Practice What you Preach: Children Persist Less When Values and Reward Structures are Inconsistent

• In Event: Factors Affecting Reasoning and Problem Solving in Children

Abstract

The concept of growth mindsets is pervasive in modern discourse on developing effective education strategies and building resilience in children. The idea that successful children focus on effort (rather than achievement) and view failures as opportunities to improve has been shown to enhance academic outcomes, persistence and motivation from infancy to beyond (Schunk, 2003; Yeager & Dweck, 2012). However, despite the emphasis on rewarding effort in both informal and formal educational settings, the reality is that most evaluation frameworks focus on rewarding achievement (Harlen & Crick, 2002; Schinske & Tanner, 2014). Thus, an open question remains regarding the effect of imbalances between effort and reward (effort-reward inconsistency) on persistence and learning in students (van Vegchel et al., 2005). Importantly, while motivation is improved by integrating effort-based frameworks in elementary and middle school (Weaver et al., 2004) as well as higher education (Schinske & Tanner, 2014), much is still unknown about how grading frameworks influence learning outcomes in preschool children as they enter the formal education system.

The present study therefore aims to explore how effort-reward inconsistency influences persistence in preschool children. To begin, the experimenter provided a persistence primer for the participant, detailing the importance of effort in everyday life. Then, to generate effort-reward inconsistency, experimenters presented 4- to 5-year-olds (n = 24; MAGE = 5.01 years, range: 4.18 – 5.94 years; 16 girls) with four trials of visual search tasks (e.g., iSpy game), manipulating reward structure (effort or achievement) and controlling for performance. Children in the Effort condition received rewards based on trying time (consistent with the primer) while those in the Achievement condition were rewarded based on task performance (inconsistent with the primer). Then, persistence (e.g., trying time) was measured both during the four trials as well as in a novel task (e.g., impossible puzzle box) in which no rewards were promised. This task examined whether children generalized their experiences from the test trials. We hypothesized that children would persist less in the Achievement condition than in the Effort condition. Indeed, our results revealed that although trying time decreased across trials (𝛽 = -8.71, t(71) = -4.35, p < .001), this drop off was more evident for children in the Achievement condition, when reward structures were inconsistent with children’s effort (𝛽 = -30.67, t(22) = -3.99, p < .001). Likewise, children in the Achievement condition persisted significantly less in the generalization task (t(20) = -6.51, p < .001).

This work provides initial evidence demonstrating that inconsistencies in values and rewards can reduce persistence in preschool children. Future work will continue to investigate this nuanced interplay by exploring how changes in performance across time interact with effort-reward inconsistency. In this way, our work should invite us to reconsider how contradictory messages about effort and success can impact children’s understanding of ability and inspire future actions to more effectively encourage the development of growth mindsets in children.

Authors

• Yi Lin (Elaine) Wang, University of Toronto
  Presenting Author

• Mia Radovanovic, University of Toronto

• Jessica A Sommerville, University of Toronto