A review and analysis of the research literature on teachers' classroom use of approval/praise and disapproval/reprimand is provided in an attempt to determine the extent to which teachers typically employ praise in their classroom teaching. There is a considerable degree of agreement across the studies reviewed, carried out in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and St Helena, regarding the ways in which teachers typically deploy approval and disapproval, with some interesting variations. There is little evidence to suggest that teachers, universally, systematically deploy contingent praise as positive reinforcement in spite of the considerable literature testifying to its effectiveness. In particular, praise for appropriate classroom social behaviour is only rarely observed.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/713663753 ]

Students from a school in Hong Kong (n=199) responded to 22 items asking about their school motivation and aspirations in a survey. Structural equation models found four school motivation factors consistent with the task, effort, competition, and praise scales of the Inventory of School Motivation, one education aspiration factor, one career aspiration factor, and significant relations of the motivation factors with the aspiration factors. Task and effort orientations were found to be stronger than the other orientations and to have relatively stronger associations with education aspirations, whereas task and praise had stronger associations with career aspirations. In examining potential change in students' goal orientations and aspirations through high school years, analysis of variance found that 7th-graders had significantly higher scores in task and effort orientations and career aspirations than 9th-graders, and higher scores in praise orientation than 11th-graders. The apparent drop in motivation scores from Grade 7, especially in task and effort orientations, both pertaining to a mastery orientation dimension that has been assumed to be a major driving force for excellence, calls for urgent attention to student motivation in junior high school classes.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410500046804 ]