A Mixed Study on the Effectiveness of Verbal Praise in Primary School Class

Abstract

Verbal praise is frequently used as motivation by teachers in class and truly effective verbal praise plays an important role in maintaining classroom order and stimulating positive student behavior. In this study,  students from three classes of X Primary School of Jiangxi Province were interviewed and 328 verbal praise expressions collected. The subsequent empirical study on the effectiveness of verbal praise in four dimensions,  namely content,  spatiality,  subjectivity and time,  found that verbal praise generates both shallow and deep effects. The shallow effects act as a foundation for deep effects but do not necessarily result in deep effects. Other conditions are required to actualize a deep effect.