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Scott Jaschik writes at Inside Higher Education that although most faculty members would deny that physical appearance is a legitimate criterion in grading, a study finds that among similarly qualified female students, those who are physically attractive earn better grades than less attractive female students. For male students, there is no significant relationship between attractiveness and grades. The results hold true whether the faculty member is a man or a woman.
The researchers obtained student identification photographs for students at Metropolitan State University of Denver and had the attractiveness rated, on a scale of 1-10, of all the students. Then they examined 168,092 course grades awarded to the students, using factors such as ACT scores to control for student academic ability. For female students, an increase of one standard deviation in attractiveness was associated with a 0.024 increase in grade (on a 4.0 scale).
The results mirror a similar study that found that those who are attractive in high school are more likely to go on to earn a four-year college degree. Hernández-Julián says that he found the results of the Metro State study “troubling” and says that there are two possible explanations: “Is it that professors invest more time and energy into the better-looking students, helping them learn more and earn the higher grades? Or do professors simply reward the appearance with higher grades given identical performance? The likely answer, given our growing understanding of the prevalence of implicit biases, is that professors make small adjustments on both of these margins."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday January 07 2016, @04:00PM
It's probably safe to presume that MOST ARE NOT trading sex for grades. But - it does happen. And, it doesn't even require consummation to count - if the pretty little thing just stays after class every day for three or five minutes to flirt, she is actively trading on her sexuality.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @04:52PM
Ah, the bigot simply could not resist the bait.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 07 2016, @06:29PM
I'm going to re-state an interesting tidbit from the article: "The attractiveness gap in grades appears to result more from lower grades for less attractive women than from higher grades for the most attractive women. When the researchers divided the women into three groups -- average, more attractive and less attractive -- they found a very small (and not statistically significant) gain for the above average attractiveness women. But for the least attractive third of women, the average course grade was 0.067 grade points below those earned by others, a statistically significant gap."
So it doesn't appear that the attractive ones are unfairly getting higher grades, it's that the unattractive ones are unfairly getting lower grades.
To the AC who has been trying to make this exact point: You might get more traction if you didn't run around calling everyone a bigot or stupid first. Present you case in a logical manner and maybe people will listen.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Jiro on Friday January 08 2016, @12:36AM
It could also mean that the standards for attractiveness needed to get higher grades are weak. That is, perhaps *most* women, except for a few ugly ones, unfairly get higher grades. If this was true, they would not be very far above the average, because they would be so numerous that they would raise the average. You'd just see the ugly ones scoring below the average.
(Score: 2) by Nollij on Saturday January 09 2016, @01:40AM
A large part of what we consider female beauty is the direct result of cosmetics. It could be that women who don't wear makeup (etc) are also not eschewing social norms while in class. In which case, it would be less about physical beauty, and more about attitude.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @12:57AM
Not the same AC, but it is logical to call a bigot a bigot in the same way it is logical to call a duck a duck. Appealing to emotions by not doing so is practical which, as in this case, is not always logical.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @02:38AM
Refraining from calling someone a bigot is not necessarily illogical, and certainly not so if it helps accomplish some larger goal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @04:54AM
Yes, but I soooo want to flirt with Runaway1956, and use my Runaway1957 wiles to bring him to completion. I am so sick and tired of women having their way with Runaway1956, getting him to wash dishes, raise beef, wear his goddamed seat-belt. If only he could meet one of his own kind, someone who appreciated him just as he is, and, well, see, I can't go on because ya'll called him a bigot, and now the buzz is gone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08 2016, @09:02PM
Classifying a non-human animal as a duck does not depend upon your opinion; a duck is a duck regardless of the labels you apply to it (in fact, a duck is a duck when it identifies as such). Whether or not a remark is bigoted is a matter of interpretation, and the application of the the label "bigot" to an individual is subjectively predicated upon your own opinion.
When you compare bigots to ducks, you assume that everyone else agrees with you that something was a bigoted remark. This excludes those who disagree with you and erodes their safe space. Please check your privilege next time before you appropriate a community's opinion to serve your own narrow ends.
I'm not going to educate you any further because, frankly, it's not my job to do so (as I don't happen to identify as a teacher or educator this week). But you'd better toe the line, or else I shall see to it that you lose your job over this episode of hateful behavior!
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday January 07 2016, @04:55PM
Also applies to the dreaded group work. Ideal scenario to demonstrate the effect is a group work project hottie surrounded by a cloud of beta orbiter types trying to show off by trying hard.
More than a decade ago when I was in school, group work meant you'd take a task that would take one person one week, assign it to a team of five, give them two weeks, and watch them fail as they play a bluffing game waiting to see who will do all the work and finally the loser of the game does all the work by themselves slapping some crap together the night before its due.
It was funny watching the teen kids whining about it being idiotic and nobody would ever do something that dumb, and I'm trying to explain thats how it works out in corporate america. I've been on plenty of teams that meet for 10, even 20 person-year total and only accomplish about 1 person-week of actual production.
Anyway "sit there and look pretty while the guys in the group flirt with you" is a thing for education and corporate groups.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by danmars on Thursday January 07 2016, @05:45PM
Came here to say "group work" - the summary doesn't say whether this is exclusively including classes with no group work or presentations. It's entirely plausible that attractive female students would have other group members try harder to try to attract attention, or other students who would rate them higher on peer evaluations. This would also explain why the professor's gender is unimportant - the people who matter are the fellow students, not the professors. Group work in online classes doesn't include the in-person interactions which may create that difference between the students, which would explain why they lack the difference.
Also, there's the possibility others have mentioned that the attractive female students are getting more tutoring help from people who are interested in them, but I don't think that explains the online-equality component as well as group work and presentations do.
So, while interesting, it doesn't tell us why the attractiveness may matter. The linked article and summary pin the problem on the teacher, but we don't know that. It could easily be peers influencing the grades.
I'd be curious to know whether the effect exists in classes without any group work or peer evaluations.
(Score: 1) by driverless on Friday January 08 2016, @05:34AM
It could also be something completely different. The OP says that "there are two possible explanations", when there are actually three, with the third one being that they screwed up the methodology, failed to correct for one or more confounding factors, etc etc (an example being the widely-reported "result" that Asian students are being discriminated against for entry into certain colleges because ones who were admitted had higher GPAs than non-Asian students, when they were being scored on a whole range of things, only one of which was the GPA).
I'll wait for a later analysis that shows what they did wrong in this study.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07 2016, @05:24PM
I want the truth!
Moderation -1
Spam=1
You can't handle the truth!
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Thursday January 07 2016, @05:31PM
The truth? Sometime or other, I read the rules on moderation. A spam mod is -5, I believe - it really hurts your karma badly. BUT - a spam mod is automatically sent to the staff, and they see it. The rules for posting are really relaxed here, you can post anything, EXCEPT SPAM! Staff get's notified of spam immediately. But - when they see that the spam mod was used improperly, they start thinking about punishing that moderator.
Whoever it is can expect to lose moderation privileges if it continues. This is the second time someone has used all five mods up in a single day to see my karma drop to nothing.
No biggie for me, the staff isn't going to punish me for improper moderation!!
If it's you who is doing this, it's about time for you to sit in the corner.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by http on Friday January 08 2016, @06:16AM
It's easy to understand why those who doesn't "get" the {meta,} moderation systems would do that to you. Your posts regulary contain textbook examples of bigotry, misogyny, racism, and general all-around fuckery, but without any of the humour that EthanolFueled strives for. If they're an accurate reflection of your personality, your associates have done you a great disservice by not kicking you in the shins.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 08 2016, @02:53PM
Interesting idea. May I ask who wrote these textbooks, to which you refer? SJW's, I presume. I prefer to think for myself, than you very much.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 11 2016, @04:07PM
> I prefer to think for myself, than you very much.
I'd like to nominate this sentence for the "Best Context for Mis-typing 'Thank you very much'" category.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Thursday January 07 2016, @08:00PM
Half the time when a man thinks a woman is flirting, she actually had no intention to flirt. Or maybe it's more like 90% of the time.
Imagine that you were a huge muscular guy with scars and tattoos, and a case of bitchy resting face. Whenever you approach somebody, they might feel like you're trying to intimidate them, even if you just wanted to ask what time it is. Your appearance affects people subconciously. It might be a tough problem to avoid.
Now imagine you are a cute woman with a cheerful disposition, and you just want to ask a question. But as soon as prof looks at you, there are bright red cartoon hearts coming out of his eyeballs...