Students Judge Professors Facebook Profiles: Study

Students Judge Professors Based on Their Facebook Profiles

Social networking continues to drive societal evolution. If Facebook, with its 800 million users, were a religion, it would rival Catholicism, Islam, and Buddhism. As it stands, researchers have found that the latest trend is for undergraduate students to evaluate their professors based on their Facebook profiles.

Details of the study were recently published in the Journal of Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking. However, students are not looking for the same things from a perspective professor’s profile as they are from a friend. The study found that those professor’s whose Facebook profiles were “trendy” came across as being “less skilled”.

Students tended to have strong reactions to profiles slanted to political views above anything religious or family-oriented. Notably, what students were looking to judge is how professional the perspective professor presented herself/himself.

Neutrality in the expression of opinions and viewpoints was also well received.

The study concludes that students are using a professor’s Facebook profile to determine whether or not the classroom experience will be worth it. For professors, this means that a professional profile can lead to more teaching opportunities and career advancements.

“Students reported being willing to take a class with any of the depicted professors,” the researchers wrote. “However, given the fact that their perceptions of and levels of respect for the professors differed, students may have entered the classroom with unique expectations.”

The findings were released in the April 24 edition of the journal.

Source material:

Professors: Students May Judge Your Facebook Profile
http://www.livescience.com/29244-professor-facebook-pages-judged.html

Students judge professors based on their Facebook profiles
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/students-judge-professors-based-on-their-facebook-profiles/389948-11.html