Article

Effect of Ability vs. Effort Praise on Children's Achievement-related Attitude according to their Goal-orientation

Author

정윤경

Information

pp. 81~98 / 2012 Vol.19 No.4

Abstract

The present study is designed to investigate the effect of ability vs. effort praise on children's achievementrelated attitudes according to their goal orientation. To do so, 98 elementary school students(5th and 6thgrader) were divided into two groups: those children with high performance goals and those children withhigh learning goals. The children in each group were randomly assigned into ability praise and effortpraise conditions and their reactions after failure were measured. Children with high performance goalsresponded in a more achievement oriented way in effort praise conditions than in ability praise conditions:these children attributed their failures to effort more frequently than to ability, chose learning problemsmore frequently than performance problems, and chose hints for solving problems over other student'sscores in effort praise conditions. On the other hand, children with high learning goals did not show anysignificant differences in achievement related attitudes except when it came to attributing their failures,revealing high achievement oriented attitude in both praise conditions.

Keywords