Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition
By reinforcing effort, teachers enhance students’ understanding of the relationship between effort and achievement by addressing attitudes and beliefs about learning. People generally attribute success to one or more of these four factors: ability, effort, other people, and luck. Of these four factors, only effort actually contributes to achievement. Although a belief in ability may appear helpful at first, a task will eventually come along for which you do not believe you have the requisite ability. Sometimes you must accomplish a task alone, in which case belief in other people as a source of success can be limiting. As for belief in luck, what if your luck runs out?
There are two related generalizations from the research on reinforcing effort. First, not all students realize the importance of believing in effort as a means for academic success. Second, students can learn to believe that effort pays off, even if they do not initially hold this belief.
“Providing recognition” refers to providing students with rewards or praise for their accomplishments related to the attainment of a goal. The research offers three generalizations in this category:
1. Rewards do not necessarily have a negative effect on intrinsic motivation.
2. Rewards are most effective when students must reach some standard of performance in order to receive them. For example, offering a reward for merely participating in an activity can diminish intrinsic motivation, whereas a reward that is contingent on successful completion of a task increases intrinsic motivation.
3. Abstract symbolic recognition, such as verbal praise, is more effective than tangible rewards, such as candy or money.
