What Type of Praise Raises Your Grade?

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of this experiment is to determine if the type of praise a student receives can alter a student's mindset and therefore influence their performance on an IQ test. I believe students who receive growth praise will have the highest test scores. Methods/Materials The Raven IQ test was administered to three groups of ten, 12-14 yr old honor students. Half way through the test the students were given a certain type of praise according to which group they were assigned to: fixed, growth or control. I then recorded each student's score for each part of the test and calculated the averages for each subject group for each part of the test. Results The results were inconclusive. There were no significant differences in the average test scores before and after recieving the praise between the subject groups. This indicates that the type of praise that the test subjects received did not influence their test scores. Conclusions/Discussion My hypothesis was not supported. This experiment did not show the results I was expecting nor support the research I had found on mindsets. One reason for this might have been that the subjects did not think the praise was believable as it was given by a peer and not an authoritative figure such as a teacher or parent. Also I could have allowed more time between tests for the subjects to absorb the praise and influence their mindsets.

Competition history

• CSEF 2013 Behavioral & Social Sciences · Entry J0418

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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