Are STEM Faculty Biased Against Female Applicants? A Robust Replication and Extension of Moss-Racusin and Colleagues (2012)
In a seminal study investigating gender bias in academic science, Moss-Racusin et al. (2012) found bias against female lab manager applicants with respect to competence, hireability, mentoring, and salary conferral. This topic will be revisited through four studies--two direct replications, one extension, and a meta-analysis. The present set of studies, all using the same methods and materials as the original, will sample from a larger and broader pool of faculty, collectively representing the breadth of STEM disciplines at R1 universities across the United States. The proposed studies will have high power to detect smaller effect sizes than in the original. Furthermore, a priori criteria have been explicitly articulated for what will be accepted as hypothesis confirmation and replication, and for evidence of gender bias. The pre-registered data analysis plans will provide a strong test assessing the replicability of Moss-Racusin et al. (2012)’s finding that STEM faculty were biased against women who applied for a lab manager position.