Do Prior Student Evaluations Influence Students' Ratings of Professors? A study in 1950 reported that instructor reputation affected students' ratings of their instructors.¹³ Towler and Dipboye uncovered experimental evidence in support of this phenomenon.¹⁴ They randomly assigned to students one of two summaries of prior student evaluations: one for a “charismatic instructor” and the other for a “punitive instructor.” The “charismatic” summary included such phrases as “always lively and stimulating in class” and “always approachable and treated students as individuals.” The “punitive” summary included such phrases as “did not show an interest in students' progress” and “consistently seemed to grade students harder.” All subjects were then shown the same 20-minute lecture video given by the same instructor. They were asked to rate the instructor using three questions, and a summary rating score was calculated. The summary statistics are shown below. Assume that both populations are normally distributed and that the samples are drawn independently. Were students' ratings influenced by the prior student evaluations? Find out by answering Exercises 50–58.

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