What students value in their teachers – an analysis of nominations to a teaching award

Abstract

Teaching awards have become a way to acknowledge the importance of high-quality teaching for many higher education institutions. The purpose of this study is to investigate which images of the “good educator” emerge in students’ nominations for a teaching award at a Swedish university, and how these images relate to the gender of nominees and nominating students. We want to explore possible bias linked to gender and stereotypical notions of female and male in teaching. All 194 nominations (made in 2018) were analysed and clustered into categories. The results are discussed from a critical theoretical perspective and show qualitative differences regarding the traits and skills used to describe male and female teachers, and that male teachers were nominated more by both male and female students. We believe that becoming aware of possible bias will help decision-makers of teaching awards become more gender sensitive.