Virtual Professors - a way to get around stereotypes?

[StephLee]

Here's a snippet from an article I found on livescience.com:

In a study funded by the National Science Foundation, Baylor employed non-stereotypical, virtual engineering mentors to challenge young women's stereotypes about the engineering profession.

Baylor had 79 female students rate a series of pedagogical agents on which were most like themselves, most like an engineer, and which they'd prefer to have as a professor.

...they also selected the young, female, cool agents as being least like an engineer," the study found. "When asked to select who they would most like to learn from about engineering, the women in the current study were far more likely to pick male agents who were uncool but attractive. Interestingly, it was also the male, uncool agents that they tended to rate as most like an engineer."

Full article here.

The article itself is interesting, because it hints at using these "virtual professors" to maximize a student's learning potential, by giving them the type of teacher they're most likely/willing to learn from.

I also chuckled a bit at the obvious display of engineering stereotypes.

Thoughts?