Monday, August 31, 2009

Overjustification effect and rewards in school


Reward programs in schools are a great opportunity to talk about the potentially important implications of the overjustification effect. This essay from the New York Times Review of Books might be a great starting place. The author effectively (to me) describes the inconsistent messages coming out of her the Accelerated Reader program at her daughter's school, where students get "points" for reading books and some books are worth more than others. Psych students could talk about the likely impact the overjustification effect might have on some readers in these programs, and they could broaden the discussion to how grades/point systems might affect motivation and behavior.

4 comments:

love123 said...

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Anonymous said...

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Danni said...

I used this article this week in class and it stimulted a great discussion!!

Unknown said...

Glad it worked Danni! What did your students have to say?