A study by the Journal of General Psychology found attractive professors receive higher scores on student-teacher evaluations.
David Walsh, a professor of psychology at University of Southern California, said results in the social science studies need to be looked at carefully because the participants are usually self-selected.
“Maybe what the data really reflects is that students who were particularly attracted to professors rated them positively,” Walsh said. “It doesn’t mean that every student in the class rated them positively even though they were attractive.”
“Hot or Not: Do Professors Perceived as Physically Attractive Receive Higher Student Evaluations?,” a 2006 study by The Journal of General Psychology, studied whether or not physical attractiveness influences student-teacher evaluations.
The study found that that “professors perceived as attractive received higher student evaluations when compared with those of a non-attractive control group (matched for department and gender).” The results were consistent across four universities, showing “attractive” professors received 0.8 of a higher point on a five-point scale.
Ratemyprofessor.com is a review site for college students to assign ratings on professors and campuses. Professors are rated on “overall quality,” “level of difficulty” and “hotness.” The study used student-teacher evaluations from the website.
“Overall quality” is rated on a five-point scale by averaging the instructor’s scores on helpfulness and clarity. “Hotness” is an optional calculation, which is rated by the instructor’s appearance. The question is “just for fun,” asking the students whether their teacher is “hot or not.” Professors rated with an equal or negative balance are given a zero rating, or “non-attractive,” whereas those with positive balances are “attractive.”
Walsh said sciences like physics and chemistry can perfectly predict and show relationships in studies, but behavioral sciences have weaker relationships. He suggests looking at the data analysis and if the study identifies the correlation coefficient between the hotness ratings and the professors’ evaluations.
“The problem is when you are looking at correlations between two variables, and you haven’t controlled either one, you’re just measuring them as they exist,” Walsh said. “You really don’t know what causes what. The first issue is to look for the correlation value within any of those papers and see if its reported, square it, multiply it by itself and it’ll tell you how strong that relationship is.”
Bob Kronick, a professor of educational psychology and counseling at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, said evaluations are much more about teaching and learning. He said those evaluations are not really valid because they are based on the idea that attractiveness is distracting and students don’t learn.
“So let’s think of it as very attractive to very unattractive, and I’m going to bet you that at the far end of this pole, there’s not a whole lot of learning going on,” Kronick said. “I think if you go to the other end of the spectrum, I think what you find is that, yeah, we may sit there and, the psychologists call them, cathexis, you invest energy in looking at them, then you’re not learning a whole lot.”
Kronick said there used to be the idea that there was a high correlation between the grade the student received and the evaluation they gave. He said students have figured out that professors really want their students to respect them and learn from them.
“(Evaluations) have nothing to do with anybody's attractiveness," Kronick said. "It has to do with connecting in a variety of ways in which to learn.”
