How do medical students form impressions of the effectiveness of classroom teachers?

Teaching effectiveness ratings (TERs) are used to provide feedback to teachers on their performance and to guide decisions on academic promotion. However, exactly how raters make decisions on teaching effectiveness is unclear.

The objectives of this study were to identify variables that medical students appraise when rating the effectiveness of a classroom teacher, and to explore whether the relationships among these variables and TERs are modified by the physical attractiveness of the teacher.

We asked 48 Year 1 medical students to listen to 2-minute audio clips of 10 teachers and to describe their impressions of these teachers and rate their teaching effectiveness. During each clip, we displayed either an attractive or an unattractive photograph of an unrelated third party. We used qualitative analysis followed by factor analysis to identify the principal components of teaching effectiveness, and multiple linear regression to study the associations among these components, type of photograph displayed, and TER.

We identified two principal components of teaching effectiveness: charisma and intellect. There was no association between rating of intellect and TER. Rating of charisma and the display of an attractive photograph were both positively associated with TER and a significant interaction between these two variables was apparent (p < 0.001). The regression coefficient for the association between charisma and TER was 0.26 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.10-0.41) when an attractive picture was displayed and 0.83 (95% CI 0.66-1.00) when an unattractive picture was displayed (p < 0.001).

When medical students rate classroom teachers, they consider the degree to which the teacher is charismatic, although the relationship between this attribute and TER appears to be modified by the perceived physical attractiveness of the teacher. Further studies are needed to identify other variables that may influence subjective ratings of teaching effectiveness and to evaluate alternative strategies for rating teaching effectiveness.