Jim Disrude's Presentation

The effects of Teacher Self-disclosure via Social Networks on Teacher Competence.

Using Facebook as a “narcissist” view: This happens all the time. I know from personal experience. There are many times that we find ourselves stuck on how we look. I think that this happens more and more often. Especially when it comes to being “bored”. When there is no one else that is interesting enough to look at, we turn to ourselves and past events we’ve been involved in.

Is narcissism a successful track for a campaign? In regard to the Shaun White ad, it has been. Many companies are turning the focus onto the purchasers to make a profit. If they’re putting people in the light of their own purchases, it makes sense that the items are selling better because people are using them for personal factors.

Facebook profile pictures of professors:

He went and tried to find out what professor is more informed, qualified, intelligent, valuable, expert and reliable.
Created a Facebook page for both “professors”.

Out of the both, the “fun” professor got better ratings.

This is very interesting because the professor that I would have thought to get a better rating was the more well dressed and professional professor. Most people in the class thought that it would have gone the other way. That the professor that looked more professional would have gotten better reviews.

Coming down to self disclosure makes for opportunities to make yourself who you want to be. Disclosures can be risky. People need to be careful what they put on Facebook and how they disclose information about themselves.

To be a good teacher, you need to be competent, you need to have character and you need to be caring. These are a few things that you cannot find out until you know a professor. This brings up a thought about a website that many college students use: MyProfessorSucks.com. Many students rate their professors after taking classes with them so that others can learn from their experiences. The biggest problem with this is that most of the time, only negative comments are on the site about professors.

I think that these positive characteristics should definitely be important to professors. If they do not care about their students, they shouldn’t be allowed to teach. The same goes for them being competent. Character is very valued as well but how are these things supposedly measured? It makes it difficult to know so much about one person before you actual meet them.

Method: Used 48 undergrad students – 21 female, 28 male. Randomly selected to be part of different profiles. Were allowed 5 minutes to formulate an opinion about the professor.

Both profiles had the same education and same work experience and the levels of competence were VERY close to being the same. All of which, the “fun” looking professor scored higher.  

Do professors that do the same things but are different ages going to get a different score? Or what if they are of different races? Or Sex?

I think that it does make a difference. There are so many stigmas and expectations for everyone in order to be credible and reliable at the same time as being fun and interesting.

This presentation has made me think a lot about how I look at people and the images they put out for others to see on Facebook or other forums.