How exactly should teachers and parents be praising children?
A recently resurfaced study offers educators and parents important guidance for motivating students facing a new school year.
Praising children for their abilities can actually undermine their motivation and performance, according to psychologists Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck. Conversely, praising a child for their effort helps motivate them to achieve.
“I’ve worked with many dedicated teachers and, to a person, they would endorse Mueller and Dweck’s conclusions,” David Hansen, philosophy and education program director at Columbia University’s Teachers College, told Canadian Affairs.
“To praise a person’s intelligence — ‘you’re very smart’ — can sound like a conclusion rather than an invitation to keep pushing and developing oneself,” Hansen said.
‘What’s the criteria of intelligence?’
Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neurologist at Stanford University, recently repopularized the 25-year-old study by talking about it on his Huberman Lab podcast, which has four million subscribers.
“The sorts of feedback that we get, especially early in life or early in an endeavour, really get integrated into our core beliefs about what we think is possible for us,” Huberman said.
Study authors Mueller and Dweck identified two main kinds of feedback adults commonly give to children. One is praising their intelligence, referred to as fixed-mindset praise, and the other is praising their effort, known as growth-mindset praise.
Children who received growth-mindset praise, such as ‘You must have worked hard on these problems,’ were more likely to take on challenging tasks, put in effort and perform better over time.
Children who received fixed-mindset praise, such as ‘You must be smart at these problems,’ were more likely to choose easier tasks to maintain their image of being smart.
“Good teachers would call [fixed mindset] praise condescending if not patronizing,” says Hansen.
“How does anyone come off as judging another person as ‘very smart’? What’s their criteria of intelligence?” Hansen asks. “Most human beings are able to do intelligent things in at least a few realms of life; most human beings are also unintelligent or inept with respect to other aspects of their lives.”
Life is not fixed
Toronto-based private tutor Johnny Cassels says that, in his experience, fostering a growth mindset is especially important for boys.
“I think for some young men and boys, there’s a little bit of a story they tell themselves about being the underdog and making it happen. When you start validating that they’ve already achieved a certain outcome, you’re basically disincentivizing that drive to prove oneself.”
The study also resonates with staff at Trinity College School (TCS) in Coburg, Ontario.
Praising effort instead of intelligence is a “tried and true” technique, says Myke Healy, an administrator at TCS. “I can think of a few classrooms, most notably in math and English, where teachers have posted quotes that reflect this idea.”
“Whenever I lauded a student… I would always qualify my praise for the achievement with a phrase like, ‘this clearly reflects a ton of hard work; good on you for putting in the un-glamourous hours,” says Roger Wright, former head of school at TCS.
“I think mentioning specifics and some background colour to any praise of a student is effective and really amplifies the impact.”
“Teachers do say things like ‘You have a good mind, why don’t you try . . .’” notes Columbia’s Hansen. “But [this remark] is not about the student’s mind alone. It’s also about the student’s character — it’s an attempt to help them see that life is not fixed — that they are not permanently stuck even if, in the moment, they’re struggling.”
