Positive peer reporting (PPR) is a brief period of time for peers to publicly praise typically one “star” target student with BSP, encouraging prosocial behavior and earning tokens for each appropriate BSP toward a class reward (group contingency). PPR interventions are generally designed to increase the frequency and improve the quality of the target student’s prosocial interactions with peers (Morrison and Jones, 2007) and have added benefits for the whole class’s behavior given the group contingency. When the star is not known (one variation of PPR), students, in theory, are on their best behavior in case they will be the ones publicly praised later. All but one PPR study was published before 2014, when the peer praise literature turned all but exclusively to investigating tootling meetwith-mature.com interventions.
- Both have their place — but nailing how to write great praise is a key skill that all managers and employees can, and should, develop.
- Don’t compare their skills to other students’ skills or tell them they did better than someone else.
- In this way, one develops the ability for self-criticism, self-assurance, and self-assertion by gradually understanding they do not need to be subject to extrinsic motivations (external motivators, like praise, grades, or money).
- Knowing that their effort, not the correct answer, will earn them praise can also reduce frustration for children when they are completing difficult tasks.
Be Specific
In this regular American Educator column, we consider findings from this field that are strong and clear enough to merit classroom application. Think back to the explanation of why praise works in the first place—it makes the student think, “I’m the kind of kid who enjoys puzzles and does them well.” When “keep it up” is added, the student is less likely to make that attribution to himself or herself. The student is more likely to think, “I’m doing these puzzles because the teacher wants me to, not because I enjoy them.” Many studies on praise fit the general framework described above. Some indicate that praise increases motivation, whereas others indicate a decrease (Anderson et al., 1976; Birch et al., 1984; Harackiewicz, 1979; Swann and Pittman, 1977; Weiner, 1992). But the bulk of the studies do not actually contradict each other.
Effective Praise Education
It could be that dosage is not important because the key component might be knowing peers are watching for good behavior even if they do not fill out a tootle of even if your tootle is not read aloud. Future studies should report the dosage of tootles written and received (read aloud or posted for reading) for each target student and the average per day per student in the classroom. In addition to unknown dosage, we also cannot isolate if peer-specific praise is a key factor in tootling—it is the teacher who reads tootles, so it is possible students receiving praise perceive it as teacher attention even though it was written by a peer. Many of the early studies of PPR targeted socially isolated students or peers who needed to increase positive interactions with peers (e.g., Ervin et al., 1996; Moroz and Jones, 2002).
Many studies utilized data-based decision making to identify students for participation, with some studies confirming teacher or principal referrals of students or classrooms with direct observation screenings (e.g., Wright, 2019). 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. At least for the duration of the study, praise from an adult that emphasized ability or effort influenced children’s views about intelligence.
But if you believe that you failed because you lack ability, that is much more discouraging. Your level of ability is not so easily changed, so there is little you can do to succeed if you try again. Praise is such a natural part of human interaction in our culture that it would be difficult indeed to stop praise altogether. Fortunately, existing research indicates that praise can motivate and guide children—but despite the fact that praise seems so benign, there are circumstances under which praise is not beneficial. A rule of thumb that can summarize this complex research literature is that if you try to use praise for your own ends or even in a conscious attempt to help the student, it is likely to go wrong. If, on the other hand, praise is an honest expression meant to congratulate the student, it will likely be at least neutral or even helpful to the student; even under these circumstances, however, care must be taken in what is praised.