Students' perspectives on RateMyProfessors.com: an empirical investigation of perception and attitude

Abstract

Since its inception in 1999, the website of RateMyProfessors.com has been popular and has gathered more than 15 million ratings of approximate 1.5 million professors from more than 7,000 schools. It provides college students opportunities to rate and comment on their instructors and helps them with course selection. The purpose of this study was to investigate the college student perception and attitude towards this website. We analysed survey data from 166 undergraduate students. Our findings suggest that overall students have positive experiences and find RMP as a reliable source of information for course selection. About 25% of participants who have posted ratings have stronger positive attitude towards the website and higher tendency to check the website before registering classes.