kimberly rios morrison, ph.d. department of psychology, university of chicago jennifer j. moreland,...
TRANSCRIPT
Kimberly Rios Morrison, Ph.D.Department of Psychology, University of Chicago
Jennifer J. Moreland, ABDSchool of Communication, The Ohio State University
PurposeGoal: Explore how students rate their teachers
on www.RateMyTeachers.com How do students perceive their teachers in
terms of teacher gender, ease, helpfulness, “coolness,” clarity, and quality?
Emerging popularity of online forums for discussing education from students’ perspective
Implications for students and teachers
Background:http://www.ratemyteachers.com/Over 15 million ratings and counting!K-12 teachers, public and private schoolsCompletely anonymous Students provide ratings, comments(Very similar to www.RateMyProfessors.com)
Theoretical BackgroundGroup comparison and stereotyping
perspectiveEvaluations of instructors are “gendered” (e.g.,
Basow, 2000, Miller & Chamberlin, 2000)
Teachers as “outgroup” members (Sinclair & Kunda, 2000)
“Halo Effect”
Individuals motivated to stereotype outgroup members to increase positive perceptions of the self (Sinclair & Kunda, 2000; Tajfel & Turner, 1986).
Students more likely to evaluate female instructors as less competent than male instructors after receiving negative feedback (Sinclair & Kunda, 2000).
Theoretical Background, Con’t
HypothesesH1: Teacher gender will moderate the
relationship between easiness and overall quality.
H2: Teacher gender will moderate the relationship between easiness and coolness ratings.
MethodAnalysis of 1,045 teachers’ composite ratings (M = 10.53, SD =
14.98) (5 point scale: 1 = bad, 5 = great)“Easiness” (M = 3.54, SD = .96)“Helpfulness” (M = 3.72, SD = 1.10)“Clarity” (M = 3.71, SD = 1.12)“Popularity”—dichotomous by student awarding sunglasses for
teaching being “cool” (dummy coded)U.S. and District of Columbia teachers onlyhttp://www.directoryofschools.com/high-schools/US.htm
used to randomly a draw a school name Random number generator used to select teacher
Method, Con’tPredictor variables:
Teacher gender (dummy coded: 0 = male, 1 = female)Easiness ratingsInteraction between teacher ratings and gender
Outcome variables:Overall quality composite measure (helpfulness and clarity
ratings averaged to form overall quality measure) (α = .96; M = 3.71, SD = 1.09)
Coolness (dummy coded: 0 = uncool, 1 = cool)
Zero-order Correlations
Gender (0 = male)
Easiness Overall quality
Coolness (0 = not cool)
Gender -.14** -.06* -.12**
Easiness -.14** .53** .39**
Overall quality
-.06* .53** .68**
Coolness -.12** .39** .68**
ResultsH1: Teacher gender will moderate the relationship
between easiness and overall quality.Overall effect of easiness:
Teachers judged as higher in quality the easier they were perceived to be (β = .54), t(1041) = 20.09, p < .001.
Significant teacher gender x easiness interaction (β = .09), t(1040) = 2.21, p < .03.
Positive association between easiness and overall quality was stronger for female teachers (β = .59), t(1040) =
16.62, p < .001, than for male teachers (β = .47), t(1040) = 11.75, p
< .001.
Results, Con’tH2: Teacher gender will moderate the
relationship between easiness and coolness ratings.
Gender did not moderate relationship between easiness and popularity ratings (B = .14, SE = .18), Wald χ2 = .61, p < .44
Results, Con’tOverall effects of gender and easiness were
each significant, but gender X easiness interaction was not:Male teachers more likely to be voted “cool” than
females (B = -.31, SE = .16), Wald χ2 = 4.05, p < .05
Easier teachers more likely to be voted “cool” than more difficult teachers (B = 1.02, SE = .09), Wald χ2 = 132.50, p < .001
Discussion & ImplicationsStudents discussing teacher performance onlineWhen facing a more difficult teacher, students are
more likely to derogate female teachers, compared to male teachersMale teachers are “cooler”“Easier” teachers are “cooler”Positive association between easiness and overall quality
was stronger for female teachers than for male teachers
Student-teacher communicationGender
Future researchHow do these ratings compare with objective
ratings?Other online forums of interest?
Discussion & Implications