"Great job Heather!" This is a phrase most people would think I would be happy to hear at any time and at any place. In today's schools, the idea of positive reinforcement is used to foster and increase a student's particular behavior that in turn leads that student to learn any given theory. It is a key concept in behavior analysis and is said to have occurred when three things have taken place: first, a consequence is presented dependent on a behavior; second, the behavior becomes more likely to occur; and third, that behavior is likely to occur only because that consequence was presented dependent on that behavior. However, according to Alfie Kohn, "both rewards and punishments are ways of manipulating behavior that destroy the potential for real learning." In the following paper, I will be presenting both sides of the coin in the argument over whether or not rewards are an effective motivator or counterproductive to true learning.

"If one goal of education is to produce people who are ca

The next issue of rewarding children for specific behavior deals with the quality of output that is given in return for a reward. Anita Woolfolk states that by rewarding oneself for a job well done can lead to higher levels of performance on school work. (p.226) On the other hand, "at least two dozen studies have shown that people expecting to receive a reward for completing a task (or for doing it successfully) simply do not perform as well as those who expect nothing." In fact, the higher level of cognitive thinking that is required for the specific task in mind, the worse that person does when trying to perform the task for a reward.

pable of educating themselves, then students must learn to manage their own lives, set their own goals, and provide their own reinforcement." (Woolfolk, p.225) The idea behind this quote is fundamentally correct; however the means of getting to this level of self-management may be called into question. When Anita Woolfolk discusses goal setting as an important phase of self-management, she states that "some research s

Some common words found in the essay are:
Anita Woolfolk, Alfie Kohn, Long-run Punishment, positive reinforcement, behavior occur, alfie kohn, consequence dependent behavior, anita woolfolk, research suggests, dependent behavior, goals public, consequence dependent,
Approximate Word count = 717
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)