Have you ever felt like it's truly important for your efforts to be recognised if you are to succeed? This is quite a common feeling, and it's the basis of Gundersen et al. (2013) study. Gundersen wanted to learn more about how the type of praise a young child receives affects their motivation to learn and improve, specifically how praise can affect a child's motivational framework and how different types of praise can elicit different responses.
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Jetzt kostenlos anmeldenHave you ever felt like it's truly important for your efforts to be recognised if you are to succeed? This is quite a common feeling, and it's the basis of Gundersen et al. (2013) study. Gundersen wanted to learn more about how the type of praise a young child receives affects their motivation to learn and improve, specifically how praise can affect a child's motivational framework and how different types of praise can elicit different responses.
As we are all well aware, the environment we grow up in influences our later behaviour, and our role models play a special part in this. Gunderson et al. (2013) suggested that the type of praise a child receives affects how a child combats setbacks and reacts to challenging tasks. Before we look at the study, let's discuss the different types of praise and how they relate to motivational frameworks.
The two different types of praise are person praise and process praise.
Person praise focuses on praising the individual and their ability when a task is completed. Process praise focuses on how well the individual performed during the task and the effort they put in.
Person praise may lead a child to believe that they have or lack some essential abilities and can affect later behaviour.
For example, a child regularly praised for schoolwork and good grades early on in their education may feel as if they are gifted and not study so hard. They may have difficulties later on when effort becomes more important than innate ability. Although innate ability will get you far, the ability to study becomes very important later on in education.
If they fail, they will think it is a personal failing; this is called an entity motivational framework, a fixed mindset.
Process praise focuses on complimenting the individual based on the effort they make during the process rather than the end result. It acknowledges that anyone can do a good job if they put in the effort.
Given that some factors, such as how much effort has been put in, tend to be better predictors of how well a task is performed, this can encourage a healthy motivational framework and lead to more effort being put into things such as schoolwork. This is called an incremental motivational framework, an adaptable mindset.
The entity motivational framework suggests that our abilities are innate, fixed and cannot be changed. In contrast, the incremental motivational framework suggests that our abilities are flexible and adaptable and can be developed through effort.
The Gunderson et al. (2013) study aimed to identify if different types of praise affect children's motivational framework years later, and to identify if parents were more likely to give a specific kind of praise based on their child's gender.
The study recruited 53 children and their primary caregivers to participate; 29 of these were boys, and 24 were girls. Participants were located in Chicago, and the researchers attempted to collect an ethnically diverse participant pool from various backgrounds.
The parents or the research assistants were not told that the study was investigating praise.
When the children reached the age of seven to eight, they completed a questionnaire that measured their motivational frameworks regarding morality and intelligence. Two questionnaires were completed three months apart.
Some of the items measured in the questionnaire included their thoughts on trait stability, their preference toward learning or performance, what they believed was the cause of success or failure, etc.
The type of praise and how frequent the participants received them were measured using the transcripts from the recordings.
The study can be characterised as a longitudinal, naturalistic overt observation study as it took place over a long period. Although the parents and children did not know the true aims of the study, they were still aware that they were being observed.
It was found that, of all the communication recorded between parent and child:
Moreover, when the type of praise participants received over the years was analysed, it was revealed that from the age of 14 to 38, participants significantly received less person praise. But, from 14 to 26, the number of process praise increased, which then plateaued.
A correlation was found between how much a child was praised and the motivational frameworks. When the recordings were compared to the results of the questionnaire taken by the children, it was found children who received more process praise in their early years were more likely to develop an incremental motivational framework. This suggests that these individuals were more likely to believe that ability is a result of effort and time put into skills or abilities.
However, the results did not show a link between receiving person praise and developing an entity motivational framework.
The results indicated a relationship between children receiving process praise in their early years and developing an incremental motivational framework. This suggests that the more process praise received as a child, the more likely an incremental motivational framework will be developed.
The results did not indicate that children were more likely to develop an entity motivational framework when participants received more person praise.
The results also suggest that boys are more likely to receive process praise than girls. From this, it can be inferred that boys may be more likely to develop an incremental motivational framework than girls.
Let's take a look at a quick overview of the study to summarise what was investigated in the Parent Praise to 1-3 Year-Olds Predicts Children’s Motivational Frameworks 5 Years Later study (Gunderson et al., 2013).
Let's take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the study!
The strengths of Gunderson et al. (2013) are:
The weaknesses of Gunderson et al. (2013 are:
The Gunderson et al. (2013) study is a research experiment that was conducted to investigate motivational frameworks.
The study recruited 29 boys and 24 girls along with their caregivers.
The Gunderson et al. (2013) study aimed to identify if different types of praise affect children's motivational framework years later and to identify if parents were more likely to give a specific kind of praise based on their child's gender.
A child's motivational framework is their beliefs on trait stability, preferences for learning and performance goals, and beliefs on success and failure and the strategies they implement to improve, according to Gunderson et al. (2013). There are two motivational frameworks; the entity motivational framework suggests that our abilities are innate, fixed and cannot be changed. In contrast, the incremental motivational framework suggests that our abilities are flexible and adaptable and can be developed through effort.
An ethical issue of the study was that the participants were deceived as they were not told the true aims of the hypothesis and what behaviours the researchers were observing.
What is a motivational framework?
A motivational framework describes one's beliefs about intelligence, ability and the attainability of goals.
What are the two types of praise?
Person praise and process praise are the two types of praise.
What is person praise?
Person praise focuses on praising the individual and their ability when a task is completed, complimenting innate ability rather than effort.
What is process praise?
Process praise focuses on complimenting the individual based on the effort they make during the process rather than the end result.
What kind of motivational framework could person praise lead to?
Entity motivational framework.
What kind of motivational framework could process praise lead to?
Incremental motivational framework.
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