Faculty and staff of Bellevue Community College have always been concerned about treating their students fairly and avoiding bias in teaching materials and evaluation of student work. However, ensuring fairness and eliminating bias require ongoing vigilance. This is particularly true in the case of test questions and other assessment tools that will determine student grades. This site is intended to function as a review tool for those times when we need a quick way to check our work, particularly test questions that may inadvertently reinforce stereotypes or reflect cultural bias.

Why worry about bias in materials our students receive from us? We do so because bias can negatively affect our students' performance:

• When we test students we seek to discover what they know and can do. Instances of bias can be distractions, potentially lowering their grade both on the test and in the course.
• We don't want to advantage one group of students over another. Our goal, given the diversity of students here at BCC, is to insure that questions are fair across groups.

The guidelines (click on a guideline to learn more about it)

• Treat people with respect in all materials.
• Minimize the effects of construct-irrelevant knowledge or skills.
• Avoid stereotypes.
• Represent diversity in depictions of people.
• Use appropriate terminology to refer to people.

 

• Example questions
• Beyond Test Questions: Other Applications of the Guidelines
• One-Page Summary of Guidelilnes

This site needs your help

Site authors seek additional examples of materials that contain inadvertent bias--we want to add to illustrations of biased material from a variety of disciplines that accompany each guideline. When you come across examples, we'd appreciate learning about them. E-mail Helen Taylor ( htaylor@bcc.ctc.edu ) or Robin Jeffers ( rjeffers@bcc.ctc.edu ) with your suggestions, examples, etc.

Sources used in preparing this site

This site summarizes and revises guidelines the Educational Testing Service (ETS) uses to eliminate bias in such tests as the SAT, GRE, and AP Examinations. We can find no group or organization other than ETS that has so completely investigated how inadvertent bias affects student performance, no group that has worked as hard to control it. We appreciate ETS' willingness to share its work and allow us to crib mercilessly.

Questions at the end of each guideline are based on ones from Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation. Citation: Hambleton, Ronald & Rodgers, Jane (1995). Item bias review. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation , 4(6). Retrieved August 8, 2006 from http://PAREonline.net/getvn.asp?v=4&n=6 .

Site managed by David Stacy. Last updated on Octobeer 30, 2006