Perceptual and behavioral effects of expectations formed by exposure to positive or negative Ratemyprofessors.com evaluations

The Internet permits students to share course evaluations with millions of people, and recent research suggests that students who read these evaluations form expectations about instructors’ competence, attractiveness, and capability. The present study extended past research investigating these expectations by (1) exposing participants to actual Ratemyprofessors.com (RMP) evaluations, (2) presenting the evaluations on a computer screen to simulate real-world exposure, and (3) assessing the effects of the evaluations on standard outcomes from the pedagogy literature. Results of Study 1 revealed that participants exposed to a positive evaluation rated an instructor as more pedagogically skilled, personally favorable, and a better lecturer than participants who read a negative evaluation. Study 2 replicated these findings and found that participants who read a positive evaluation reported being more engaged in the lecture and scored higher on an unexpected quiz taken one week later than those who read a negative evaluation. Engagement, however, did not mediate the relationship between evaluations and performance. Given these results, instructors might consider reviewing their RMP ratings to anticipate the likely expectations of incoming students and to prepare accordingly. However, research that further enhances the realism of this study is needed before specific recommendations for corrective action can be suggested.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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