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Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

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Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#31

Post by Avicebron »

chii wrote: post #16
keiferski wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t wealthier families hire tutors to prepare their children? That’s what happens in the US with the SAT/ACT. I think you’d need free, universal SAT tutoring available to everyone in order to be more meritocratic.

merit doesn't mean equal wealth spending to obtain a result. And it's not black and white. Someone rich spending a lot of money to obtain tutoring doesn't necessarily make their score higher, and there's also diminishing returns. Someone poor who do not afford private tutoring can also receive good score due to their natural talent and/or hard work in self-teaching/practicing. > universal SAT tutoring available to ev…

> Someone rich spending a lot of money to obtain tutoring doesn't necessarily make their score higher, and there's also diminishing returns. Someone poor who do not afford private tutoring can also receive good score due to their natural talent and/or hard work in self-teaching/practicing.

If these are outliers it isn't really meritocratic. If there 100 desired spots that are allocated by the exam, and 1000 students, and wealth (tutors/extra time etc) moves the needle enough to make a meaningful difference, it's basically nepotistic just the in-group is who's parents can afford it. Depending on where you are this can compound each generation.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#32

Post by fn-mote »

cubefox wrote: post #12
CodeyWhizzBang wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says: Why is beauty a productivity-enhancing attribute for males in non-quantitative subjects? Generally, it is difficult to disentangle the reasons behind why beauty improves productivity (Hamermesh and Parker, 2005). However, relative to other students, attractive men are more successful in peer influence, and are more persistent, a personality trait positively linked to academic outcomes (Dion and Stei…

[flagged]

That's an interesting take given that the previous sentence specifically lists "these traits" and none of them sounds like "IQ":

> attractive individuals are more socially skilled, have more open social networks

I'd say you need different evidence if you want to grind that axe.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#33

Post by nathan_compton »

cubefox wrote: post #12
CodeyWhizzBang wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says: Why is beauty a productivity-enhancing attribute for males in non-quantitative subjects? Generally, it is difficult to disentangle the reasons behind why beauty improves productivity (Hamermesh and Parker, 2005). However, relative to other students, attractive men are more successful in peer influence, and are more persistent, a personality trait positively linked to academic outcomes (Dion and Stei…

[flagged]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=IQ

Yes, crickets.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#34

Post by xyzzyz »

steve1977 wrote: post #15
aurareturn wrote: post #5

One thing I like about China's education system is the Gaokao entrance exams for universities. It doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, ugly, or beautiful. All it matters is how you score. It's as meritocratic as education can be.

I don't know this specific exam, but most of these can be gamed in the sense of learning to the test. So depending on what training resources someone has available (e.g. rich parents who can afford tutors), I'd consider them only partially meritocratic.

If this is the case, then why doesn’t everyone get the top a score? The answer is, of course, that it’s not so simple, and you can’t just learn to the test.

That’s just like with sports: anyone can learn how to train himself, and anyone can improve with training, but in the end, some people will end up faster, and some people will end up slower.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#35

Post by poulpy123 »

StefanBatory wrote: post #8
aurareturn wrote: post #5

One thing I like about China's education system is the Gaokao entrance exams for universities. It doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, ugly, or beautiful. All it matters is how you score. It's as meritocratic as education can be.

And a side note from me as a Pole - online I see many Americans speaking about how cruel Gaokao is, but... It's America that's outlier. I had the same style of exam in Poland to get to uni, and it's the same in the entire EU, and rest of the world. So I have no idea why Gaokao is singled out.

I don't know how this exam is in China and Poland, but from what I've seen about the south Korean one it is much harsher on the students than the french one, even in my time

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#36

Post by poulpy123 »

StefanBatory wrote: post #20
christophilus wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the SAT and ACT, and those are objective. The wealthy still pass disproportionately due to better tutoring specifically oriented to those tests. It’s Goodhart’s law.

That's fair, but... What's the alternative? Obviously someone's going to have better academic performance if you have tutors, there's no way around. Still, if you have good academic performance - you have it. American system feels more unfair when you're given points for extracurriculars like playing instruments or sports, like that's not going to hold poorer children even more (also how's that related to academic pe…

Good schools for everyone

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#37

Post by dude250711 »

CodeyWhizzBang wrote: post #4
Mistletoe wrote: post #2

I wonder why the beauty premium remained for males after the switch to online but not in females?

The article says: Why is beauty a productivity-enhancing attribute for males in non-quantitative subjects? Generally, it is difficult to disentangle the reasons behind why beauty improves productivity (Hamermesh and Parker, 2005). However, relative to other students, attractive men are more successful in peer influence, and are more persistent, a personality trait positively linked to academic outcomes (Dion and Stei…

I guess even attractive males have to work hard.

One gender still has to approach, the other gender still waits to be approached.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#38

Post by Foobar8568 »

crims0n wrote: post #6

> When education is in-person, attractive students receive higher grades in non-quantitative subjects, in which teachers tend to interact more with students compared to quantitative courses. I wonder how much of this is less about attraction and more about social skills. Granted, higher attraction affords more opportunity to develop those skills, but I have met plenty of charming people who were not conventionally at…

Who is your parents play a larger role than attractiveness.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#39

Post by heraldgeezer »

aurareturn wrote: post #5

One thing I like about China's education system is the Gaokao entrance exams for universities. It doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, ugly, or beautiful. All it matters is how you score. It's as meritocratic as education can be.

[flagged]

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#40

Post by shevy-java »

Can confirm!

In the past they would stare in pure awe at my guaranteed impeccable looks.

Now they ask me damned question to calculate the speed of fluids in different pipes through the Bernoulli's principle. And ChatGPT only helps so much here ...

Also, I think there must be a pretty big difference between female and male, because even if a male student is attract, if I am a male teacher and interested in females, would I wish to prioritize on looks, if the underlying grading is instead done on e. g. testing knowledge and skills? Why would looks even factor in here? Such a system would be flawed from the get go.

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