'Attractive' Female Students Saw Grades 'Deteriorate' During Online Classes, Lund University Study Claims

The covid-19 pandemic altered every aspect of life, and education was no different. As learning went from offline to remote, every student was hit hard across the board. However, it appears 'attractive' female students were hit harder than others.?

'Attractive' female students saw lower grades during online classes, claims study

A new study has suggested that attractive female college students saw their grades drop ever since classes moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic.?

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Adrian Mehic, a post-doctoral researcher at Lund University, analysed the scores of 300 male and female engineering students in?Sweden, both in the classroom and online. Findings showed that to some extent, physical appearance played a part.

“The main takeaway is that there is a beauty premium, both for males and for females, when teaching is on-site,” said Adrian Mehic.

But remove the in-person classes and personal setting, the female co-eds no longer thrived, he said.?

Data was compiled from five groups of Swedish engineering students, who had their attractiveness rated by an independent group of 74 graders.

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More attractive students had higher grades for some classes, like business and economics, when taught in person. What does that say? Attractive people might enjoy benefits that less attractive people don’t.??

More attractive students had higher grades in offline classes

But when the courses were taught online, the grades of attractive females dropped. Attractive male students — who “tend to be more persistent and have a greater influence on their peers” — suffered no such setback.??

“This, at least to me, suggests that the beauty premium for males is due to some productive attribute (for instance, them having higher self-confidence) rather than discrimination, whereas it is due to discrimination for women,” he said.?

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He admits that there are many questions left to be answered on the subject.??

“It seems to be quite difficult for researchers to answer why people discriminate based on appearance,” Mehic said.?

“Probably, it’s because when we see an attractive person, we assign them some characteristics that they may not actually possess, such as intelligence. More research is required to establish precisely why this happens,"?he explained.?

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