Studies on Praise

One of my Kindergarten students has been hard at work this week mastering an advanced math lesson.  This afternoon she finally figured it out and although I shared in her celebration, it took a bit of self discipline not to "over praise" although she is rather clever.  I spend a good deal of my day nodding and serenely smiling at the children's various accomplishments and make an effort to curtail the "good jobs." We can chat more about that later but in the meantime I wanted to share with you and article I read an article a few years about about praise.  The article was based on a fascinating research project done by a woman named Carol Dweck.

        Carol Dweck, a researcher at Columbia and Stanford, is a leading researcher in the effects of praise on students. She and four research assistance studied the effect of praise on 400 fifth graders in New York schools. Students were divided into two groups: the praise group and the encouragement group. All of the students were given a series of puzzles that were easy to complete. The praise group was told, "You must be smart at this," while the encouragement group was told, "You must have worked really hard."  After the one line of praise or encouragement, the students were given a choice of the type of test to take next. They could either choose a harder set of puzzles that they would learn more from attempting or an easy test like the first. Of those children given praise for their efforts, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. The majority of students that were told they were smart chose the easier set. Dweck concluded that, "When we praise children for their intelligence we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don't risk making mistakes." This is exactly what the students did, they were afraid of failure and chose the easy road.

       Dweck and her researchers then did a second and third round. In the second study the students were given puzzles that were very difficult, two grade levels above their abilities. Everyone failed, but their responses were the interesting part. Those praised for their efforts assumed they just hadn't tried hard enough so they tried a variety of solutions, got very involved, and still enjoyed the test. Those praised for their smarts assumed they just weren't smart after all and were miserable.

After this round, the team gave the students a final round of tests that were the same level as the first tests: easy. Those praised for their efforts did about 30 percent better than their first try, while those praised for their smarts did about 20 percent worse.

       Dweck concluded that control played a major role in the students' performances. Effort can be controlled and students will work to complete a task, being smart is innate and cannot be controlled.  This study has been repeated and no differences were found between boys and girls or among children of different socio-economical backgrounds.

Fascinating!  Take what you will. -Miss Heather, Grasshopper Teacher (references hubpages.com)