term because they can more accurately assess the student’s technical skill. One point made for this argument is that some studies have shown that grades given by faculty are predictive of future performance.² Another point made by researchers and those in academia for having faculty graders is that they are content experts and may be able to identify students who have only surface-level knowledge but appear confident and skillful to a non-expert.² It is also possible to have SPs interact with the students while faculty members observe and grade the encounter synchronously or asynchronously.  In this way, the student performance is scored by both the SP and faculty members.  However, this would cost more time and money as both SPs and faculty would need to be trained. Research shows SPs focus more on communication while faculty focus more on technical skills in an encounter, thus, it may come down to the most important skill being assessed in a particular OSCE station when choosing who should score it.

^References 

1. Alsaid A, Al-Sheikh M. Student and Faculty Perception of Objective Structured Clinical Examination: A Teaching Hospital Experience. Saudi J Med Med Sci [Internet]. 2017;5 (1):49-55.

2. McLaughlin K, Gregor L, Jones A, et al. Can SPs Replace Physicians as OSCE Examiners? BMC Med Educ [Internet]. 2006;6: Article 12. 

3. Salinitri FD, O’Connell MB, Garwood CL, et al. An Objective Structured Clinical Examination to Assess Problem-Based Learning. Am J Pharm Educ [Internet]. 2012;76(3): Article 44. 

4. Park YS, Chun KH, Lee KS, et al. A Study on Evaluator Factors Affecting Physician-Patient Interaction Scores in Clinical Performance Examinations: A Single Medical School Experience. Yeungnam Univ J Med 2021;38(2):118-126.