“He Will Crush You Like an Academic Ninja!”: Exploring Teacher Ratings on Ratemyprofessors.com

Abstract

This study examines students' motives for use and perceptions of the web site http://www.ratemyprofessors.com, one of the main sites that allow students to post anonymous ratings of college professors in the United States and Canada. The contents of comments posted to the web site are examined for relationships to numerical ratings on the site and motivations expressed by students for participating in the rating process. Qualitative (focus group interviews) and quantitative (content analysis) investigations are presented. Students' motives for accessing Ratemyprofessors.com include information seeking, convenience, and interpersonal utility. As regards teacher ratings, the results indicate that students were primarily concerned with issues such as instructor competence and the classroom experience.

Paper or Pixel? Comparing Paper- and Tool-Based Participatory Design Approaches

“…Various coding schemes have been developed for a variety of topics, ranging from user comments on machine learning [19], over student comments on the teaching performance of professors [20] to YouTube comments [21]. [22] applied PD in a school setting to plan and improve lessons together with students and developed a coding scheme to code the spoken comments made during discussions.…”

Do Students Listen To Advice From Their Experienced Peers?

“…"A primary reason for the popularity of online teacher rating sites is, arguably, students" desire for information about classes and professors. Unlike traditional course evaluations where the audience is the teacher and perhaps administrators, the intended audience for RMP and other similar sites is other students (Kindred and Mohammed, 2005). "…”

“…In focus group studies by Kindred and Mohammed (2005) students showed they were wary of trusting the evaluations at RMP, but continued to use them as a supplement. Clearly, they want as much information about courses and teachers as they can get, even if the source is somewhat questionable.…”

“…Although some colleges now make such information publicly available, many more still do not (Kindred and Mohammed 2005). Central Michigan University is one of the few to permit students to access student opinion surveys.…”

The Perspectives of Students and Teachers in the English Department in the College of Basic Education on the Student Evaluation of Teachers

“…To examine students' comments and ratings of 626 professors teaching different disciplines at a U.S. university at RateMyProfessor.com using a survey and a focus group interview, Kindred and Mohammed (2005) found that students' comments focused on the professor's competence including clarity of instruction and personality traits such as focused, energetic, inspiring, helpful and easy. Overall, students' concern was for teacher competence more than appearance or personality.…”