Women's visibility in academic seminars: Women ask fewer questions than men
Women's visibility in academic seminars: Women ask fewer questions than men
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DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0202743
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发表时间：
2018-09-27
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Sandstrom, Gillian M.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Carter, Alecia J.;Croft, Alyssa;Sandstrom, Gillian M.
女性在学术生涯中的流失是一个主要问题，特别是在科学、技术、工程和数学科目。造成人员流失的一个因素是，学术界缺乏明显的女性榜样。在职业生涯的早期阶段，当地社区的行为可能会在确定群体中的榜样方面发挥形成作用，塑造女性对她们能否在学术上取得成功的印象。观察榜样的一个常见的和形成性的环境是当地部门的学术研讨会、讲座或演讲。因此，我们使用观察法和在线调查，通过学者在研讨会上的提问行为，量化了女性的能见度。从对20个国家的600多名学者的调查回复中，我们发现，与男性相比，女性在研讨会后提出的问题更少。这一印象得到了来自10个国家近250个研讨会的观察数据的支持：女性观众问的问题绝对和比例都比男性观众少。当被问及为什么在想问的时候不问问题时，女性比男性更认可内在因素(例如，不能振作神经)。然而，我们的观察表明，结构性因素也可能起到作用；当男性第一个提问，或者问题较少时，女性提出的问题也相应较少。试图通过操纵两个部门的提问时间(试图引发更多问题)来抵消后一种效果，但没有成功。我们提出了其他建议，以创造一个让每个人都更愿意提问的环境，从而促进妇女和其他不太显眼的群体成员的平等可见度。
The attrition of women in academic careers is a major concern, particularly in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics subjects. One factor that can contribute to the attrition is the lack of visible role models for women in academia. At early career stages, the behaviour of the local community may play a formative role in identifying ingroup role models, shaping women's impressions of whether or not they can be successful in academia. One common and formative setting to observe role models is the local departmental academic seminar, talk, or presentation. We thus quantified women's visibility through the question-asking behaviour of academics at seminars using observations and an online survey. From the survey responses of over 600 academics in 20 countries, we found that women reported asking fewer questions after seminars compared to men. This impression was supported by observational data from almost 250 seminars in 10 countries: women audience members asked absolutely and proportionally fewer questions than male audience members. When asked why they did not ask questions when they wanted to, women, more than men, endorsed internal factors (e.g., not working up the nerve). However, our observations suggest that structural factors might also play a role; when a man was the first to ask a question, or there were fewer questions, women asked proportionally fewer questions. Attempts to counteract the latter effect by manipulating the time for questions (in an effort to provoke more questions) in two departments were unsuccessful. We propose alternative recommendations for creating an environment that makes everyone feel more comfortable to ask questions, thus promoting equal visibility for women and members of other less visible groups.