External Review Letters in Promotion and Tenure Decision Making: Validity and Fairness

大学的晋升和终身教职决策对科研企业的诚信具有至关重要的意义，因为它们决定了学者和科学家的职业发展。尽管在渠道干预方面进行了大量投资，以实现学术多元化，但在终身教职和终身教职岗位上，有色人种和女性的比例仍然不足。代表性不足对美国发展多元化STEM劳动力的前景具有重要影响。对于有色人种的本科生和研究生来说，有机会接触到与他们分享并理解他们生活经历和背景的教师，会带来深远的好处。这些包括发展科学身份和坚持科学事业。因此，需要新的方法来检查诸如晋升和任期（P&amp；T）过程之类的把关机制。尽管P&amp；T过程的重要性得到了广泛认可，但很少有研究调查P&amp；T过程中最关键的因素是否以及如何影响女性和有色人种的结果。作为晋升和终身教职决策的一部分，本项目检查了由独立评审人员提供的外部评审函（ERL）的有效性和公平性。学术管理者通常将erl视为终身教职和晋升组合中最公正、最关键的组成部分，为候选人过去的成就、声誉、潜力以及持续、可持续贡献水平的前景提供定性、独立的评估。尽管erl具有敏感性，但鉴于其在学术晋升和终身教职决策中的重要性，对erl效度和偏倚的有限研究令人震惊。本项目通过分析ERL的语言特征，并研究ERL语言特征、晋升候选人特征、写信者特征与系、学院和大学级委员会的晋升和终身任期投票结果之间的关系，弥合了这一差距。该项目通过语言使用的社会心理学、社会比较过程和社会角色理论来研究erl。该项目由EHR核心研究（ECR）计划资助，该计划支持推进STEM学习和学习环境基础研究、扩大STEM参与和STEM劳动力发展的工作。该项目的目标是调查erl的有效性，根据候选人和写信人的特征确定erl中可能存在的偏见，并确定可能的方法来纠正有限的有效性和偏见。利用九所大学（休斯顿大学、汉普顿大学、伍斯特理工学院、利哈伊大学、阿拉巴马大学、路易斯安那州立大学、莱斯大学、德克萨斯农工大学和德克萨斯大学格兰德谷分校）之间的合作伙伴关系，并通过检查9000多个erl，该项目旨在提高P&amp；T流程的有效性。了解女性和有色人种教师获得P&amp；T的障碍，并最终提高女性和有色人种教师的P&amp；T比率。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Promotion and tenure decisions at universities are of critical significance to the integrity of the research enterprise because they determine the career progression of scholars and scientists. Despite significant investments in pipeline interventions to diversify academia, faculty of color and women are underrepresented in tenured and tenure track positions. Underrepresentation has important implications for the nation's prospects of developing a diverse STEM workforce. For undergraduate and graduate students of color, having access to faculty members who share and understand their lived experiences and backgrounds has profound benefits. These include developing science identities and persisting in science careers. Therefore, novel ways to examine gatekeeping mechanisms such as the promotion and tenure (P&T) processes are needed. Despite the widely recognized importance of P&T processes, minimal research has examined whether and how P&T processes' most critical elements contribute to outcomes for women and faculty of color. This project examines the validity and fairness of external review letters (ERL) provided by arm's length reviewers as part of promotion and tenure decision making. Academic administrators often view ERLs as the most impartial and critical components of tenure and promotion portfolios, providing qualitative, independent evaluations of candidates' past accomplishments, reputation, potential, and the prospect of continued, sustainable contribution levels. Despite their sensitive nature, given the criticality of ERLs in academic promotion and tenure decisions, the limited research on validity and bias in ERLs is stunning. This project closes this gap by analyzing the linguistic characteristics of ERLs and examining the relationship between ERL linguistic characteristics, promotion candidate characteristics, letter writer characteristics, and promotion and tenure voting outcomes at the department, college, and university-level committees. The project examines ERLs through theoretical work on the social psychology of language use, social comparison processes, and social role theory. This project is funded by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances fundamental research on STEM learning and learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development.The project's goals are to investigate the validity of ERLs, determine possible bias in ERLs based on candidate and letter writer characteristics, and identify possible ways to remediate limited validity and bias. Leveraging a partnership between nine universities (University of Houston, Hampton University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Lehigh University, University of Alabama, Louisiana State University, Rice University, Texas A&M University, and University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), and by examining more than 9000 ERLs, this project aims to contribute to the validity of P&T processes, understand barriers to P&T for women and faculty of color and ultimately increase the P&T rates for women and faculty of color.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.