1. Cool, Easy, & Quality: Intergroup Implications for Teachers and Students from an Exploration of
Thank you for having us here on the virtual presentation for ICA.
We’re excited to be here!
Kimberly Rios Morrison, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology, University of Chicago
Jennifer J. Moreland, ABD
School of Communication, The Ohio State University

2. Purpose
Goal: Explore how students rate their teachers on
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

3. Background: http://www.ratemyteachers.com/
Over 15 million ratings and counting!
K-12 teachers, public and private schools
Completely anonymous
Students provide ratings, comments
(Very similar to

4. Theoretical Background
Group comparison and stereotyping perspective
Evaluations of instructors are “gendered” (e.g., Basow, 2000, Miller & Chamberlin, 2000)
Teachers as “outgroup” members (Sinclair & Kunda, 2000)
“Halo Effect”
Students stereotype their instructors and these stereotypes held inevitably affect evaluations of instructors’ classroom performance (e.g., Basow, 2000; Miller & Chamberlin, 2000)
and the manners by which students assess instructor performance are often tied to gender stereotypes (Kierstead, D’Agostino, & Dill, 1988).
Gender stereotypes activated in the face of criticism. Also, when given positive feedback from a female professor, students are much less likely to evaluate the female professor through a stereotypical lens. This analysis of is conducted through this lens of group comparison and gender stereotyping. In this way, ratings of a teacher’s easiness may interact with teacher gender in determining perceived overall quality and “coolness.”

5. Theoretical Background, Con’t
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).

6. Hypotheses
H1: Teacher gender will moderate the relationship between easiness and overall quality.
H2: Teacher gender will moderate the relationship between easiness and coolness ratings.

7. Method
Analysis 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 only
used to randomly a draw a school name
Random number generator used to select teacher

8. Method, Con’t Predictor variables: Outcome variables:
Teacher gender (dummy coded: 0 = male, 1 = female)
Easiness ratings
Interaction 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)

9. Zero-order Correlations
Gender
(0 = male)
Easiness
Overall quality
Coolness
(0 = not cool)
-.14**
-.06*
-.12**
.53**
.39**
.68**

10. Results
H1: 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.
Overall quality ratings were submitted to a teacher gender (male vs. female) x easiness (mean-centered continuous variable) multiple regression analysis, controlling for total number of ratings (Aiken & West, 1991).
Yay for significant relationships!

12. Results, Con’t
H2: 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

13. Results, Con’t
Overall 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 = , p < .001

14. Discussion & Implications
Students discussing teacher performance online
When facing a more difficult teacher, students are more likely to derogate female teachers, compared to male teachers
Male teachers are “cooler”
“Easier” teachers are “cooler”
Positive association between easiness and overall quality was stronger for female teachers than for male teachers

15. Discussion & Implications
Student-teacher communication
Gender
Future research
How do these ratings compare with objective ratings?
Other online forums of interest?

16. Thank you! Questions? Please email moreland.68@osu.edu OR
Have a great conference!