Impact of Praise on Adolescents' Responses to Success and Failure in Group Work

• In Event: Feedback to the Future: Impacts of a Venerable Construct on 21st-Century Motivation and Learning

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that feedback can be given in either person or process forms (Dweck, 1999), which focus on innate traits and abilities or effort and techniques, respectively. It has demonstrated that when learners succeed, the type of praise does not impact their responses. However, following failure, those who received person praise show a more negative response.

In addition, past research has only examined the impact of feedback on individuals and has not considered its impact on groups. As group work is a common feature in modern classrooms (Creemers, 1994), it is important to examine feedback’s influence on groups and compare it with effects on individual students. Thus, the aim of the current research was to examine the impact of praise (person, process, or no praise) on adolescents’ responses to success and failure (perceived performance, affect, persistence, and feelings about the group) when working in a group.

Ninety-nine secondary school students aged 14 to 17 were randomly assigned to groups of approximately five. They were asked to play a game and answer a free-response question that had previously been asked to 100 other people. The aim was to give a correct answer that nobody else had thought of. The experimenter read each question aloud and gave them 60 seconds to discuss and choose a single answer. The game was manipulated so that they succeeded in the first three games, failed in the next two and then succeeded in the final game. In the control condition, participants were given no further information than their score. Students in the person and process groups were told “You are all really clever” and “You all worked really hard,” respectively. Following the failures and the final success, no feedback was given to any of the groups beyond the score. After each game, participants responded to questions about their perceived performance, affect and persistence and were also asked questions about how they felt about the group (Skipper & Douglas, 2012).

Results from ANOVA suggested that following success those who received person praise exhibited lower perceived performance, affect and persistence. This finding is in direct contrast to previous research with individuals, which found that following success, regardless of the type of praise they received, all participants felt equally positive. Following the first failure, those in the person condition showed lower levels of performance and persistence. However, following a second failure, this effect was not maintained because all groups seemed to feel more negative. This is in line with previous research examining the impact of praise on individuals (Skipper & Douglas, 2012). A further novel finding is that following the final success, those who received process praise showed lower levels of performance, affect, and persistence.

Current recommendations around classroom feedback are based on research examining the impact of feedback on individuals. Our results suggest that groups may respond to feedback differently than individuals, thus highlighting the importance of future exploration in this area. Additionally, recordings of group discussions provide further explanations for our findings.

Authors

• Yvonne Skipper, Keele University

• Rebecca Bebbington, Keele University