Reward contingencies and the development of children's skills and self-efficacy.

Abstract

This experiment tested the hypothesis that rewards offered for performance attainments during competency development promote children's arithmetic skills and percepts of self-efficacy.Children received didactic instruction in division operations and were offered rewards contingent on their actual performance, rewards for simply participating, or no rewards.Results showed that performance-contingent rewards led to the highest levels of division skill and self-efficacy, as well as the most rapid problem solving during the training program.In contrast, offering rewards for participation resulted in no benefits compared with offering no rewards.The findings suggest caution in how rewards are distributed in educational contexts. Article:According to Bandura (1977b), reinforcing consequences inform and motivate.As persons engage in activities, they notice the differential consequences of their actions.They thereby learn which behaviors lead to desirable outcomes and which result in un-desirable ones.Such information guides future behavior.Further, the anticipation of attaining desirable outcomes motivates behavior.The capacity to represent valued future outcomes in thought promotes initial task engagement and persistence.