Perceptual and behavioral effects of expectations formed by exposure to positive or negative Ratemyprofessors.com evaluations

Figures & data

Table 1. Means and standard deviations for teaching assessment items organized by RMP evaluation content

Scales and items	Positive evaluation		Negative evaluation
	M	SD	M	SD
Teacher pedagogical skill (α = 0.93)	3.70	(0.89)	2.93	(0.78)
This lesson was interesting	3.79	(1.05)	3.40	(0.97)
I did not like the way this teacher taught (reverse scored)	3.64	(1.19)	2.87	(0.94)
I would recommend this teacher to a friend	3.70	(0.98)	2.77	(0.94)
I felt the teacher did a good job stimulating students’ interest	3.27	(1.15)	2.27	(1.02)
Overall, this is a quality teacher	3.82	(0.95)	3.27	(0.91)
I would sign up to take this course from Dr Baker next semester to fulfill my GE requirement	3.64	(0.93)	2.87	(1.05)
Teacher personal attributes (α = 0.86)	4.15	(0.73)	3.78	(0.63)
This teacher was competent	4.21	(0.89)	3.97	(0.81)
This teacher was intelligent	4.36	(0.82)	4.07	(0.64)
This teacher was enthusiastic	3.39	(1.00)	2.67	(1.03)
This teacher was disorganized (reverse scored)	4.36	(0.78)	4.20	(0.89)
I felt the teacher had a poor knowledge of the topic (reverse scored)	4.30	(0.92)	4.00	(0.83)
Lecture quality (α = 0.80)	4.25	(0.68)	3.83	(0.72)
This lesson was difficult to understand (reverse scored)	4.33	(0.89)	4.07	(0.83)
This teacher presented the material in an unclear way (reverse scored)	4.21	(0.86)	4.00	(0.87)
It would be difficult to succeed in this teacher’s class (reverse scored)	4.12	(0.70)	3.43	(0.82)
Single items
This lesson was not effective (reverse scored)	3.85	(0.93)	3.70	(0.88)
This teacher seemed to be helpful	3.74	(0.75)	3.47	(0.78)

Note: N = 34 in the positive evaluation condition and 30 in the negative evaluation condition.

Table 2. Means and standard deviations for study 2 dependent variables organized by RMP evaluation content

Scales and items	Positive evaluation (n = 49)	Negative evaluation (n = 54)
	M (SD)	M (SD)
Teacher pedagogical skill (α = 0.93)	3.56 (0.87)	3.10 (0.91)
Teacher personal attributes (α = 0.84)	3.96 (0.67)	3.65 (0.75)
Lecture quality (α = 0.83)	4.21 (0.64)	3.90 (0.78)
Engagement (r = 0.46)	3.89 (0.77)	3.52 (0.87)
Exam retention score	7.15 (1.48)	6.39 (1.14)

Note: N = 46 in the positive and negative evaluation conditions for the exam retention score.

Figure 1. Path analysis of the direct and indirect effects of viewing positive or negative teacher evaluations (condition) on participants’ ratings of their own engagement, the teacher’s pedagogical skills, personal attributes, and lecture quality, as well as participants’ performance on a retention test.

Note: Standardized path coefficients with dashed arrows are non-significant. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, and ***p < 0.001.