What drives academic success? Work hard? Analytical mindset? Have an investigative personality? Of course, these features are very important, but according to a study conducted in Sweden, there is another factor that contributes to academic success, and that is an attractive face.
Having an attractive face can contribute to students’ grades, according to a study of 307 students. Attractive female students may achieve better results in face-to-face education and attractive male students in distance education, but this is seen in non-quantitative courses.
Attractiveness is beneficial in non-quantitative lessons.
According to the study, students’ attractiveness affects their grades in non-quantitative courses where the student-teacher relationship is greater. When it comes to quantitative subjects such as mathematics and physics, attractiveness does not help.
In the study published in the journal Economic Letters and written by Adrian Mehic from Lund University, a large jury evaluated the “beauty” of the students. Each of the 74 members of the jury awarded beauty points for half of the students who participated in the experiment. The juries rated the student photos in front of them on a scale of 1 to 10. A voting scale was arranged with 1 being the least attractive and 10 the most attractive.
The researchers, who graded the grades of the courses given by 6 male and 2 female faculty members between 1 and 5, divided the courses into two as quantitative and non-quantitative. Interesting results emerged from this research.
These results show that attractive male students get higher grades in both face-to-face and distance education. On the other hand, female students cannot maintain the high grades they get in face-to-face education in distance education. This situation arises in the courses called “verbal” courses and where the student-lecturer relationship is high.
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