ABSTRACT
All teachers learn that praising pupils’ performance is a good thing to do. This is not a new wisdom but it has received additional impetus following the increase of interest, over the last fifteen years or so, in behavioural approaches to teaching and the management of classroom behaviour. It is not uncommon for teachers to give or receive the advice that they should cope with disruptive or poorly motivated pupils by praising them when they are behaving acceptably or working. The fact that teachers can systematically use their own behaviour and responses to pupils in this way with good effect is well established (see Wheldall and Merrett, this volume). In contrast, relatively little is known about the ways in which praise is normally used in classrooms, about the intentions teachers have when expressing approval, about the ways in which such acts are understood and about the variety of effects that praise may have.
