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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: 2) by mr_mischief on Friday January 08 2016, @03:32PM
I think the people doing the study need to consider the social importance of physical attractiveness in these populations. Students with more self-confidence in social situations tend to be happier, healthier, more open to asking others for help, and more likely to just all around perform better at any nontrivial task. Students with more self-doubt are more likely to become depressed and withdrawn.
Meanwhile, there are multiple industries built on making girls and women of middle school age through their thirties feel inadequate and put them on a treadmill of competition to be beautiful and more beautiful than the women around them. Magazines, TV, cosmetics, hair care, fashion... all of these are harsher environments for women than for men. We build a society that tears women down unless they are extremely attractive and believe it themselves, then tries to tell them all they aren't attractive enough without all of these extra products. Then we blame the professors, instructors, and TAs when the most vulnerable portion of those women -- adolescents to young adults -- don't do as well in a maelstrom of challenging work and hormones like a residential college campus?