The Power of Specific Praise

We all recognize the power of praise! If you’re looking to make the most of praise to increase student outcomes, check out these tips.

Praise should emphasize student effort and highlight specific, desirable behaviors or actions. Research by Dr. Carol Dweck revealed that when students are praised on their effort, which is something they can control, they were more likely to try harder tasks and persist in these tasks for longer periods of time. Keep this in mind the next time your students are working on a new challenge. Dweck also discovered that when students were praised on their intelligence, a quality outside of students’ control, they were more likely to underestimate their skills and only attempt easy tasks for fear of showing their weaknesses.  When you want to praise your students for their work, move beyond “good job” or “way to go” to power-up student focus and achievement!