by Agnes Constante

Online course instructors are 94 percent more likely to respond to discussion forum comments made by students with names connoting that they are white and male compared to other race-gender groups, according to research published in March.

The experimental study, “Bias in Online Classes: Evidence from a Field Experiment,” was conducted by researchers from Stanford University, the University of California, Irvine, and Vanderbilt University who posted comments in 124 online course discussion forums in 2014.