Providing Effective Praise: Everything You Need To Know
There are three major types of praises that educators often use to help manage the behavior of learners. The AFT is a union of professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through community engagement, organizing, collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through the work our members do. The effects of reward contingency and performance feedback on intrinsic motivation.
Training integrity is a key predictor of implementation success (Simonsen et al., 2014), and only a few studies (e.g., Dufrene et al., 2012) systematically evaluated whether teachers applied BSP as intended after training—which is treatment integrity. Training integrity may also be useful for administrators and coaches to inform their own part in building capacity and ensuring implementation sustainability. We found some authors measured training integrity, yet feedback was not reportedly provided to trainers after collecting those data. It is fundamental to not only collect integrity data, but to also use it to support others in refining practices after training occurs. Furthermore, previous studies have shown that school-based interventions for educators with ongoing coaching and fidelity monitoring yield higher rates of sustained implementation (Lochman et al., 2012).
Positive Behavior Support Interventions
The clear conclusion from this work is that teachers should not encourage the fixed view of intelligence through ability praise. Older children might already have the fixed view of intelligence fairly well entrenched. I know I did—how well I remember sitting in my sixth-grade classroom before a test, arguing with my friends about who had studied the least. If I had been praised with the words, “You tried really hard,” I would have taken that as polite code for, “You’re a dim bulb, but nice try.” On a questionnaire administered soon after, the students who heard intelligence praise were more likely to believe the fixed view of intelligence than those who heard the effort praise.
Collins et al. (2020) conducted a meta-analytic review of peer-reporting interventions utilizing single-case research designs and identified 21 studies meeting inclusion criteria. Their findings suggested peer reporting interventions had a positive impact on student behavior outcomes, noting variability among included studies’ approaches to peer praise. Additionally, authors compared studies using log response ratios, tau (measure of overlap), and moderating effects of targeted contextual variables. While Collins et al. (2020) applied elements of What Works Clearinghouse standards to their inclusion criteria, they did not code studies for quality indicators and did not evaluate each approach to peer praise in isolation. Even more prolific than praise notes were the approaches to peer praise called positive peer reporting and tootling.
Authors in 31 studies (60.78%) reported definitions of BSP in training (e.g., Hemmeter et al., 2011), and 23 studies (45.10%) included rationale and benefits for using reinforcement (e.g., Duchaine et al., 2011). The training mode most reported was in person in 23 studies (46%; e.g., Allday et al., 2012). Authors in nine studies (17.65%) included modeling (e.g., Hawkins and Heflin, 2011). Nine studies included discussion during training (17.31%), while 14 studies included opportunities to practice or role play (27.45%). Authors in 13 studies (25%) included corrective feedback for educators during training, while 5 (9.43%) reported using praise feedback, either general or behavior specific (Houghton et al., 1990).
As you begin to praise your child more frequently, you’ll notice that using the skill has a trickle-down effect and your child will begin to use the skill too. Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field of researchers from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, and anthropology who seek to understand the mind. In this regular American Educator column, we consider findings from this field that are strong and clear enough to merit classroom application. I can remember so many times when, during praise & worship, the manifest Presence of God fills the room. It’s golden age souls dating login one thing to say “I love you” and it’s another thing to live out “I love you.” My wife appreciates the heart I have for her, however, that heart of love must make its way to outward action. Work to nurture students with emotional check-ins can create a safe space to share openly.
Daily Transition Ideas For Elementary Students
Ennis et al. (2020a) conducted another systematic review to examine the impact of coaching in different modalities (e.g., oral, written, visual, self-monitored, and bug-in-ear) on educators’ rate of BSP. Authors applied Council for Exceptional Children CEC (2014) standards and determined coaching teachers and other educators to increase BSP met criteria to be considered an evidence-based practice. Thus, there is evidence to suggest educator training and coaching (including self-coaching through self-monitoring strategies) can effectively increase the rate of teacher-delivered BSP (Ennis et al., 2020a).
Consider, then, the silent message that a teacher sends when he praises a student for mediocre work. By not criticizing substandard work, the teacher implicitly says, “I believe that you are not capable of anything better. This work is not all that good, but I know it’s the best you can do” (Meyer, 1992; Meyer, Mittag and Engler, 1986). The student would assume that the teacher doesn’t think that the problem was one of effort, because if it had been, the teacher would have told the student to try harder, rather than praising him. We manipulated the person praise provided to the participants through false feedback detailed in previous studies (e.g., Koole & van Knippenberg, 2007; Liu et al., 2016; Liu & Huang, 2019).
It can help students feel valued and motivated while also helping to build a positive classroom environment. But it’s not enough to simply say “good job” or “great work”; effective praise should be specific, sincere, and timely. Contingent praise is best used to reward desired behaviors and give students a sense of accomplishment and recognition for their efforts. Remember to be specific, sincere, appropriate for the situation, and considerate of different cultures. Descriptive characteristics and study effect classification (EC) for peer-delivered behavior-specific praise (peer praise) studies.
A key component of behavioral interventions is delivering effective, regular, and consistent positive feedback to students in the form of behavior-specific praise. But the adults in your building must feel confident in providing this type of praise. Training of intervention agents for implementing BSP was reported in 39 studies (75.00%; e.g., Gage et al., 2017).
We examined professional learning strategies to support educators effectively implement BSP a foundational and proactive approach for promoting prosocial student behavior. BSP is a low-intensity, research-based strategy that reinforces or increases the future likelihood of expected behavior and helps foster positive classroom and school climate. We found educators were trained through a range of methods, including modeling, role-play, and feedback, with follow-up coaching often enhancing long-term implementation. Performance feedback and professional support were used to sustain BSP use, helping educators integrate practice within daily routines to further encourage student engagement and ultimately reduce the need for reactive, exclusionary discipline practices. We underscore the critical role of social validity in supporting successful BSP implementation in schools. Professional learning must extend beyond teaching “how” to deliver praise—it must also address “why” such strategies matter to consistently and meaningfully apply BSP.
Understanding the rationale behind BSP can potentially increase buy-in, thus helping educators see its value in reinforcing student success and ultimately building positive relationships. Furthermore, our findings suggest data-informed, educator-centered professional learning—paired with intentional focus on the principles of reinforcement—can empower teachers to use reinforcement as a proactive tool. Ideally, teachers receive professional learning, coaching, and follow-up support based on what schoolwide data sources (e.g., treatment integrity, social validity, and systematic screening) show as an area for development. Social validity, or what teachers think about the goals, procedures, and outcomes of an intervention, may be helpful in identifying goals for professional learning and coaching support with buy-in from faculty and staff (Allen, 2021). Treatment integrity data, the extent to which a plan was delivered as intended, can be useful to inform refinement of implementation efforts.
- One measure of task motivation was whether children chose to continue working on the puzzles in the experimenter’s absence.
- The target of the praise should be not an attribute of the child, but rather an attribute of the child’s behavior.
- Finally, after the task, we fully debriefed the participants, explaining the true purpose of the experiment.
Thus, we encourage interpretations of our results regarding the student-delivered BSP body of literature be made with caution as readers keep these limitations in mind. We encourage more researchers to embed training integrity and social validity measures in studies of professional learning opportunities offered to educators. Evaluating the extent to which training was implemented as intended, and more importantly, giving people feedback using data can inform more precise and complete efforts in supporting educators when learning new strategies. Using social validity data can also better inform the learning process with input from those receiving professional learning to make the process more valid and potentially useful. Next, the examination of the relevant mechanisms suggested that when task-involving feedback was provided, students generally had superior participation motivation and performance in the task.
