It seems that certain kinds of praise may set up even the most capable students for failure. In order to avoid negative evaluations, students may tend not to take chances and attempt difficult tasks. Many teachers attempt to use praise as a form of positive reinforcement in order to motivate students to achieve and behave in positive ways. Even if teachers were able to praise frequently and systematically, say once every 5 minutes, the average student wouldstill be praised less than once every 2 hours. Even if teachers could praise students systematically, there is still some indication that such praise would not be effective.
Researchers point out that at best praise is a weak reinforcer.
Not all young children are interested in pleasing the teacher, and as children grow older, interest in pleasing the teacher diminishes significantly. When teachers try to find something good in the work of low-achieving students to encourage them, the praise is often for some irrelevant or unimportant aspect of completing the task. For example, if the task is to complete math problems, commenting on a student s neat homework paper is not likely to have the positive effect on the student that the teacher intended. What happens is that the student often discounts the praise. What s worse is that the student often interprets the praise to be unrelated to effort or performance, but as evidence of lack of ability.