Predicting the use of praise among pre-service teachers

This investigation concerns feedback praise (person and process praise) and how it relates to implicit theories of intelligence (entity and incremental theories) among pre-service teachers. In the first study 176 pre-service teachers participated, while in the second study 151 of such teachers participated. Two new measures, one of feedback praise and the other of social comparison, were found to be reliable and valid. In the first study, process praise was predicted by the variable incremental theories of intelligence and person praise was predicted by the acceptance of stereotypes. However, these results suffered in the reliability analyses and, even if the models are significant, they should be rejected. The results of the second study are more reliable, with regression analyses showing that person praise can be predicted from the two predictor variables of entity theories of intelligence, and social comparison. Some positive effects of teacher education were found in the second part; for example, the preference for person praise was significantly lower in the last semester than in the first.

Författare: Anna-Carin Jonsson och Dennis Beach

Predicting the use of praise among pre-service teachers: The influence of implicit theories of intelligence, social comparison and stereotype acceptance

Education Inquiry, vol 3, 2/2012