RateMyProfessors.com is a popular site for rating professors and gaining insight on which professors to take, or not to take. A recent study also shows though that it may reflect sexism in college students.
As Inside Higher Ed pointed out, since 2006 the the site has reflected that students give the best reviews to professors who are seen as easy graders or good looking. This does not seem so surprising.
More recent studies are problematic in other ways, however. An study just published by PLOS One shows that “brilliant” and “genius” are more likely to describe male professors. The journal also reflects that “The Frequency of “Brilliant” and “Genius” in Teaching Evaluations Predicts the Representation of Women and African Americans across Fields.”
What fields received such compliments is also reflective. The introduction of the study notes:
Because the comments are “spontaneous,” Andrei Cimpian who is a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a co-author of the paper says they provide “an unvarnished reflection” of what people actually think.
The present research also mentions the idea of spontaneity. And, in the discussion it is mentioned:
The study is also similar to one from January 2015, which Cimpian also contributed to. The study noted “Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines.”
College student lean overwhelmingly liberal/progressive according to all major polls, but this study would seem to indicate that these students may not be as forward-thinking as they project.
