Department of Things That I Think Would Be Worth a Systematic Study

Eszter Hargittai writes about differential treatment of male and female professors including “Although I don’t know of any systematic studies of what types of topics students bring up during interactions with professors by gender, I have heard plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting that female profs get approached much more by students wanting to talk about life issues than male profs.” I’d kind of like to see a systematic study on that issue — it seems both interesting and tractably studiable. A study would also help us relate this to the gender of the student.