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Gender bias in female physician assessments - Women considered better suited for qualitative research
Abstract
To analyse whether physician assessment of scientific quality is biased by gender.
Two fictive research abstracts on back pain treatment were constructed, one with a quantitative and one with a qualitative design. Authorship was assigned to either a woman or a man.
1637 randomly selected Swedish physicians were asked to judge the scientific quality of the two designs in a structured assessment form.
The assessments of 1364 abstracts (286 female and 394 male assessors) were analysed by chi-square test and logistic regression.
The quantitative design was judged the same, regardless of the gender of the author or assessor. The qualitative design, however, was ranked as more accurate, trustworthy, relevant and interesting with a female author. Women assessors upgraded female authors more than male authors, while male assessors reflected no gender differences. Assessor speciality interacted with judgement; physicians in primary care appreciated the qualitative abstract more than hospital physicians did (OR 2.78; 95% CI 1.97-3.92).
Gender seems to affect scientific evaluations. The results are worth considering in situations where research is judged and interpreted, in medical tutoring, research guidance, peer reviewing and certainly in forming evaluation committees for research funding.
... Further, evidence supports that the gender of editorial board members affects their peerreview habits (17,92) and that notable bias exist among reviewers (93)(94)(95). Budden et al (2007) found that simply blinding reviewers of author gender significantly increased the number of accepted papers first-authored by women (96). ...
... They may not be held to the same expectations and they may not be considered for leadership roles (111,112). Similarly, a Swedish study showed that when women publish qualitative, rather than quantitative work, they get better ranks, especially from other women (94). Women can be as responsible as men for perpetuating opportunitylimiting biases about women. ...
... Our study looked at last authors as a proxy for mentors of the first authors on manuscripts. Previous studies have suggested that humans tend to view the work of people similar to themselves more favorably than the work of strangers and simply knowing more about an author makes their work more favorable (92,94). Therefore, the tendency to work with kinsmen may explain the development of a glass-ceiling for minorities. ...
... The job satisfaction of respondents in this study depends on several factors such as attitudes towards women's employment, marital status, age and etc. Heilman's (15) study showed no relationship between age and job satisfaction of women, but significant relationship between marital status and job satisfaction, a finding contrary to the results of this study (16). ...
... This situation which originates from cultural stereotypes of women's employment in the medical profession places women in a lower position than men. Sarookhani (17) also in his study concluded that some marginal cultural and stereotyped beliefs towards women hindered their job promotion (16). ...
Background: Women comprise more than half of the world's population. In different societies, because of different views and attitudes, women are affected by various factors such as culture, customs, religion, economy and etc. Objectives: The present research attempts to determine why medical students are interested in general medicine and how they seek job satisfaction. In this connection, it is also important to know about the existing problems and barriers and to propose approaches to prevent them. Patients and Methods: This cross-sectional study is comprised of female medical students of whom 100 were randomly selected using random numbers table. Data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire including 20 questions. Validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by the medical education academics and its reliability was checked by a pilot study of 20 medical students which was considered 86% according to Cronbachs’ Alpha. The data analysis was done using SPSS version 14. Results: With respect to marital status, 22% and 78% of the participants were married and single 78% were, with their average age being 26 ± 0.98 SD years. Respectively also their job satisfaction mean score was 4.19 ± 1.51 out of 7 which showed no significant association between job satisfaction and marriage and they exhibited positive attitude toward General Medicine (P = 0.639, 0.002). There was a significant association between job satisfaction and attitude of women toward their husbands who were practicing physician (P = 0.018). Conclusions: According to the results of this study, as the majority of the target population comprised women with family responsibilities, stakeholders and other program designers are recommended to provide special facilities in order to increase job and education opportunities for women.
... Although there is an ongoing discussion about gender biases in the scientific peer-review process (Caelleigh et al., 2003;Gilbert et al., 1994;Johansson et al., 2002;van den Besselaar et al., 2018), geographical bias is much less recognized and debated (Song et al., 2010). Nevertheless, it has been suggested to substantially impact the chances of publication of papers and receiving research grants (Kliewer et al., 2004;Opthof et al., 2002). ...
The beauty of science lies within its core assumption that it seeks to identify the truth, and as such, the truth stands alone and does not depend on the person who proclaims it. However, people's proclivity to succumb to various stereotypes is well known, and the scientific world may not be exceptionally immune to the tendency to judge a book by its cover. An interesting example is geographical bias, which includes distorted judgments based on the geographical origin of, inter alia, the given work and not its actual quality or value. Here, we tested whether both laypersons ( N = 1532) and scientists ( N = 480) are prone to geographical bias when rating scientific projects in one of three scientific fields (i.e., biology, philosophy, or psychology). We found that all participants favored more biological projects from the USA than China; in particular, expert biologists were more willing to grant further funding to Americans. In philosophy, however, laypersons rated Chinese projects as better than projects from the USA. Our findings indicate that geographical biases affect public perception of research and influence the results of grant competitions.
... Our finding that a gender association exists between first and senior authors suggests a critical mentorship step for female academic radiologists. Results of previous studies [30,31] suggest that individuals tend to view the work of people similar to themselves more favorably. Encouraging senior female investigators to work with female junior investigators may be one step in addressing the problem that men in the sciences remain better mentored than women [32]. ...
Objective. The purpose of this study was to describe trends over time in female authorship in the radiology literature and to investigate the tendency of female first authors to publish with female senior authors. Materials and Methods. Data on the gender of academic physician authors based in the United States for all major articles published in three general radiology journals-Radiology, AJR, and Academic Radiology-were collected and analyzed for the years 1978, 1988, 1998, 2008, and 2013. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify significant trends over time, and a chi-square test of independence was performed to determine significant relations between the genders of first and senior authors. Results. The gender of 4182 of 4217 (99.17%) authors with MD degrees was determined. The proportion of original research articles published by women as first authors increased from 8.33% in 1978 to 32.35% in 2013 (p < 0.001). The proportion of original research articles with women as senior authors increased from 6.75% in 1978 to 21.90% in 2013 (p < 0.001). Female first and senior authorship increased significantly over time (first author, p < 0.001; senior author, p < 0.001). There was a statistically significant relation between the genders of first and senior authors of original research articles and guest editorials (p < 0.001). Conclusion. Over 35 years, there was a statistically significant upward linear trend of female physician participation in authorship of academic radiology literature. Female first authors were more likely to publish with female senior authors.
... This experience The influence of gender in academia is confirmed by Wyn et al. (2000), who found that certain research areas, as for example qualitative inquiries, were perceived as outside the mainstream. This is also conclusive to Johansson et al. (2002) who showed that quantitative methodologies were described to be more in line with male characteristics and qualitative with females. ...
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to describe senior lecturers' experiences of and reflections on the influence of gender on their work and career possibilities.
Design/methodology/approach
Eight informants, four female and four male university teachers, representing different schools at a Swedish university college were interviewed. A qualitative content method was used for analysis.
Findings
The findings revealed that the lecturers at the university college had an experience of academic gender neutrality. The findings also pointed to experiences of gendered practice that had been internalized and made normal. It also revealed that the lecturers did not consider or reflect on the gap between experiences of and reflections on gender neutrality and gendered practice.
Research limitations/implications
Even if the number of informants is small, the findings have something important to tell about the gap between gender‐neutral academia and practice in academia.
Originality/value
The findings imply that although the Swedish model of equality work has been successful in many ways, a confrontation on the micro‐political level is required to achieve a gender equality workplace environment and to increase women's career possibilities.
... 3. There are studies indicating how the qualitative-quantitative choice is gender directed, e.g., within medicine(Johansson et al., 2002). ...
This article describes and discusses Nordic entrepreneurship research (NER). It does so by providing a broader context for conducting entrepreneurship research, including historical, sociocultural, and disciplinary elements substantiating an understanding of “Nordic.” Contextualizing NER this way, we attempt for the article to do what it says, i.e., to also write here in a style we argue is characteristically Nordic. This includes a priority to the local and particular, and a subsequent focus on questions resonant with nominalist research. We thereby enable an experience of NER as a cultural practice, as we argue that this is a crucial part of understanding what it is. Drawing on a tracing of NER in journal publications (in between 2001 and 2005), the article identifies trends and tendencies. We identify three generations of entrepreneurship research and suggest directions for the future development of the third. This way, the discussion and conclusions are drawn toward images of what a Nordic entrepreneurship research might become.
... Female authors were ranked higher than male authors. Male assessors were found to reflect no gender bias but female assessors upgraded female authors more than male authors [18]. A study of grant proposals has also shown gender bias to the detriment of female applicants [19]. ...
To investigate the characteristics of editors and criteria used by orthopaedic journal editors in assessing submitted manuscripts.
Between 2008 to 2009 all 70 editors of Medline listed orthopaedic journals were approached prospectively with a questionnaire to determine the criteria used in assessing manuscripts for publication.
There was a 42% response rate. There was 1 female editor and the rest were male with 57% greater than 60 years of age. 67% of the editors worked in university teaching hospitals and 90% of publications were in English. The review process differed between journals with 59% using a review proforma, 52% reviewing an anonymised manuscript, 76% using a routine statistical review and 59% of journals used 2 reviewers routinely. In 89% of the editors surveyed, the editor was able to overrule the final decision of the reviewers. Important design factors considered for manuscript acceptance were that the study conclusions were justified (80%), that the statistical analysis was appropriate (76%), that the findings could change practice (72%). The level of evidence (70%) and type of study (62%) were deemed less important. When asked what factors were important in the manuscript influencing acceptance, 73% cited an understandable manuscript, 53% cited a well written manuscript and 50% a thorough literature review as very important factors.
The editorial and review process in orthopaedic journals uses different approaches. There may be a risk of language bias among editors of orthopaedic journals with under-representation of non-English publications in the orthopaedic literature.
Over the past decade, the need for greater diversity and inclusion across research systems has received greater emphasis from policymakers, funders, universities and stakeholders. Strategies in support of diversity and inclusion need to be underpinned by the best available evidence. As a contribution to this, a multidisciplinary research team from the University of Sheffield undertook this mapping review of the evidence for a positive relationship between a diverse and inclusive biomedical and health research community, and the qualities and impacts of its research. A second stage of the project explored and evaluated the relationship between the metrics used to measure diversity, inclusion, quality and impact in health research. The project was funded by the Wellcome Trust, and designed in part to inform its approach as a major funder to agendas of diversity and inclusion in research.
Peer review serves a gatekeeper role, the final arbiter of what is valued in academia, but is widely criticized in terms of potential biases—particularly in relation to gender. In this substantive-methodological synergy, we demonstrate methodological and multilevel statistical approaches to testing a null hypothesis model in relation to the effect of researcher gender on peer reviews of grant proposals, based on 10,023 reviews by 6233 external assessors of 2331 proposals from social science, humanities, and science disciplines. Utilizing multilevel cross-classified models, we show that support for the null hypothesis model positing researcher gender has no significant effect on proposal outcomes. Furthermore, these non-effects of gender generalize over assessor gender (contrary to a matching hypothesis), discipline, assessors chosen by the researchers themselves compared to those chosen by the funding agency, and country of the assessor. Given the large, diverse sample, the powerful statistical analyses, and support for generalizability, these results – coupled with findings from previous research – offer strong support for the null hypothesis model of no gender differences in peer reviews of grant proposals.
اهتم البحث بدراسة وتحليل أهم العوامل المتعلقة باكتساب المعرفة، وطرق انتاجها والعوامل المؤثرة فيا. كما عرض البحث لأهم الأطر النظرية حول انتاج المعرفة، والمنظورات العلمي حول انتاج المعرفة ، مع التركيز على منظورين اساسيين هما: المنظور التبليغي للمعرفة، والمنظور الدمجي ( الانتاجي 9 للمعرفة.
Throughout the world, women leave their academic careers to a far greater extent than their male colleagues. (1) In Sweden, for example, women are awarded 44 per cent of biomedical PhDs but hold a mere 25 per cent of the postdoctoral positions and only 7 per cent of professorial positions. It used to be thought that once there were enough entry-level female scientists, the male domination of the upper echelons of academic research would automatically diminish. But this has not happened in the biomedical field, where disproportionate numbers of men still hold higher academic positions, despite the significant numbers of women who have entered this research field since the 1970s.
The feminist perspective applied to the method of grounded theory offers an approach to knowledge discovery for nursing that incorporates diversity and change. The epistemological congruency of feminist theory and grounded theory is discussed. Tensions created by the application of feminist methodological features to the grounded theory method are explored and reflexivity suggested as a means of ensuring that both traditions are respected.
AND CLIMATE determine how faculty's perceptions of medical school gender climate differ by gender, track, rank, and departmental affiliation.
In 1997, a 115-item questionnaire was sent to all University of Wisconsin Medical School faculty to assess their perceptions of mentoring, networking, professional environment, obstacles to a successful academic career, and reasons for considering leaving academic medicine. Using Fisher's exact two-tailed test, the authors assessed gender differences both overall and by track, rank, and departmental cluster.
Of the 836 faculty on tenure, clinician-educator, and clinical tracks, 507 (61%) responded. Although equal proportions of men and women had mentors, 24% of the women (compared with 6% of men; p < .001) felt that informal networking excluded faculty based on gender. Women's and men's perceptions differed significantly (p < .001) on 12 of 16 professional environment items (p < .05 on two of these items) and on five of six items regarding obstacles to academic success. While similar percentages of women and men indicated having seriously considered leaving academic medicine, their reasons differed: women cited work-family conflicts (51%), while men cited uncompetitive salaries (59%). These gender differences generally persisted across tracks, ranks, and departmental clusters. The greatest gender differences occurred among clinician-educators, associate professors, and primary care faculty.
Women faculty perceived that gender climate created specific, serious obstacles to their professional development. Many of those obstacles (e.g., inconvenient meeting times and lack of child care) are remediable. These data suggest that medical schools can improve the climate and retain and promote women by more inclusive networking, attention to meeting times and child care, and improved professional interactions between men and women faculty.
Context.—Editors, authors, and reviewers are influential in shaping science.
The careers of women in public health have received less scrutiny than those
of women in medicine and other branches of science. The performance of women
as editors, authors, and reviewers in epidemiology has not been previously
studied.Objective.—To examine changes over time in the representation of women at the editorial
level in US epidemiology journals compared with the proportion of women authors
and reviewers.Design and Setting.—Cross-sectional study of 4 US epidemiology journals, American Journal of Epidemiology, Annals of Epidemiology, Epidemiology, and the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology (formerly the Journal
of Chronic Diseases), for 1982, 1987, 1992, and 1994.Subjects.—Editors, authors, and reviewers for the selected years.Main Outcome Measures.—Sex of editors, authors, and reviewers.Results.—We identified 2415 reports associated with 8005 authors. One of 7 editors
in chief was a woman, a position she shared with a man. For all journals,
the proportion of editors who were women ranged from 5 (6.5%) of 77 in 1982
to 42 (16.3%) of 258 in 1994. Over all journals and all years, women comprised
a higher proportion of authors (28.7% [2225/7743] ) compared with reviewers
(26.7% [796/2982]) or editors (12.8% [89/696]).Conclusions.—Fewer women in public health hold editorial positions than are authors
and reviewers. The reasons for this important discrepancy, including the possibility
of a selection bias favoring men, should be further investigated.
Editor—Chaudhry et al outlined the uncertainties of academic careers and called for a national career structure for medical academics.1 In general practice the need for properly conducted community based research performed by clinicians is even more pressing. Few general practitioners, however, can pursue research interests alongside clinical and administrative commitments and on call rotas. The infrastructure in which to acquire research skills, such as skills in planning research strategies, literature searches, procuring grant money, and conducting the studies, themselves barely exists. General practitioners are sometimes perceived as being at the bottom of the academic scale, as indicated by a comment in the Independent newspaper that perhaps it is not necessary to select students of A level standard for an ultimate career in general practice.2 In short, there is little perception of an academic culture associated with general practice outside departments of general practice. Nevertheless, small inroads are being made, and a research culture in general practice is being nurtured. In response to a recruitment crisis in general practice posts in the inner city of London3 4 the Department of Health launched the London initiative zone educational incentives.5 A component of this is the London academic training scheme. Recent graduates from vocational training are attached to a department of academic general practice in one of the London teaching hospitals. The emphasis in this training year is to provide a foundation in research methods, including the development of a research project in which the registrar is principal researcher. The registrar has seven protected sessions for research and an experienced supervisor, and computing, network, and library facilities are provided. There is an additional clinical and teaching commitment, which reflects practical academic general practice. One great strength of this scheme, as stated by the last year's cohort of registrars, is a regular group meeting of academic registrars throughout London. This provides peer support, acts as a sounding board for research ideas, and allows skill sharing. The London academic training scheme provides a well structured, resourced, and supervised year for learning about the challenge, reward, and practicalities of a career in academic general practice coupled with continued clinical practice. Perhaps those developing academic career structures and awarding grants to researchers have something to learn from general practitioners after all. References1.↵Chaudhry B, Winyard P, Cale C. Academia: the view from below. BMJ 1997;315: 560-1. (6 September.)
Objective.
—To assess whether manuscripts received by JAMA in 1991 possessed differing peer review and manuscript processing characteristics, or had a variable chance of acceptance, associated with the gender of the participants in the peer review process.Design.
—Retrospective cohort study of 1851 research articles.Setting.
—JAMA editorial office.Participants.
—Eight male and five female JAMA editors, 2452 male and 930 female reviewers, and 1698 male and 462 female authors.Main Outcome Measure.
—Statistically significant gender bias.Results.
—Female editors were assigned manuscripts from female corresponding authors more often than were male editors (P<.001). Female editors used more reviewers per manuscript if sent for other review. Male reviewers assisted male editors more often than female editors, and male reviewers took longer to return manuscripts than did their female counterparts (median, 25 vs 22 days). Content reviewer recommendations were independent of corresponding author and review gender, while male statistical reviewers recommended the highest and lowest categories more frequently than did female statistical reviewers (P<.001). Manuscripts handled by female editors were rejected summarily at higher rates (P<.001). Articles submitted to JAMA in 1991 were not accepted at significantly different rates based on the gender of the corresponding author or the assigned editor (P>.4).Conclusions.
—Gender differences exist in editor and reviewer characteristics at JAMA with no apparent effect on the final outcome of the peer review process or acceptance for publication.(JAMA. 1994;272:139-142)
The purpose of this article is to advance a new understanding of gender as a routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interaction. To do so entails a critical assessment of existing perspectives on sex and gender and the introduction of important distinctions among sex, sex category, and gender. We argue that recognition of the analytical independence of these concepts is essential for understanding the interactional work involved in being a gendered person in society. The thrust of our remarks is toward theoretical reconceptualization, but we consider fruitful directions for empirical research that are indicated by our formulation.
BACKGROUND: Gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment are common in medical practice and may be even more prevalent in academic medicine.
OBJECTIVE: To examine the prevalence of gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment among medical school faculty and the associations of gender-based discrimination with number of publications, career satisfaction, and perceptions of career advancement.
DESIGN: A self-administered mailed questionnaire of U.S. medical school faculty that covered a broad range of topics relating to academic life.
SETTING: 24 randomly selected medical schools in the contiguous United States.
PARTICIPANTS: A random sample of 3332 full-time faculty, stratified by specialty, graduation cohort, and sex.
MEASUREMENTS: Prevalence of self-reported experiences of discrimination and harassment, number of peer-reviewed publications, career satisfaction, and perception of career advancement.
RESULTS: Female faculty were more than 2.5 times more likely than male faculty to perceive gender-based discrimination in the academic environment (P < 0.001). Among women, rates of reported discrimination ranged from 47% for the youngest faculty to 70% for the oldest faculty. Women who reported experiencing negative gender bias had similar productivity but lower career satisfaction scores than did other women (P< 0.001). About half of female faculty but few male faculty experienced some form of sexual harassment. These experiences were similarly prevalent across the institutions in the sample and in all regions of the United States. Female faculty who reported being sexually harassed perceived gender-specific bias in the academic environment more often than did other women (80% compared with 61 %) and more often reported experiencing gender bias in professional advancement (72% compared with 47%). Publications, career satisfaction, and professional confidence were not affected by sexual harassment, and self-assessed career advancement was only marginally lower for female faculty who had experienced sexual harassment (P = 0.06).
CONCLUSION: Despite substantial increases in the number of female faculty, reports of gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment remain common.
BACKGROUND: Studies have found that female faculty publish less, have slower career progress, and generally have a more difficult time in academic careers than male faculty. The relation of family (dependent) responsibilities to gender and academic productivity is unclear.
OBJECTIVE: To describe dependent responsibilities by gender and to identify their relation to the aspirations, goals, rate of progress, academic productivity, and career satisfaction of male and female medical school faculty.
DESIGN: 177-item survey questionnaire.
SETTING: 24 randomly selected medical schools in the contiguous United States.
PARTICIPANTS: 1979 respondents from a probability sample of full-time academic medical school faculty.
MEASUREMENTS: The main end point for measuring academic productivity was the total number of publications in refereed journals. Perceived career progress and career satisfaction were assessed by using Likert scales.
RESULTS: For both male and female faculty, more than 90% of time devoted to family responsibilities was spent on child care. Among faculty with children, women had greater obstacles to academic careers and less institutional support, including research funding from their institutions (46% compared with 57%; P < 0.001) and secretarial support (0.68 full-time equivalents compared with 0.83 full-time equivalents; P = 0.003), than men. Compared with men with children, women with children had fewer publications (18.3 compared with 29.3; P < 0.001), slower self-perceived career progress (2.6 compared with 3.1; P < 0.001), and lower career satisfaction (5.9 compared with 6.6; P < 0.001). However, no significant differences between the sexes were seen for faculty without children.
CONCLUSIONS: Compared with female faculty without children and compared with men, female faculty with children face major obstacles in academic careers. Some of these obstacles can be easily modified (for example, by eliminating after-hours meetings and creating part-time career tracks). Medical schools should address these obstacles and provide support for faculty with children.