Praise -- too much of a good thing?
Praise is effective when it is genuine, appropriate, not overly dramatic, and directed to specific tasks or skills.... Several research studies have revealed that praise is often given for incorrect answers, especially when directed to low achievers. (130)
Pupils in a classroom in which a great deal of praise is used are discouraged from learning to think for themselves. The primary payoff for the pupils becomes more praise; thus the probability of developing interest in the subject for intrinsic reasons is reduced. (131)
-- Ann Howe, "Teaching Science as Inquiry," Engaging Children in Science
Howe's section on praise as being counterproductive to encouraging higher order, independent thinking stood out to me because it made me reflect on the feedback I have given to students in the past. In trying to encourage my students, especially those who are low achievers and easily discouraged, I perhaps gave too much general praise for effort and downplayed the errors. On reflection, I believe I developed this habit because I used to grade homework rather harshly and correct frequently, which of course intimidated some of the lower achieving students.
Finding a balance between the two extremes of praising too much and praising too little is probably difficult and may take a good deal of trial and error. On the one hand, a teacher is in danger of discouraging students and reducing motivation; on the other, a teacher may be conditioning students to win praise rather than to actually learn the subject matter. What are your thoughts on the idea of praise being counterproductive? What have been your experiences with this in the classroom, as a teacher and/or as a student? What do you think is a good example of giving effective/ineffective praise?
Pupils in a classroom in which a great deal of praise is used are discouraged from learning to think for themselves. The primary payoff for the pupils becomes more praise; thus the probability of developing interest in the subject for intrinsic reasons is reduced. (131)
-- Ann Howe, "Teaching Science as Inquiry," Engaging Children in Science
Howe's section on praise as being counterproductive to encouraging higher order, independent thinking stood out to me because it made me reflect on the feedback I have given to students in the past. In trying to encourage my students, especially those who are low achievers and easily discouraged, I perhaps gave too much general praise for effort and downplayed the errors. On reflection, I believe I developed this habit because I used to grade homework rather harshly and correct frequently, which of course intimidated some of the lower achieving students.
Finding a balance between the two extremes of praising too much and praising too little is probably difficult and may take a good deal of trial and error. On the one hand, a teacher is in danger of discouraging students and reducing motivation; on the other, a teacher may be conditioning students to win praise rather than to actually learn the subject matter. What are your thoughts on the idea of praise being counterproductive? What have been your experiences with this in the classroom, as a teacher and/or as a student? What do you think is a good example of giving effective/ineffective praise?
posted by jeanne at 7:02 PM
18 Comments:
I think there is no fixed standards to judge when a student should be praised. For example, two students got the same grade in a science test. One of them was able to get a better grade but he did not prepare for the test. The other student was a low achiever at science before but he learned very hard this semester and prepared a lot for the test. I think the teacher should praise the second student rather than the first one. Otherwise the first student may think the teacher is satisfied with his behavior and may not realize he should try harder.
The techer should give the second student effective praise which is genuine, appropriate, not overly dramatic, and directed to specific tasks or skills. The teacher should not only confirm the student’s achievement in the past, but point out what could be achieved in the future.
Coming from a culture that does not praise in the same way that praise is seen in the US, I remember how shocking it was for me to hear so much praise in the classroom when I first started working here.
Personally, I think students should be praised (we all like to hear a compliment), but as the reading stated, it HAS to be authentic. If we praise every day, for everything a student does, that praise loses its special quality, and instead, it becomes just another comment. I agree that “overpraising” can lead to underperformance. If we praise constantly, despite the actual quality of work, we are lowering our standards on our students. I believe it's perfectly fine to tell a student, "this is just ok," or "this is not good," while also telling him/her, "I know you can do better than this." While praise should be saved for special situations, this doesn't mean that we should not be motivating students on a regular basis, keeping in mind that praise does not equate motivation.
I would argue that there is a very fine line between too much praise and too little praise, and that a teacher’s challenge rests in finding that “optimum” balance. I would also argue that the “wrong” praise (for unnecessary reasons and at unnecessary times) equates to having low expectations for a student, and thus transmitting the message that you don’t believe he/she can excel. Thus, I absolutely agree that too much praise can result in being highly counterproductive, as well as harmful to students’ success and motivation.
As a student, I can personally relate to this. My experience goes way back to my first grade teacher whom clearly had low expectations for me. I believe it is truly indicative that I can, not only remember as far back as the first grade, however, that I can remember vividly and explicitly that she didn’t believe a bilingual student was capable of academic excellence. My Italian was undoubtedly the cause of her low expectations for me, and thus the result of countless “good job” statements. I remember her tone, and her way of regurgitating “good job”, yet she never (not once) chose to display my work, while always choosing the work of the monolingual students in the class. As a result, her repetitive “good jobs” became meaningless; and after a while, I rarely even heard them anymore.
Therefore, I believe that, as educators, we need to treat students as intelligent and very intuitive individuals. Often times, it is simply the tone, gesture, or effort that goes into words of praise that truly indicate the authenticity of a teacher’s statement. Children can sense this! Thus, I think a good example of giving effective praise is simply found in the teacher’s disposition and tone, as well as in the genuineness and spontaneity of the words, and in contemplating if there is a need for praise (timing). Finally, I also believe that the type of praise and the amount of praise provided needs to be tailored to a student’s personality and background. Like many issues in education, when it comes to praise, there are a number of complex factors that indicate a need for balance and a need to consider individual circumstances. As Jeanne said, it is definitely about trial and error, and it is also about “reading” your students, about being honest, and about reflecting on your practices on a regular basis.
Praise could be counterproductive when it’s being said too often. However, it depends on the students’ mentality. Some students need to be praised to know that they are on the right track so they can move forward with their work. However, certain students will take it lightly and feel that they can do a mediocre job and still get praise. Teachers might underestimate their ability and continue to praise them for little improvement. Teachers just have to use their best judgment to determine when to praise student.
As a student, I didn’t get praise a lot so I often feel my work is being validated when a teacher praises me. Sometimes, praise is an indication of me doing the right job. For example, if everyone is doing the same work and the teacher passed by me and praise another student, I might feel like I’m not doing the job right. However, as I grow older, I try not to get too overreact when the teacher praises other students.
As a teacher, I confess that I praise students too much. Sometimes I have too much empathy toward my students. As a result of that, I noticed some of them did a sloppy job when they can do a much better job. I realized that being attached to my students and accepting poorly done work is not helping them. It merely lowers the standard of the class. I now try to be more selective when it comes to praising students.
I think a good example of effective praise is to praise with a reason or explanation. Instead of just say “Good job,” it will be better to add, “your details support your choices.” Students know why they’re being praised and know their effort is being recognized. Other students who heard it can also have a better idea of what the teacher is looking for.
I do not understand how it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Howe’s section on praise as being counterproductive to encouraging both higher order and independent thinking stood out to me as well. It states that praise is effective when it is genuine, appropriate, not overly dramatic, and directed to specific tasks or skills. I could not agree more with this statement that I believe it removes all blame from praise. If a teacher can not be genuine or determine when praise is appropriate, then the fault should be placed on the teacher. There is also mention of teachers using praise as an alternative to negativity which is obviously not appropriate usage of praise. When a teacher finds themselves wanting to be negative, they should replace those feelings of negativity with creativity. If a child hands in something that was done poorly the teacher could say something such as, “Now how do you think you could make this better?” If a child says an incorrect answer, a patient and clever teacher will use just the right amount of scaffolding to allow that student the chance for redemption and praise by resolving his own uncertainties. The reason this article stood out to me was because I viewed it as an unfair attack on praise.
I completely disagree with this author’s idea of how praise will negatively affect independent thinking, higher order thinking, and the development of interest in a subject for intrinsic reasons. Often times as a result of a child’s culture and life experiences, it is extremely unlikely that that child will be intrinsically interested in anything that goes on in the classroom. This does not however mean that that child is not developing higher order and independent thinking. Many children begin taking care of their siblings and working real jobs at very early ages. These are practices that will definitely develop independent thinking and possibly high order thinking as well.
I don’t remember much of anything about what I learned in the classroom before I reached the 12th grade. During those earlier years of schooling, it is very likely that I didn’t do much higher order thinking in the classroom. I was a product of praise. The praise I received from both my teachers and my family provided the necessary fuel for my academic success. My academic success allowed me the opportunity to be around students who were doing higher order thinking and appeared to be intrinsically interest in school. My exposure to these types of students increased after I entered college. Because of them I began to learn about new cultures and have new life experiences. I even read my first complete book when I got to college. As a result of praise I had the opportunity to learn the importance of school and develop a deep love of learning.
Well, I have already written too much so…… I basically think this Howe lady’s ideas about praise are off, mainly because of their lack of cultural sensitivity. Isn't it possible that some cultures value praise more than others?
Actually, Ana Stefani and I read a book last semester called Generation Me that said that this generation's youth are too used to being praised for every little insignificant thing and this has caused them to be over confident, unwilling to work hard and oversensitive to criticism. So I thought this reading was really interesting. I'm inclined to agree. We shouldn't be afraid to give a little honest criticism here and there, otherwise students will have nothing to work towards. And why should we shower them with praise when outside of school, the world will not be so nice. Maybe we should help students learn to take criticism and deal with it in a productive manner, using it to improve upon their skills, so that when they have to take harsh words from a future employer or professor, peer or colleague, they won't see it as the end of the world.
As I've said before, my experience as a Montessori assistant has really influenced the way I approach a classroom. So when I give praise I try not to give empty, feel good phrases like , that's great, or good job. We were taught to really specify what a student has done well. So I might say, I can tell that you really took your time to work on that problem, that's good stuff. Or, The way you paid close attention to that problem is really impressive. Maybe more of that and less of the general positive comments. this gives the students something concrete to go off of. They'll know exactly why they're receiving praise and remember that for future situations. But a little constructive criticism also goes a long way and should be done in the same manner, specifically identifying a point that needs improvement and then offering
suggestions for how the student can work in the right direction.
That's my WORD!!!!
Well, I think the most effective indicator of a teacher's giving too much praise is that it has become a routine work in the classroom and the students are aware of that. In other words,"giving praise" no longer serves as a positive way to encourage students but some boring, repetitive,"condescending" cliche.
Aside from the teacher's lack of creativity and imagination, another problem emerges from the surface of "giving too much praise" -the students are not assigned challenging enough jobs that truly match their academic levels. It is very likely that those assignments both in class and out of class are only duplications day by day.Thus, if a teacher realizes he/she begin to easily give praise these days, it might be a good time for he/she to review the teaching plans.
Another term may give us teachers some help in this regard: constructivism (in teaching). It says that in adopting constructivism in your teaching, your most important job is to ask good questions. That is, you can lead the students closer to the right answer step by step by asking them questions but never tell them the answer directly. Thus, everytime a student gets in the right directon and make a closer guess, the teacher will "grasp" it and direct the whole class to delve more deeply. Thus, at this time, some praises are proper to give as an indicator of the right direction in solving the problem but one or two sentences would be just OK.
Basically, I think every praise should assume its academic responsibility; anyway, it is one of the tools of teachers in pushing the students forward. Otherwise, giving praise,no matter too much or too little, will be meaningless and doom the authority of the teacher in the classroom to a very precarious status.
Based on my experiences teaching young children, I think that how much and what type of praise given has to be based around the student as an individual. Some kids don’t like receiving praise and will become disruptive when offered it, while others will eat it up joyfully. I think a big mistake that many educators I have come in contact with is the offering of constant praise without consideration to the situation or to the individual student. For example, if the teacher is going over the top and giving praise for every-little-thing for every student, all the time, praise will be left unheard and will become counterproductive. I witnessed this while taking a practicum class during my undergraduate work. None of the students were listening to the teacher, even though she was trying so hard to be positive. In my own classroom, I have really taken an effort to find out what makes my students tick. I know which kids need more of an extrinsic push, and what language is appropriate for each student. A general rule of praise is to slowly wean your students down from lots of praise to small and specific moments of praise. I have a male student who hates to write and will procrastinate as much as possible by telling charming stories or asking unrelated questions. This particular student gets more of the tough love treatment and praise after the feat is accomplished, otherwise he will try to engage the teacher for as long as possible and not get any work done. For another one of my students, who is a bit lacking in self-esteem, short phrases (great job/good work/ continue what you’re doing etc.) work well with him because they act as a reassuring gesture and does not get in the way of his work. Each student has specific needs, including what is required to motivate them.
I agree with the article and many people who posted here that praise can be overused and ineffective. I think that praise should be genuine and carry meaning in order to be of any use to the students. I think the same is true for all the teacher's actions in the classroom. As Cristina said, children can often sense when teachers are not being genuine, whether it is in regards to praise or simply what the next activity is. I have often witnessed fellow classmates turned off to a subject because it was clear the teacher did not enjoy teaching it.
It seems to me that the key to very effective praise is being specific to the individual student. Knowing how he or she went about approaching the task and what personal challenges he or she had to overcome allows the teacher to give praise that is memorable to the student. Growing up, my brother was one of those people, like Fangni said of one of her students, who could get a good grade seemingly without doing any work at all. Yet, it wasn't that he wasn't thinking about what he was learning. I know, because he'd come in to dinner with a sudden question he'd thought of while in the shower that I didn't see as making any sense, yet my parents (who followed his schoolwork very closely) managed to relate the answer back to the lesson he had learned in school that day. He's since told me that while he hates to do written schoolwork and dislikes reading even more, he loves to think about the many different ways into a problem. He is now a philosophy major (go figure), but my point is that while it might not seem like a student is trying at all, unless you get to know them very well and know what motivates them and drives their learning, how can you hope to give meaningful praise? There is some saying (which I'm sure you've all heard), that children learn despite the teacher. Well, if that is the case, and I belive that it is, I think the key to motivating students through effective praise that still allows them to retain their intrinsic motivation is finding how they are learning and praising that process as opposed to the results.
That said, I'm afraid I have a problem. I am guilty of praising too casually and too often. As much as I try to avoid giving meaningless praise, I have often caught myself giving a cursory glance at a student's work and saying 'good.' This happens especially if I am distracted by another student or activity. I really try hard to avoid this, and try to not look at students' work until I give it my complete attention, but despite my best efforts, I find myself giving meaningless praise when I don't intend to. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to curb this habit? I would welcome any feedback on specific ways I can reduce the amount of meaningless praise I give.
The quote about praise also stuck me as interesting. Looking back, I tend to praise students on a daily basis. I guess this comes from something I learned in the selection process for groups in college “Always end on a positive.” When I conference with students, I spend time working on strategies that need to be learned or improved. I guess I do not want to seem that I am constantly leading the student to believe that his or her work in unsatisfactory, so I always end on a positive. For example, during a writing conference, I might work with the student on developing the details in his story. Before I move on to the next student, I will encourage him to think about other details he can add to his story and compliment him on the fact that all of the word wall words are spelled correctly.
This year I have been tutoring students who have low self-esteem. This was the result of their classroom teacher the previous year, who would yell at students if they were unable to answer a question correctly. Apparently, the teacher rarely acknowledged that students hard work. Therefore, the students began the year with low esteem and intimidated by participating in class. I felt it was extremely important to acknowledge these students hard work and encourage them to continuously learn instead of being afraid they might make a mistake. It took some time for the students to feel safe in the learning environment, but eventually they opened up and have become more confident in themselves. Based on my experience this year, I think it is better to give a student too much praise than no praise it all. It seems that a lack of praise can have a negative impact on a student’s confidence and desire to learn. Student’s hard work needs to be acknowledged, so that they know what they are doing well and can continue to do on future projects. At the same time, it is important for them to know what they need to improve on. Praise and recommendations will allow a student to continue to develop their learning.
Praise is good but I personally, from experience have noticed that people are using it wrong which causes students to expect something when they do or say something that is perceived as correct. These children that get praised too much result being students and adults that just talk just to talk (they like to hear the sound of their own voice and to sound smart), work because they may something in return, materialistic; and self centered people that believe that the world should functions just like them.
Not being in the science section of this course, I did not read the article, but this question is something I’ve definitely been pondering as a first year teacher. When I read what Cristina’s statement “often times, it is simply the tone, gesture, or effort that goes into words of praise that truly indicate the authenticity of a teacher’s statement” I began to question what type of praise I am giving my low achievers. I definitely use the phrase “great job” a lot, and I wonder now if the students are even fazed by what I have just said. In my classroom the majority of the students are low-achievers, as the fourth grade students are grouped homogeneously and I have the second lowest class of six in the school. For that reason, a lot of “simple” assignments are challenging for them, and I have found myself lowering my standards. Other teachers have told me that I am too easy with them and praise them for things they are expected to do. For that reason, my question is not so much is too much praise a bad thing, but is it bad to praise for the wrong things?
For example, it is expected of all students to walk quietly in a straight line in the halls. We sometimes have to turn around and start over up to six times, as my students do not respect this rule. When they finally have done this, I begin praising them up and down at how amazing they are and how proud I am that they could make it to lunch quietly on the first try. A colleague of mine overheard this one afternoon and spoke with me about it after school. She didn’t understand why I was thanking the students for doing something they were supposed to do. She basically explained that she believes praise should be saved for an outstanding behavior or going above and beyond what is expected, and that walking quietly in the hall is supposed to happen every single time, so it shouldn’t be special when it happens. She saves her praise for when the students truly earn it. I can completely see where she’s coming from, however I worry that if I took away those compliments I would be constantly yelling at the students and never praising them at all.
When deciding what is right for my children I often think of if I had my own son or daughter in the class or how I would feel if I were one of the students. I relate it to my principal’s interactions with the staff. One afternoon I stayed after for 6 hours working on a bulletin board for the hall. It is expected that we change our bulletin boards by the first Friday of each month, and many teachers simply remove old writing samples and put up new ones. I thought it would motivate my students to do their best work for the board if mine looked creative and appealing (which worked, the students were really proud that it was their class’ writing displayed on the “cool” board). The principal did a walk through to make sure all bulletin boards were completed, and left a not for each teacher. For many of the teachers she commented on how dull the bulletin boards looked or the fact that they weren’t changed by the deadline. Mine apparently gave her nothing to criticize, so I received the following note “Please be sure your students are constantly picking up after themselves, as I walked though I noticed quite a bit of garbage under a student’s desk.” I couldn’t believe that I had gone out of my way yet again to do a good job and still received no praise. I began to think that she might have a policy similar to the teacher who believes students shouldn’t be praised for doing their job. Perhaps she expected that of me, and therefore didn’t find it necessary to praise me for it.
Unfortunately it made me less inclined to stay that late working ever again, and I need to constantly remind myself that I’m doing these things for the students and not administrative praise. The point is, being an adult I was able to overcome this and continue doing my best. Unfortunately, many of the students do see themselves as doing the work for their teachers more than for themselves, and without praise they may become discouraged and stop trying. That experience has made me realize that in my own classroom I would definitely rather be guilty of giving too much praise than none at all. I want my students to realize that I am proud of them and have faith in them. My only concern is that it will become, as Cristina noted, ungenuine when I repeat it too often.
This is an intriguing question/discourse Jeanne, especially when it relates so closely to the experiences I am undergoing now. In my case, over-praising is working against a productive working environment. My students are at the point where they want to be praised, but not necessarily work hard ENOUGH to really earn it. Finding a balance between the two extremes of praising too much and praising too little is very difficult. However, we want to encourage and motivate our students, but do not want them to be accustomed to being “over-praised” and not take the lesson/subject seriously. I agree that this may take a good deal of trial and error and it is something that is developed with time and individual experience. I am in favor of praising on occasions that do deserve recognition, but I do not want to get caught up on over-praising. Praising is what I believe a motivation/encouraging factor that as educators we must not “spoil” it. That could potentially be the downfall in where an educator is in danger of discouraging his/her students and reducing the students motivation and interest. I would not like my students to develop the habit of wining praise rather than actually learning the subject matter. Since we are dealing with bilingual students we can easily get caught up and over-do the praising and if we fail to recognize this we can cause a greater damage.
What are your thoughts on the idea of praise being counterproductive?
Every individual lesson/session/ talk whatever it is, should begin with one or two praise points and then one or two teaching points which they should focus on. this way, students can feel good about what they are doing right to give them courage to move forward to correct what they have wrong.
Students are often times harder on themselves than we realize. Finding something in their work that they can feel good about will help a teacher slip in the teaching points that the students to attend to next.
What have been your experiences with this in the classroom, as a teacher and/or as a student?
I was always harder than my teachers on myself when it came to school work. Praising a student for areas of their studies that they are working diligently on are always worth it and should be incorporated into any teaching style.
What do you think is a good example of giving effective/ineffective praise?
Effective praise:
Luis, I notice that you have been working on using a quotations correctly to show dialogue in your essays. Your work looks very good.
Ineffective praise:
Jenny, you have a very nice pencil. I like the way you throw it across the room and hit Andy in the head. Very good!
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What is important is the quality rather than the quantity of the praise teachers give. Words of encouragement or compliments cannot be counterproductive as long as it is given appropriately. When giving a compliment, the teacher should be very specific in what they compliment on and must mean what they say. If a teacher says “good job" randomly/frequently to any student or most students, the positive impact of that compliment would begin to diminish as students become accustomed to the repeated and meaningless compliment.
I remember reading about how trainers at Sea World use techniques of building trust, accentuating the positive, and redirecting negative behavior to train five ton killer whales to perform amazing acrobatic leaps and dives. The same is true for people. People perform better when their positive is accentuated. The ability to catch students doing things right rather than catch them doing things wrong, in my opinion, is one of the best qualities a teacher can have.
Just to clarify after reading everyone's comments above:
The title of my posting isn't very appropriate for the questions I wanted to ask, because the issue is not whether there can be too much of a good thing (which here would be effective praise), but whether there can be "good" and "bad" types of praise.
I have had good and bad experiences with little praise. My violin teacher back in my high school years was a demanding and tell-it-like-is kind of woman. She said once, "Can't you tell that you're a little out of tune?" which I would not call tactfully worded because it made me want to cry, but it did at least point out a problem with my playing, and I worked hard to play better. Having low self esteem at the time, I might have benefited from a little more praise, though.
One summer I took an intensive Japanese course, which followed a pedagogy in which the teachers corrected errors frequently. The amount of negative feedback and the absence of positive feedback wore us down a lot. It would have been nice to get a reality check and know that we were actually progressing well, as we in fact were.
BUT, this is a different issue from what is at hand. As Lyn pointed out, the issue is QUALITY of praise rather than QUANTITY. A teacher should praise students, because otherwise you could end up alienating and discouraging students, but it is essential to be mindful of the effect it has on each student.
Praise is interesting when considering how we use it in the classroom. When considering the classroom as a whole, praise I think should be used as a collaborative accomplishment in order to alliviate any sort of "favoritism" because I think it's easy to confuse favoritism with praise. This is definitely a challenge that a teacher must face when dealing with both very academically successful students, as well as those who are struggling academically. Although with praise, I argue that if it is done it should be genuine and in the best interest of the students. There must also be a distinction between motivation and praise and it should not be confused because I see praise as giving credit to someone versus motivation. Motivation is something that is developed and more of a process, unlike praise is just making a students accomplishment known. Praise is definitely tricky in the classroom in combination with motivation and possible favortism.
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