Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Ghost Peppers: Using Ensemble Models To Detect Professor Attractiveness Commentary On Ratemyprofessors.Com, Angie Waller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In June 2018, RateMyProfessors.com (RMP), a popular website for students to leave professor reviews, removed a controversial feature known as the “chili pepper” which allowed students to rate their professors as “hot” or “not hot.” Though past research has rigorously analyzed the correlation of the chili pepper with higher ratings in other categories (Felton, Mitchell, and Stinson, 2004; Felton et al., 2008), none has measured the effect of the removal of the chili pepper on the text content submitted by students. While it is a positive step that the chili pepper has been removed, text commentary on teacher attractiveness persists …