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How to Effectively Praise a Child A brilliant student, Jonathan sailed though grade school. He completed his assignments easily and routinely earned As. Jonathan puzzled over why some of his classmates struggled, and his parents told him he had a special gift. In the seventh grade, however, Jonathan suddenly lost interest in school, refusing to do homework or study for tests. As a consequence, his grades plummeted. His parents tried to boost their son's confidence by assuring him that he was very smart. But their attempts failed to motivate Jonathan. Schoolwork, their son marinated, was boring and pointless. This case study was taken from The Secret to Raising Smart Kids by Carl Dweck (2007).
 * Case Study #1 **

**Case Study #2 **
Thomas is a fifth-grader and has heard constantly that he is smart. Not just from his parents but from any adult who has come in contact with him. When he applied to kindergarten his intelligence was statistically confirmed. This school is reserved for the top one percent of all applicants, and an IQ test is required. Thomas didn't just score in the top one percent. He score in the top one percent of the top one percent. But as Thomas has progressed through school, this self-awareness that he's smart hasn't always translated into fearless confidence when attacking his schoolwork. Thomas did not want to try things he wouldn't be successful at, some things came quickly to him, but when they didn't, he gave up almost immediately. His answer was, "I am not good at this." For example, Thomas wasn't very good at spelling, so he simply objected to objected to spelling anything out loud. When Thomas took his first look at fractions, he balked. The biggest hurdle came in third grade when his teacher demanded all assignments be completed in cursive handwriting. Rather than play catch-up on his penmanship, Thomas refused. Thomas's parents tried to reason with him, "Look, just because you are smart doesn't mean you don't have to put out some effort." This case study was taken from How Not to Talk to Your Kids by Carol Dweck (2007).

Why do these children, who are incredibly intelligent, lack confidence about their ability to achieve success on routine school tasks? These children are not alone, it has been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10% on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those burdened with this lack of perceived competence embrace lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent or teacher (Dweck 2007). As a response parents and teachers try to motivate these children and often they use praise as a means to encourage them to achieve success. Parents and teachers believe they are providing the solution to this problem and ensuring that these children do not sell their talents short. A growing body of research strongly suggests that praise may actually be causing the problem in the first place. Giving a child the label of "smart" does not prevent them from underperforming, it might actually be causing it.

Carol Dweck
Carol Dweck is the leading researcher when it comes to investigating how praise affects a child's motivation. She received her bachelor's degree from Barnard College at columbia, and her Ph.D at Yale. She taught at the University of Illinois, Harvard, Columbia, and is now teaching at Stanford. She has performed several studies on how praise affects a child's motivation and a few of her studies are highlighted below.

**Study #1 **
Fifth grade students were given a puzzle to complete and afterward they were given a line of praise. Some students were told, "You must be really smart" and other students were told, "You must have worked very hard." After the line of praise students were given the choice of completing a second puzzle, they were offered another easy puzzle or a more complicated on. Majority of the students who were praise on their intelligence chose the easy puzzle, while 90% of the students praised for their effort selected the more challenging puzzle.

**Study #2 **
This study began just like study #1, students were given a puzzle and then praised for their intelligence or effort. However students were not offered a choice of the second puzzle, all students were given a more difficult puzzle to solve. Finally each student was presented with a third puzzle, that was just as easy as the first puzzle. Those students who were initially praised for their intelligence did worse by 20% and those students praised for their effort improved their time by 30%.

**Study #3 **
In this study, Dr. Dweck focused on kindergartners and fifth grade students. Each student was given a non-verbal IQ test that consisted of ten moderately challenging but doable problems. One-third of the students were told, "Wow, you got eight right; that's a really good score. You must be smart at this!" Another third were given effort praise: "Wow you got eight right; that's a really good score. You must have really tried hard!" The final third was the control group and were told, "Wow, that's a really good score." The students were then given a choice on completing a set of easy questions or a set of more challenging questions. Just like the puzzle in study #2 most of the students praised for intelligence chose the easy questions and majority of the students praised for effort selected the challenging questions. The students in this study were also given the choice to take some challenging problems with them to work on at him. Most of the students praised for effort were eager to take the problems home. At the end of this study the students completed a questionnaire that described their enjoyment of completing these questions. Those students who were praised for their intelligence showed a drop-off in their enjoyment once they hit the hard problems, and those who were praised for effort showed no drop-off and many of them said that the harder problems were in fact their favorite. Lastly all students in this study were asked to write down their experience anonymously and report their scores for each test, almost 40% of the intelligence praised students lied by reporting a higher score than they actually received.

Analysis
Carol Dweck and her team of researchers discovered a pattern after each of these studies, students that were praised for their intelligence did not want to attempt difficult tasks. When faced with difficult tasks they resulted to cheating. As a result Dweck and her team concluded that when a child is told he/she is smart they want to continue to look smart. In their eyes they do not want to risk making mistakes and They fear failure and as a result choose easy work or refuse to perform challenging work. Dweck realized that when it comes to how a child view's their intelligence they believe they are born with a fixed amount or they believe that intelligence is flexible which can improve over time.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 1.3em;">Fixed Mindset
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">A child with a fixed mindset believes he or she is born with a "fixed" amount of intelligence, in other words you are born smart or not smart. Any sign of effort means you are not smart. They believe that if you have the ability, you shouldn't need effort. This is one of the worst beliefs that students can hold. When these children make a mistake, it breaks their self confidence and they attribute these errors to a lack of ability which they feel is impossible to change. Just like Jonathan in the first study, he shunned away from effort in the belief that having to try means he is dumb. As students they care first and foremost about how they will be judged: smart or not smart. These students reject opportunities to learn if they might make mistakes. When they do make mistakes or reveal deficiencies, rather than try to correct them, they try to hide them.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Lets go into the mind of a student with a fixed mindset who just encountered Algebra for the first time. Up until this point, this student has breezed through math. He never had to pay close attention and often skimped on the homework, but he always got As. But when confronted with Algebra the student it is more difficult. He starts to feel anxious and thinks, "What if I'm not good at math? What if all the other kids understand and I don't?" At some level this student starts to realize that he has two choices: try hard, or not try at all. His interest in math starts to decline and his attention wanders. He tells himself, "Who cares about this stuff? If's for nerds. I could do it if I wanted to, but it's so boring. You don't see CEOs and athletes solving for variables."

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 1.3em;">Growth Mindset
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">A child with a growth mindset believes his or her intelligence is flexible and can improve over time as a result of hard work and effort. These children love challenges. They feel energized when faced with difficult problems and in the long run will probably outperform their counterparts.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Lets go into the mind of a growth mindset student who just encountered Algebra for the first time. He finds it hard and confusing at first, but he is determined to understand. He listens to everything the teachers says, asks the teacher questions after class, and takes his textbook home and completes all of the assignments, he even attempts to solve the really difficult problems even though he is not sure if the answer is correct. After a while the work becomes easier and he feels exhilarated. He enjoys solving problems and looks forward to math class.

My Study
I decided to perform a study similar to the investigations performed by Dweck and her team. I wanted to see for myself if praise affected how quickly students could assemble a puzzle. First I administered a survey to my 8th grade students about their view of intelligence. The survey consisted of 10 questions where students could answer each question on a 1-4 scale. Five of the questions pertained to a fixed mindset view of intelligence and the other five questions described a growth mindset view. I then randomly selected students into 3 different groups. Each student was instructed to put a puzzle together, however before hand they were issued a line of praise. The first group was a control group and they were not given a line of praise. The second group however was given a script that described how smart they were as a students. I stressed that this group contained smart students who perform well on learning new ideas. The final group was given a script that described their work ethic as students. I stressed that this group had a strong work ethic when it comes to learning new material. Each group was given the same puzzle pieces and the same amount of time to put the puzzle together.





Results
Control Group Smart Group Work Ethic Group
 * Student || Time(min) ||
 * 1 || 3:45 ||
 * 2 || 16:00 ||
 * 3 || 26:33 ||
 * 4 || 35:20 ||
 * 5-7 || Did not finish in the time given ||
 * Student || Time(min) ||
 * 1 || 3:45 ||
 * 2 || 16:00 ||
 * 3 || 26:33 ||
 * 4 || 35:20 ||
 * 5 || 38:11 ||
 * 6-9 || Did not finish in the time given ||
 * Student || Time(min) ||
 * 1 || 13:18 ||
 * 2 || 15:55 ||
 * 3 || 15:55 ||
 * 4 || 26:05 ||
 * 5-9 || Did not finish in the time given ||

My conclusion
After an analysis of the data, the praise did not significantly affect the time to put the puzzle together. However when comparing the survey results to each students time there was a significant correlation. In my study if a student has a high belief in the growth mindset theory, then he or she completed their puzzle in less time than a student with a high belief of the fixed mindset theory. In conclusion, if a student believes intelligence is a result of hard work then he or she was able to solve the puzzle in less time.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">How to Praise a Child:
When praising a child it is important that the praise reflect the amount of effort he or she placed on the task. The praise should also be specific and sincere. Here are a few examples of praise that are a response to work ethic:
 * You did a good job drawing. I like the detail you added to the people's faces.
 * You really studied for your science test. you read the material ver several times, outlined it and tested yourself on it and it really worked!
 * I like the way you tried a lot of different strategies on that math problem until you finally got it.
 * What was a hard English assignment, but you stuck with it until you got it done. You stayed at your desk and kept your concentration. Great job!
 * I like that you took on a challenging project for your science fair project. It will take a lot of work- doing the research, designing the procedure, and collecting the data but you are going to learn a lot of great things

It is also important for students to be praised for taking risks. Here are a few ways to encourage students to view making mistakes as a positive part of the learning process:
 * Let's all talk about what we struggled with today and learned from. I'll go first.
 * Mistakes are so interesting. Here's a wonderful mistake. Let's see what we can learn from it.

Fast Facts about Praise:
1. Many people assume that superior intelligence or ability is a key to success. But more than three decades of research shows that an overemphasis on intellect or talent- and the implication that such traits are innate and fixed- leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unmotivated to learn. 2. Teaching people to have a "growth mindset" which encourages a focus on effort rather than on intelligence or talent, produces high achievers in school and in life. 3. Parents and teachers can promote a growth mindset in children by praising them for their effort or persistence (rather than for their intelligence), by telling them about the brain as a learning machine.

Important Links About Praise

Brainology This website was developed by Carol Dweck. This website provided valuable learning resources for students to become aware of the growth mindset. Classroom Activities to Promote the Growth Mindset This website provides a list of activities that teachers can do in the classroom to promote a growth mindset. 8 Lessons that Develop a Growth Mindset This website gives specific lesson plans on developing a growth mindset. This is great if you have an advisory program.

Resources Bronson, P. (2007, February 11). The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids -- New York Magazine. //New York Magazine -- NYC Guide to Restaurants, Fashion, Nightlife, Shopping, Politics, Movies//. Retrieved May 6, 2012, from http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/ Carol, D. (2007). The Secret to Raising Smart Kids. //Scientific American//, //18//(6), 36-43. Dweck, C. (2007). The Perils and Promises of Praise. //Educational Leadership//, //65//(2), 34-39. VanDeVelde, C. (2007). Praising Intelligence: Costs to Children's Self Esteem and Motivation. //Bing Nursery School//, //12//, 35-37.