Influencing graduate students’ Influencing graduate students’ classroom achievement, classroom achievement,

homework habits and motivation homework habits and motivation to learn with verbal praiseto learn with verbal praise

指導教授： Chen, Ming-puu

報 告 者： Chen, Wan-Yi

報告日期： 2006. 3.20

Hancock, D. R. (2002). Influencing graduate students’ classroom achievement, homework habits and motivation to learn with verbal praise. Educational Research 44(1), 83-95

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Introduction

• One instructional variable, verbal praise, has often been identified as an important mediator in the enhancement of students’ motivation in the classroom (Bergin,1999; Mueller & Dweck,1998; Thompson,1997)

• Almost all of the current dominant theories of motivation– Goal orientation theory– Attribution theory– Expectancy X value theory– Flow theory ( 沈浸理論 )– Self-efficacy theory

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Recent Research (1)

• Effective verbal praise– Specify clearly the behaviour being reinforced

– be believable to the recipient of the praise

– Be contingent upon the behaviour being reinforced– Be offered soon after the occurrence of the behaviour b

eing reinforced (Burden,1995; Woolfolk,1998)

• Teachers should praise– When students show self-management skills in order t o

complete a task

– Students’ accomplishments and progress during an instructional period

– Meaningfully by withholding undeserved praise

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Recent Research (2)

• Negative outcomes– Effusive praise given after every answer is ineffective

– Teachers use verbal praise as their sole classroom management strategy

– If each and every desired student response is praised, the praise often sounds stilted and the flow of the lesson is disrupted

• Other suggest– Teachers’ use of praise sometimes focuses students on

learning to win rather than on learning for it own sake

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Method

• 實驗對象– Fifty-four first-year graduate students

• 實驗時間– One-semester course

• 實驗工具– MSLQ 量表

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Results

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Discussion

• Suggested that praising students for accomplishing easy task may have a negative effect on those students’ subsequent behaviour– ex. Meyer(1982) found that praise for success on an eas

y task was interpreted by students as an indication that the teacher had a low perception of the students’ abilities

• students exposed to verbal praise not only studied more for each lesson, but also achieved more and were more motivated to learn

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Conclusion

• This study indicates that students who experience well-administered verbal praise for doing homework achieve more and demonstrate higher levels of motivation to learn in the classroom than do those students who experience no verbal praise for their homework habits.

• Properly administered verbal praise can be a practical means of influencing students’ motivation to engage in behaviours associated with learning