William James

R6

Quote: “Students do not turn off per se but from failing when a reward is at stake. In learning contexts free of extrinsic motivation, students are more likely to persist at a task and to remain interested in it even when they don’t do it well” (Kohn, p. 124).  

Question: The above quote made me think about how our current education system gives students the impression that their academic progression is determined by a letter grade. My question is that I wonder if grades were not distributed to students, if students would want to learn just for the sake of learning? If there were no grades, would intrinsic motivation increase?      

Personal Connection/Outside Connection: The articles by Kohn and Chance are two people out of many individuals who have a wide perspective of the pros and cons to rewards and punishments as it pertains to educating students. From my perspective, as a School Psychology student, I am behaviorally driven. However, a ride on the fence with some of the issues of operant learning as aspects to it should be enforced, while others should be tapered off. For instance, Kohn noted that the leading form of operant learning in our public schools is punishment: when students defy the teachers, they are punished; when they get into a fight, they are punished; when they are tardy, they are punished; when they chew gum in class, they are punished, and the list goes on. According to the information from my behavior management course, if the undesired behavior continues after a stimulus (reward or punishment) is given, then the stimulus did not work; this is most often the case with punishment when students are not taught an alternative behavior. I think there is a time for punishment and there is a time for rewards, all of which are individualized according to the specific needs of the student. Some students need to be praised a little more than another student to ensure that they are motivated to complete a task. Then the question becomes: is the child receiving praise only motivated to learn when praise is given or will the student want to learn in the absence of praise? Again, I think this is something that cannot be answered in a ‘cookie-cutter’ kind of way because each student is different.    

Overall, I would have to agree more with the arguments made by Chance in that punishment does seem to be detrimental in the intrinsic motivation of a child. Kohn makes some great points, but his arguments suggest that there should be no place for rewards or punishment within the school. I would have to disagree especially when discussing students who have a disability. In my behavior class, we discuss different management techniques that can be used to assess behavior and to help shape behaviors. In shaping a behavior (especially with student who have a disability), it is important that students are presented with some type of reinforcement so that the undesired behavior may gradually shape into a more desirable one. Students with a disability thrive off of a structured environment and reinforcements. I couldn’t imagine a school environment in which students were not given reinforcements; I think that would bring more fatality to intrinsic motivation than the use of rewards.