Tag Archives: Extrinsic Rewards

Classroom Management is the Opposite of Motivation and Engagement

Recently, I attended a conference where table talks were a part of the lunch program. There were 12 or 13 topics, and we chose which table/topic we wanted to sit in on. Who ever was at the table collaboratively guided the personalized conversation on that topic. Twenty minutes later, a timekeeper let us know it was time to go to the next table of our choice.

During one of the rounds, I floated over to the Motivating Students table. This is clearly one of my favorite topics.

But very quickly, the teachers and school leaders at the table started talking about which classroom management strategies they use when students are not motivated. The talk focused on punishments and rewards.

And I started to panic, because I really wanted to get the conversation back onto motivation and engagement (and I know how counterproductive punishments and rewards actually are to learning!). How could I do that without offending these educators who were clearly struggling with what to do to motivate disengaged learners…

And finally I found a diplomatic way to redirect the conversation: “I find that when I'm doing a class activity that the students are really into and engaged, I really don't have any classroom management issues.” Everyone nodded that they had the same experiences. “So what do those activities look like? What is it about those activities that seems to engage the students?” And “boom” the conversation was focused on what motivates students.

But it was also in that moment that I realized for the first time that classroom management wasn't a sister skill set to motivation and engagement. It was the direct opposite of motivation and engagement.

Classroom management is what we do when our kids aren't motivated and engaged.

And, for the most part, we don't need to worry about classroom management when they are engaged.

Yes, orderliness helps students learn. And let's see if we can encourage and support our teachers in focusing more on proactive motivation and engagement, so they can focus less on reactive classroom management.

 

The Good and Bad of Extrinsic Motivation: The Series

The issue of extrinsic motivation is a pretty complex one. When the motivation comes from outside the student, driven often by the desire to receive some reward or avoid some sort of punishment (such as grades, stickers, or teacher approval), the student is extrinsically motivated. The use of rewards, prizes, incentives, consequences, and punishments are certainly common practice in schools. And the work people do in the real world is often regulated by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. But there is also evidence that a focus on punishments and rewards can be counterproductive to learning. Turns out that here are different kinds of extrinsic motivation and each can either improve learning or shut it down.

These posts explore productive and counterproductive types of extrinsic motivation:

 

An Extrinsic Motivator So Good It Should Be Your Secret Weapon

You’ve been reading through a series of my posts highlighting, mostly, counterproductive extrinsic motivators.

You must be wondering, though, are all extrinsic motivators bad? The kind of motivators Alfie Kohn describes (bribery rewards) do have a negative impact on learning, but are there other kinds of extrinsic rewards (besides random rewards) that will positively effect learning?

The answer is, Yes!

It is choice that can help make extrinsic rewards almost as powerful as intrinsic motivation, that force that drives us to do what we’re interested in. Choice makes the difference. The fancy term is “autonomous supportive strategies” and comes from self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991). Proponents of self-determination theory maintain that integrated regulation is as effective for achieving optimum learning as intrinsic motivation.

Student Voice and Choice can be achieved through a variety of strategies. Teachers can allow students to share in the decision-making and authority within the classroom. They may negotiate the curriculum with the teacher, or help the teacher decide how they will learn the curriculum. Teachers might involve students in planning the entire unit or simply give students a choice of doing one of three assignments. Project-based learning, for example, allows students numerous choices around what form their finished product will take, while learning valuable content determined by the teacher, district, or state. The key is to make sure students have choices about their learning.

Keep in mind that giving students choices does not mean “let them do what they want.” We don’t ask toddlers, “What do you want for dinner?” But we might say, “Do you want peas or carrots with dinner?”

The same is true of students. We would never think to ask them “what do you want to learn?” But we might say, “We’re starting a unit on the Great Depression today and we’re all going to read a novel about the depression. But let me tell you about these three outstanding books so you can choose which one you want to read…” We might progressively structure more and more choice for students so that they can take on more and more of their own learning. But that would only come with careful scaffolding, just as we might give our own children more and more choices about what they eat, and as they develop the ability to make healthy choices, eventually get to the point where we do ask our teenager what she would like to eat for dinner.

This is why Student Voice and Choice is one of the Focus Five of Meaningful Engaged Learning and why it is one of the critical components of Customized Learning. It is so powerful that teachers should use it was their secret weapon in working to motivate students and help them be successful.

References:

Deci, E. L., and R. M. Ryan. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum.

Deci, E., Vallerand, R., Pelletier, L., & Ryan, R. (1991). Motivation and education: The self-determination perspective. Educational psychologist, 26(3 & 4), 325-346.

Counterproductive Extrinsic Motivation: Avoid Bribery Rewards

This is the fourth post in a series on Extrinsic Motivation. I ended the last suggesting that there are both productive and counterproductive extrinsic motivators. It would certainly help to explain the disparity between domains where there seems to be evidence they work (such as the right kind of token economy system for improving classroom behavior) and the strong rally against the use of punishments and rewards, such as those from Alfie Kohn. Rather than struggling to decide who is right, are extrinsic motivators good or bad, the much better question to ask is what kinds of extrinsic motivators are good (and in what conditions) and which kinds are bad?

Alfie Kohn is right about the kinds of punishments and rewards he writes about. Not only is he writing about only one kind of extrinsic motivation, he is writing about one specific kind of reward: the bribery reward. Those are the kinds of rewards where you promise students something if they do something in return, such as offering a pizza party for anyone who gets an A on a test. But recall that the research suggests that even if such a move generates A’s on the test, it probably won’t generate long-term learning. Students won’t remember it three week later, or they won’t be able to apply it to other projects or work. And this certainly goes against the goals of education.

But where bribery rewards do not work, random rewards do indeed seem to be powerful. Where it is counterproductive to declare before the test that there will be an ice cream party for all who do well on it, it is fine to occasionally say, “You guys did so awesome on yesterday’s test we’re going to have an ice cream party today!”

This differs from a bribery reward, because the students didn’t know the reward would be coming. It was unexpected. Praise works under similar conditions. Praise is technically a reward but works very well when it is offered at random (unpredictable) times, and is spontaneous, and connected directly to the work students are doing. Rewards that are unanticipated and random have a very high impact.

But keep in mind that even if you never use words to “promise” an incentive, your behavior can turn a random reward into a bribery reward. If over the next three tests, you show a movie, or have a pizza party, or do what ever, your students will start to expect some sort of prize for doing well. You will have turned your good deed into a bribery reward by setting a pattern that does promise the reward. It’s important to remember that random does mean random and that you avoid establishing a pattern of expectation.

So, effective use of extrinsic motivation means that educators must avoiding bribery rewards.

Even though we do learn when motivated both intrinsically and extrinsically, that is not license to rely too heavily on extrinsic motivations or to misuse extrinsic motivations. Alfie Kohn reports on one kind of punishments and rewards: one that that shuts down learning. But not only are random rewards productive, but deeper research shows that there is another kind of extrinsic motivation that supports learning (which I’ll address in my next post in the series!).

 

 

4 Reasons We (Try To) Use Extrinsic Motivators

I just blogged about 5 reasons we should avoid extrinsic motivators such as punishments and rewards. If there is so much evidence against punishments and rewards, why are they used so widely in schools?

Here are 4 reasons I think we do it.

Reason 1 – They Are Widely Used:
Part of the answer may be precisely that, because they are used widely, we believe that they are fine to use. Often a practice is implemented because of its legitimacy rather than its proven effectiveness. This may be especially true since teachers are so challenged to find ways to reach underachieving students and extrinsic motivators are more widely implemented and accepted than some of the other approaches to motivating students described in this book.

Reason 2 – They Tend To Have a Temporary Effect:
A third reason we may rely on punishments and rewards is, as I mentioned in the previous post, that they do tend to have a temporary desired effect. Have you ever had an itch? Perhaps Poison Ivy, or your arm was in a cast and the skin dry underneath? Rewards are a lot like itches. What about when you scratch it. How does it feel for the first five second? Wonderful! And every moment after that, how does it feel? It hurts. Even when you leave it alone for a few minutes and then you go back to scratch it, it hurts. But what do we do? Continue to scratch it over and over, trying to get those really good five seconds back from the beginning. That’s rewards. We have a really good initial positive effect and then it shuts down learning (but we keep doing it, trying to get that initial response back).

Reason 3 – Education’s Long Relationship With Behaviorism:
Another reason we might be quick to use extrinsic motivation is because of the long history of behaviorism in education. Skinner’s behaviorism maintains that all learning is actually only behavior and that all behavior can be conditioned and shaped through attention just to the behavior, through the pattern of stimulus-response-reinforcement. Although Skinner’s behaviorism has strongly impacted the world of education, his minimization of the role of thought and the mind brought about fiery responses from other educators and learning theorists. Perkins (1992, p. 59) responds by saying, “by ignoring human thinking as an invalid ‘folk theory,’ behaviorism discouraged some people from interacting with students in ways that made plain the workings of the mind.”

Prior to the advent of behaviorism, it was accepted that thought and mental processes play a crucial role in determining human action. But behaviorism buried this belief, with its conception of humans as robots, or machines with input—output connections. However, behaviorism no longer plays a dominant role in psychology, clearly because we are not robots, machines, or hydraulic pumps. A broad array of mental processes, including information search and retrieval, attention, memory, categorization, judgment, and decision-making play essential roles in determining why students behave as they do. (Weiner 1984, p. 16)

Perhaps the central problem with behaviorism is that it is presented as a general (comprehensive?) learning theory, instead of as a well developed, but small, piece of the puzzle. It has explanatory power for certain aspects of learning (such as appropriate behavior or recall of simple, disassociated facts) but lacks it for others (intrinsic interests, creativity, higher order thinking, anything related to the inner workings of the mind). This said, don’t think of behaviorism as incompatible with the cognitive theories. The “anti-cognitive” dimension grows from how behaviorism is sometimes applied. The theory, instead, simply describes an aspect of learning complementary to cognitive theories. Even Lepper, et al. (1973) and Weiner (1984) admit that behaviorist approaches, such as token economy systems, are effective at maintaining appropriate behavior in the classroom, an important precursor to learning.

Reason 4 – We’re Not Aware There Are Productive and Counterproductive Motivators:
Perhaps the largest reason that punishments and rewards are misused in schools is that teachers are not fully aware that there are both productive and counterproductive extrinsic motivators and which work and which do not.

It is this idea of counterproductive extrinsic motivators that I will explore in my next post in this series.

References:

Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. (1973). Undermining children’s intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the “over-justification” hypothesis. Journal of personality and social psychology, 28, 129-137.

Perkins, D. (1992). Smart schools: Better thinking and learning for every child. NY, NY. The Free Press.

Weiner, B. (1984). Principles of a theory of student motivation and their application within an attributional framework. In R. Ames and C. Ames (Eds.), Research on motivation in education (Vol. 1): Student motivation (pp. 15-38). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

5 Reasons to Avoid Rewards and Other Extrinsic Motivators

This is Part Two in a series on the complex issues surrounding extrinsic motivation.

I ended the last post with this paragraph:

The concern over counter-productive extrinsic motivation is that although they may get a student to participate in classroom activities, certain types of extrinsic motivation can interfere with optimal learning. Essentially, when students perform for grades or other rewards, they no longer perceive that their learning has intrinsic value.

Here are the 5 reasons why we should avoid extrinsic rewards.

Reason 1: It Has a Temporary Effect – In one representative study (Birch et al., 1984), young children were introduced to an unfamiliar beverage called “kefir.” Some were just asked to drink it; others were praised lavishly for doing so; a third group was promised treats if they drank enough. Those children who received either verbal or tangible rewards consumed more of the beverage than other children, as one might predict. This reminds me of when you have dry skin and scratch it. It feels wonderful for the first few seconds. But remember, it then quickly starts to hurt and be uncomfortable (but we keep doing it anyway, trying to get that initial great feeling back!).

Reason 2: It Kills Any Interest That Was There – A week after the initial kefir study, the children who received either verbal or tangible rewards found the drink significantly less appealing than they did before, whereas children who were offered no rewards liked it just as much as, if not more than, they had earlier. Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett (1973) found that an over-reliance on extrinsic rewards can squelch any pre-existing intrinsic interest, and diminish interest in doing the activity once the rewards are removed.

Reason 3: The Goal Shifts to the Reward – Preexisting interest is killed because the goal shifts from the intrinsic enjoyment of the activity to the reward. In one study, children who enjoyed playing basketball were given rewards for playing. Soon, however, when the rewards were stopped, the children didn’t want to play anymore. The goal of playing basketball shifted from having fun to getting the reward.

Reason 4: People Will Do The Minimum to Get the Reward – Kohn (1993) indicates that at least ten studies have shown that people offered a reward generally choose the easiest possible task. In the absence of rewards, by contrast, children are inclined to pick tasks that are just beyond their current levels of ability.

Reason 5: It Shuts Down Learning – At least two dozen studies have shown that people expecting to receive a reward for completing a task (or for doing it successfully) simply do not perform as well as those who expect nothing (Kohn, 1993). This effect is evident for young children, older children, and adults; for males and females; for rewards of all kinds; and for tasks ranging from memorizing facts to designing collages to solving problems. Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett (1973) found that an over-reliance on extrinsic rewards can damage the quality of work, impede the ability to be creative or to accomplish non-routine tasks. In general, the more cognitive sophistication and open-ended thinking that is required for a task, the worse people tend to do when they have been led to perform that task for a reward (Kohn, 1994).

These five reasons have got to be sufficient reason to avoid rewards! Why then, do we do them anyway? That will be the focus of my next post in this series on Extrinsic Rewards.

References:

Birch, L.L., Marlin, D.W., & Rotter, J. (1984). Eating as the ‘Means’ Activity in a Contingency: Effects on Young Children’s Food Preference. Child development 55(2, Apr): 431-439. EJ 303 231.

Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by rewards: the trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A’s, praise, and other bribes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Kohn, A. (1994). The Risks of Rewards. ERIC digest. Urbana, IL: ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education.

Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. (1973). Undermining children’s intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the “over-justification” hypothesis. Journal of personality and social psychology, 28, 129-137.

Extrinsic Rewards – Productive or Counter-Productive – Part 1

A friend and colleague contacted me recently about his son’s school’s use of extrinsic motivators. He had been thinking about rewards and motivation and how they might impede learning, and wanted to know my thoughts on the subject. He wrote, “Rewards seem like an easy thing that so many teachers gravitate to… pizza parties, special days, treats, etc…”

Actually, the issue of extrinsic motivation is a pretty complex one, and I had no quick answer for my friend (of course, my stepson says I don’t have a short answer for anything!). So I promised him that I would blog about the topic. This will be the first of several posts over the next week or so.

Let’s start with a quick review of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation and a little about why this is an involved topic.

Teachers can do many things to try to make learning more intrinsically motivating for students. Tying into student interests and goals, as well as making learning interesting are all approaches to leveraging intrinsic motivation. As you can imagine, it is probably not practical to do this for every child all the time.

When the motivation comes from outside the student, when the student is required to do something, driven by the desire to receive some reward or avoid some sort of punishment (such as grades, stickers, or teacher approval), the student is extrinsically motivated.

The use of rewards, prizes, incentives, consequences, and punishments are certainly common practice in schools. And the work people do in the real world is often regulated by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. People need to learn and do things that they may not find interesting or aligned with their goals. Some of the master painters have said that they do better work when they had a commission rather than when they were just working on there own.

Take educators as an example. At conferences, I often ask how many of the participants do better work when they have a deadline and many hands go up. Also, teachers confirm that they went into teaching partly because there is something about the profession they like and enjoy (perhaps they really love the content in their discipline, or maybe they really love working with young people and want to make a difference in their lives). But they took the job also because they have bills to pay, and that there are courses or parts of courses that they teach because their principal asked them to, or the state requires them to, not because teachers necessarily wanted to or find it interesting.

Extrinsic motivation has received a lot of bad press in both the popular educational literature and research journals. There is certainly evidence that a focus on punishments and rewards can be counterproductive to learning (Kohn, 1993, 1994).

How can this is true at the same time that people are guided daily by both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and incentives and consequences are in widespread use in schools? No wonder there is a lot of confusion over whether extrinsic motivation is productive or counter-productive.

The answer is actually both more complex and simpler than that. There are different kinds of extrinsic motivation and each can either improve learning or shut it down.

The concern over counter-productive extrinsic motivation is that although they may get a student to participate in classroom activities, certain types of extrinsic motivation can interfere with optimal learning. Essentially, when students perform for grades or other rewards, they no longer perceive that their learning has intrinsic value.

Coming next: the reasons to avoid rewards.

References

Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by rewards: the trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A’s, praise, and other bribes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Kohn, A. (1994). The Risks of Rewards. ERIC digest. Urbana, IL: ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education.