Monday, November 10, 2003

On the very week in which our students do their course evaluations, it's reported that professors deemed attractive get substantially higher ratings of effectiveness as teachers.  Do Good Looks Equal Good Evaluations? Its a strong effect--enough to move ratings a full point on a 5 point scale. At first blush, this suggests that students are prejudiced against ugly professors, but as the authors of the study recognize, it could be that attractive professors really are more effective.  This might be because they are more effective at self-beautification as well as at education, or it might be that their attractiveness gives them confidence which makes them more effective, it might be that effectiveness gives them confidence which makes them more attractive, or.... Of course, it might be that student evaluations really are swayed by attractiveness.  My students deny this possibility vociferously.  (Of course, when your professor is off the chart on both attractiveness and effectiveness is hard to be dispassionate ;-> )   The authors of the study suggest that it is "probably impossible" to disentangle whether this reflects productivity or discrimination...but I think they are wimping out.  Here's a study worth doing: Hand out teacher evaluation forms with pictures of the professor on the page.  For a random half of the students, use an unattractive picture (you know, the one where you're talking and your eyes are half-closed).  For the other half use an attractive picture.  I bet you could skew the ratings substantially. comments? [] 10:47:27 PM     My Visualizations of Blogspace had bad HTML; the images were unviewable. This is a bad thing in visualizations. Should be fixed now.  If it's still not working (hell, if it is working) let me know. (This is a recurring frustration with radio and upstreaming images.) comments? [] 7:05:09 PM

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