As teachers (and parents), we sometimes think we’re being kind and encouraging when we tell our students they are smart. But this fascinating study asserts that students who are praised for being smart tend to quit whenever things get tough, whereas students who are praised for their effort become more persistent when the going gets rough.From the article:
Dweck sent four female research assistants into New York fifth-grade classrooms. The researchers would take a single child out of the classroom for a nonverbal IQ test consisting of a series of puzzles—puzzles easy enough that all the children would do fairly well. Once the child finished the test, the researchers told each student his score, then gave him a single line of praise. Randomly divided into groups, some were praised for their intelligence. They were told, “You must be smart at this.” Other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.”
Why just a single line of praise? “We wanted to see how sensitive children were,” Dweck explained. “We had a hunch that one line might be enough to see an effect.”
Then the students were given a choice of test for the second round. One choice was a test that would be more difficult than the first, but the researchers told the kids that they’d learn a lot from attempting the puzzles. The other choice, Dweck’s team explained, was an easy test, just like the first. Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The “smart” kids took the cop-out.
I highly recommend reading the rest of the article. It has changed the way I plan to talk to my students this coming year.
July 24, 2007 at 11:09 am |
Mark,
Great article–thanks for pointing it out. I’m glad I took the time to read it; most of the material I’ve seen in other places (Alfie Kohn’s “Five Reasons to Stop Saying ‘Good Job’” for example), but this article really brought a lot of valid points together.
This paragraph, just after the one you quoted, is one that I believe is particularly noteworthy :
“Dweck had suspected that praise could backfire, but even she was surprised by the magnitude of the effect. “Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.” ”
To me, it points out the unfounded stigma of failure and how adults have (in some cases) done damage by bringing the business world’s mantra of “Failure Is Not An Option” down to the elementary grade level. Why can’t a student fail as they explore new material? What’s wrong with a student experimenting to see what happens? I can give one typical reason: If you don’t do well the first time, you’ll get a bad grade. Get a bad grade on that assignment, and you might get a bad grade for the grading period. A bad grade for the grading period…no honor roll for you!
Is that right? No.
I think that the most incriminating line (for society) in the article, though, comes near the end when Bronson presents Baumeister’s belief: “[that] the continued appeal of self-esteem is largely tied to parents’ pride in their children’s achievements: It’s so strong that “when they praise their kids, it’s not that far from praising themselves.””
Ouch.
There’s a lot of good advice as well, and I will also change how I speak to my students this year. Specific praise, constructive (non-threatening) criticism, and a lot of support for the effort–all without forgetting the goal of actually learning the material.
Again, thanks for pointing out that article. It’s definitely one to share.
Tim
July 25, 2007 at 3:42 pm |
Wow. Thanks. I try to encourage my kids as much as possible because they hardly get that kind of encouragement at home. I’ll keep this in mind, though …
July 25, 2007 at 7:37 pm |
umm… I’d want to see some background info on the kids before totally switching my methods.
A lot of my students last year wouldn’t initially try because they didn’t believe they were capable – they’d put in a great deal of effort, and still failed. I started off the year by doing whatever it took to get them to try. Success was initially rewarded with ‘because you’re smart’, and failure with ‘not trying hard enough – you’ve got the brains, you just need to try.’
If there’s a confidence problem, effort-based praise won’t work, any more than capability-based praise will work on an effort problem.
I guess it all comes down to knowing your kids. (That, and hopefully you’re not teaching kids who’ve labeled themselves as failures! Though I expect that’s more of an issue in remedial courses.)
July 26, 2007 at 4:30 am |
Thanks for this post! I’d love to dig into the entire article.
Intuitively, it seems correct that some kids who’ve been told they are smart may not want to take the hard test because there is the possibility of failure that may take away the smart tag.
But it doesn’t seem obvious that kids who are didn’t do well on the test but were praised for effort would take on the harder test.
I’d love to see the sample and see what band of the IQ these kids who were tested fell in. If they were from the upper percentiles, I’m in with this research, else I’m going to apply it in class and wait for my results before I buy in.
Thanks for the tip and for making me think!
July 26, 2007 at 3:52 pm |
Lots of good points, and interesting variables are mentioned in these comments; but I think that the research is testimony to the powerful effect of the power of language in the classroom; recently, I read an outstanding book by Peter Johnston called “Choice Words: How are language affects children’s learning”. It gives solid examples of how teachers can speak with students so that they open up, and they have really helped me in my one-on-one interactions with students. I highly recommend it.
September 3, 2007 at 5:47 pm |
Mr. Pullen, both your post and the comments have valuable insights. I am definitely going to read the rest of the article. For my particular set of students, I find that emphasizing improvement is the most encouraging praise. They already “know” they’re not smart, and that they meet with failure despite their best efforts. That’s why many of my students learn helplessness. Ah, but improvement…that’s something you can see and measure everyday for yourself.
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