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Online Faculty Rating Sites: Examining How Students Perceive and Use RateMyProfessors.com
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by Nicole M. Landry, Katelyn E. Kurkul - Stonehill College
Categories: Professional Issues
We surveyed 550 students to examine which rating categories on RateMyProfessors.
com (2010), an online faculty rating site, they found to be most important when
selecting a professor. We hypothesized that students would trust RateMyProfessors.
com and choose Easiness as the most important category. Results indicated that
students did tend to trust RateMyProfessors.com ratings. Furthermore, they
reported that Quality, Helpfulness, and Clarity are more important categories than
Easiness and Hotness. In addition, analyses revealed that men are more likely
to consider Hotness when selecting a professor than women. The findings from
this study shed light on how online faculty rating sites may influence students’
selection of professors.
Fall 2010 | Psi Chi Journal of Undergraduate Research (Vol. 15, No. 3, p. 139), published by Psi Chi, The International Honor Society in Psychology (Chattanooga, TN). Copyright, 2010, Psi Chi, The International Honor Society in Psychology. All rights reserved.