Educational Seduction

Critics have referred to the influence of an instructor’s personality on student ratings of instruction as the “Dr. Fox effect” or “educational seduction.” In reviewing earlier research, we found inconsistencies from study to study and conducted a meta-analysis to attempt an empirical integration of this literature. Overall, we found that instructor expressiveness had a substantial impact on student ratings but a small impact on student achievement. In contrast, lecture content had a substantial impact on student achievement but a small impact on student ratings. We discuss these findings and offer a new interpretation of the implications of the educational seduction literature for the validity of student ratings