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Teachers’ perceptions
In the questionnaire survey, teachers were asked to indicate the extent to which they
praised their pupils in mathematics classes according to each of four criteria of teachers’
praise:
• when pupils get good results in Maths tests, compared to other pupils;
• when pupils have improved results in Maths tests over previous results;
• when pupils make more effort in Maths, compared to other pupils;
• when pupils make more effort in Maths than before.
Teachers’ perceptions of the extent to which they praised their pupils in mathematics
classes were measured with five-point rating scales; 5 for always and 1 for never. The
extent to which teachers reported praising their pupils differed according to the reason
for praise. These differences were statistically significant. Teachers of both age groups
were most likely to praise their pupils when they made more effort than before. 93.6% of
5th grade teachers and 81.0% of 8th grade teachers reported that they always or nearly
always praised pupils for this reason. On average, they reported that they praised their
pupils for this reason nearly always. A relatively small distribution of scores was found, in
teachers’ praising their pupils for this reason, especially among the responses of 5th
grade teachers. Teachers of both age groups reported praising their pupils sometimes
based on pupils’ improvement of results, and sometimes based on their pupils’ making
more effort than others. Teachers of both age groups were least likely to praise their
pupils for better results than others. They reported that they hardly ever praised their
pupils for this. 5th grade teachers adopted praise based on more effort than before more
specifically than other kinds of praise, while 8th grade teachers tended to adopt praise
based on absolute comparison rather than praise based on relative comparison. No
significant difference (p<. 01) was found in the teachers’ reported praise of their pupils,
irrespective of the reasons for the praise, between the responses of teachers of the
different age groups (see Table 7.4.9 and Figure 7.4.6).
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