The Role of Praise & Self-Efficacy Beliefs in Learning (AQA GCSE Psychology)

Praise & learning

• Praise is the response that follows a positive or impressive act/behaviour, for example:

  • A toddler is praised for helping to tidy their toys away

  • A swimmer is praised by their coach for achieving their best time

  • A teacher praises her class for having the best attendance in the whole school

• Praise can act as positive reinforcement:

  • It is received as a reward and is likely to motivate the person being praised to repeat, continue or improve the act that garnered the praise in the first place

• Praise has a hugely positive impact on self-esteem e.g. ‘Wow, someone thinks I’m good at this!’

• If praise is given without sincerity or intention then it becomes meaningless and is unlikely to increase motivation e.g. every child in a class is praised in the same way, regardless of their effort or achievement

• Dweck sees a difference in praise being given for performance as opposed to praise being given for effort

• Being praised for making an effort is more meaningful to the learner as effort is something available to everyone whereas mastery or expertise in a skill is not, for example:

  • A student is praised for their attempt to make a sponge cake even though the cake didn't rise

  • A young footballer is praised for attempting to score a goal throughout the match even though his team lost

• If someone is praised for simply being good at something then, according to Dweck, this is not helpful to others who may not have that person’s natural talent i.e. praised for performance rather than for effort

Self-efficacy beliefs & learning

• Self-efficacy is the expectation someone has of being able to achieve a specific goal, improve a skill or be successful in a particular venture

• Self-efficacy depends on the level of control that someone feels they have over the tasks they take on, for example:

  • I think I’ll be able to score more goals for my team if I practise more (an example of high self-efficacy)

  • Every time I go to score a goal I miss so why should I even bother trying? (an example of low self-efficacy)

• Praise from parents, teachers, and friends tends to be linked to better performance which in turn leads to self-efficacy i.e. the better we do at something, the higher our self-efficacy

• High self-efficacy is linked to a growth mindset:

  • The more challenging or difficult a task becomes then the more determined someone is to achieve it

• People with high self-efficacy will keep going at something even when it gets really difficult; they will persist through repeated failures and setbacks: this is known as resilience

• Self-efficacy can be encouraged in educational settings by teachers setting tasks which encourage students’ success and thereby build the expectation of further successes in the students

Evaluation of the role of praise & self-efficacy in learning

Strengths 

• The theory has good research support: 

  • Spencer et al. (1999) set a maths test for equal-ability male and female Psychology students

  • In one of the conditions the researcher told the group that the test had found gender differences

  • In the above condition females under-performed males as they may have succumbed to a lowering of self-efficacy due to the stereotype that women are not as good at maths as men

  • In the control condition there was no difference in maths scores between the male and female participants

• The theory has good application to education, sport, business, parenting, in fact any arena in which resilience and determination are important 

Weaknesses

• Praise may, oddly enough, reduce motivation as it may serve as a temporary, external reward rather than as self-imposed personal value i.e. if the reward is removed then the motivation to do well is also removed

• The theory does not account for individual differences e.g. some people are highly embarrassed if they are praised; some people may experience success in a task and yet still not develop high self-efficacy