The Impact of Accents on the Evaluation of Teaching Assistants from India and China.

While the number of international teaching assistants (ITA) from India and China continues to increase at US universities, these ITAs continue to garner poor student evaluations. One of the possible reasons for low evaluations is the non-native accent of these international speakers. Research validates that an accent is not a communication barrier and speaker evaluations based on accents are a sign of stereotyping or prejudice towards the group for which the accent is a marker (Bent & Bradlow, 2003; Gluszek & Dovidio, 2010; Rubin, 1992). The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of accents in the evaluations of ITAs and discuss implications for enhancing ITA-student communication. In a survey-experiment, undergraduate students (n=278) were randomly assigned to listen to one of the six audio recorded lectures with manipulations of accent and articulation. Results indicated that an accent influences the teaching evaluation of ITAs by undergraduate students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]