In this issue of the journal, Rannel-li et al. investigate the interesting matter of how students perceive and consequently rate their teachers' effectiveness. Their small-scale experimental study suggests that a teacher's physical attractiveness can make up for his or her lacking of some real teaching qualities, such as enthusiasm, interactiveness, friendliness and being well organised. This leads the authors to ask important questions concerning what teachers are actually being rewarded or promoted for when career decisions are based on students' ratings. My reading of this paper1 evoked some points for consideration in relation to the measurement of teaching effectiveness and the use of such measurements in practice or policymaking. I will address four of these points: impression formation; the robust measurement of teaching effectiveness ratings (TERs); (revisiting) the focus of teaching effectiveness, and the use of TERs by teachers and others.
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