Putative Pedagogical Productivity - Essay Example

? “Beauty In The Room” Beauty in the room: Pulchritude and Putative Pedagogical Productivity Summary In the working environment of United Kingdom looks and appearance greatly affect the earning of an individual (Harper, 2000) as observed in U.K. it has become a fact throughout the world that beauty and looks really influence one’s performance and the way people perceive him/her. Psychologist have already emphasized upon the importance of beauty in non economic setup. However in the recent years the impact of looks has been observed on one’s financial and economic conditions as well. But is it possible that good looks can make huge salary differences? Does it affect the productivity level as well? To test these hypotheses research was conducted by Daniel S. Hamermesh, Amy Parker (2004) in which a comparatively larger group of teachers and students was selected and to check that how far looks and beauty can influence the earnings of an individual several measures were identified which later helped in making the analysis and conclusions. In a research conducted by (Sussmuth, 2006) the results indicates that in the German educational and working environment the looks of a teacher and his/her perceived appearance has a very weak relationship with the instructors performance and productivity level. In contrast to this the conclusions made by (Mobius and Rosenblat 2006) on a study work based on the same subject states that the good and attractive appearance of a person increases his/her confidence level which ultimately leads to increased wages and salaries. While appointing any teacher the management usually judges him/her on the basis of qualification, experience and teaching worth. However it is analyzed through several studies that students extend their goodwill towards teachers who are exceptional in their looks and maintains a beautiful personality. This compels the appointing authorities to favor those teachers who have better rating at the evaluation forms. These teachers ultimately enjoy an elevated economic position in the society. The research article has examined the impacts of beauty on the performance of undergraduate teachers with respect to their students. Students rated the teachers on their performance which was analyzed to evaluate the effect of beauty on teacher’s productivity. Persico, Postlewaite and Silverman (2004) have put forward another element in this regard that the tall height of an individual in the adolescence leads him to make achievements and accomplishments in the later life as tall height is a key factor in inducing confidence and self fulfillment in an individual. Teachers are assessed on their performance by the management in the last weeks of semesters in the University of Texas, Austin, where this research was conducted. The assessment was made through a form given to the students in which they had to rate their instructors according to their own satisfactory or unsatisfactory level about the course in absence of the teacher. Snaps of the faculty members were uploaded on the websites of their particular departments in order to record students’ ratings based on teacher’s looks. 16,957 students out of 25,547 successfully completed their evaluation forms. Additional information to increase the validity of research was also acquired by the students which included: gender of the teacher, residency in this field, status and the educational background in terms of the native language at the undergraduate level. Students’ ratings on the teachers’ pictures was recorded by a 10 to 1 scale. Through which the researchers evaluated the impacts of beauty on productivity. A model was devised for the evaluation purpose in which there were mainly two categories namely X and Z. The X category included the components such as gender, minority or majority level, English speaking skills and the term path. The innermost variable was the fused evaluation of beauty and looks. The Z category included components such as the course division and the credit hours as the courses which have 1 credit hour tend to attract less attention of the students. The results of the research showed significant difference in lower and upper standard deviations in the measures of typical beauty. An increase of 0.46 rating was observed in lower and upper limits. However a difference of 2 standard deviations is identified on the scale of good to bad looks. On the individual basis the impact of looks on productivity ranges from 0.12 to 0.23 estimates. Senior teachers received better rating as compared to their sub ordinates. Similarly the teachers who have resident English speaking style received higher rating in comparison to those who do not have the native speaking style. While on the other side the inferior divisions of courses received somewhat lower rating than the superior division courses. Teachers working on the basis of tenure track obtain lower ratings than the non-tenure track teachers. One of the significant results obtained by the research includes that the female teachers got comparatively less rating than males which clearly declared that teachers performance and students’ evaluation is effected by the gender. Several limitations were faced during the research work. One of them was that the female teachers despite of their gender had greater difference in variance as compared to males. It is assumed that the students might have rated teachers being under their influence without considering the instructor’s real teaching abilities. In addition to this ratings which were made on individual teachers are suspected to have substantial errors. The research has revealed that the beauty characteristic of a teacher has an influence over the rating made by the undergraduate students. However the results and estimates are somewhat ambiguous despite of applying all the evaluation techniques. Teachers with good look have better confidence level and they actually know that it is the strength of their personalities and therefore they communicate strongly in order to make way towards brighter teaching career. The instructor’s looks, gender, qualification and teaching style all constitute to the development of his perception in the minds of students who then rate him/her in relation to it. Students might dislike or make discrimination between good and bad looking teachers however there are chances that they get more inspired by the good looking teachers and gain knowledge from average or bad looking instructors. References Daniel S. Hamermesh, Amy Parker (2004). “Beauty in the classroom: instructors’ pulchritude and putative pedagogical productivity”. Department of Economics, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712-1173, USA Harper, B. (2000), “Beauty, stature and the labor market: a British cohort study”, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 62, 771-800. Mobius, M. and Rosenblat, T. (2006), “Why beauty matters”, American Economic Review, 96 (1), 222-235. Persico, N., Postlewaite, A. and Silverman, D. (2004), “The effect of adolescent experience on labor market outcomes: the case of height”, Journal of Political Economy, 112 (5), 1019-1053. Sussmuth, B. (2006), “Beauty in the classroom: Are German students less blinded? Putative pedagogical productivity due to professors’ pulchritude: Peculiar or pervasive?, Applied Economics, 38, 231-38. Read More