Alfie Kohn writes about education, parenting, and motivation, arguing against rewards, grades, homework, and competition.
HN commenters cite his book Punished by Rewards to argue that extrinsic rewards reduce intrinsic motivation, and link his critique of the 'mindset' idea.
It is true that helping a child learn about resiliency is important. As Carol Dweck says, the brain is like a muscle and effort can eventually be rewarded with skill. So it is good to praise effort and persistence. And failure is part of life and needs to be dealt with.
That said, consider Alfie Kohn's writing, such as "No Contest: The Case Against Competition": https://www.alfiekohn.org/contest/
"No Contest, which has been stirring up controversy since its publication in 1986, stands as the definitive critique of competition. Drawing from hundreds of studies, Alfie Kohn eloquently argues that our struggle to defeat each other -- at work, at school, at play, and at home -- turns all of us into losers. ... No Contest makes a powerful case that "healthy competition" is a contradiction in terms. Because any win/lose arrangement is undesirable, we will have to restructure our institutions for the benefit of ourselves, our children, and our society. For this [1992] revised edition, Kohn adds a comprehensive account of how students can learn more effectively by working cooperatively in the classroom instead of struggling to be Number One. He also offers a pointed and personal afterword, assessing shifts in American thinking on competition and describing reactions to his provocative message."
From the book:
"If competitiveness is inherently compensatory, if it is an effort to prove oneself and stave off feelings of worthlessness, it follows that the healthier the…
It seems I have to qualify "recent", this was already studied in the 70's [1]. But recent material is available as well [2],[3],[4],[6]. [3] provides a view from an economists perspective (incentives), [6] looks at motivation of employees and compares to performance and well-being outcomes.
The psychological question is about intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, and has been studied for a long time now, for an overview, see [5] or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation
1. "The Effects of Contingent and Noncontingent Rewards and Controls on Intrinsic Motivation", 1972, Edward L.Deci,
[Available online] http://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/1972_Deci_OBHP.pdf
2. Punished by Rewards, Alfie Kohn, 1999, https://www.alfiekohn.org/punished-rewards/
3. "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation ", Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2003, https://academic.oup.com/restud/article-abstract/70/3/489/1571401
4. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation - The Search for Optimal Motivation and Performance, Carol Sansone & Judith Harackiewicz, 2000
https://www.amazon.com/Intrinsic-Extrinsic-Motivation-Performance-Educational/dp/0126190704
5. "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation", Lisa Legault, 2016,
[Available online] http://www.lcwu.edu.pk/ocd/cfiles/Professional%20Studies/FC/%20B.Ed.-%20102/IntandExtMot-EncyclPID-Legault2016.pdf
6. "Do intrinsic and extrinsic motivation relate differently to employee outcomes?", Kuvaas et al., 2017, [Available online]…
That comment sums up what I learned from http://www.alfiekohn.org/homework-myth/.
Every so often I run across more recent research on the same topic. It always comes to the same conclusion.
But parents generally feel better about their kids having poor results if they see evidence that their kids are at least putting out lots of effort. Homework serves as evidence, so it is hard to get rid of it.
In the meantime I'm lucky that 3/4 of my children get to go to https://www.vandammeacademy.com/ which believes in doing what is proven to work. Therefore they have a no homework policy, adopt proven methods like Singapore math, and so on. Which is why 3/4 of my children are getting a truly superior education with far, far less work.
Just to give a relevant anecdote about how strongly parents can feel about it, I know a fellow parent there who turned down a $400k/year job at Google because it would have meant that he had to move to Silicon Valley. He is convinced that he has found the best K-8 school in the country and won't take that away from his children.
He's far from the only parent at the school who feels that way.
Most people who go through school don't learn to become competent writers. This is shows that school does not teach people to be competent writers.
So competent writers generally did not learn that skill in school. At best they learned some foundational skills. But the competent writers that I've known, often think that there were betters ways in which they could have learned those skills.
I have sometimes been accused of writing competently. And so it should be no surprise that I agree with them. School was a terrible way for me to learn. And I credit most of my skills to things that I did outside of school.
This goes doubly for homework assignments. As https://www.alfiekohn.org/homework-myth/ explains, research shows that homework is useless overall. It can help, or it can hurt. And on average it balances out to no net benefit.
I have ADHD. This reduces the odds that homework helps and increases the odds that it hurts. Growing up, homework was a constant burden on my life. I would have been far better off if I'd been given less homework. Particularly homework which looks like a practice drill.
Extrinsic motivation takes the form of external incentives to do something, such as the promise of money. In actuality, though, it seems that these incentives actually demotivate people from performing the task, because it kills their intrinsic motivation, their innate desire to do that task (such as a true interest in the work).
So, instead of an innate desire to take on the task, the person now has an artificially incentivized desire, which results in lower motivation, since the motivation doesn't come from their own innate desire to do the work, but rather from the money.
"At least 70 studies have found that rewards tend to undermine interest in the task (or behavior) itself; this is one of the most thoroughly replicated findings in the field of social psychology." http://www.alfiekohn.org/managing/cbdmamam.htm — and see also Alfie Kohn's book Punished By Rewards.
Replacing intrinsic motivation with extrinsic rewards cheapens the activity and makes it less enjoyable. Awarding me badges for brushing my teeth and taking out the trash is a great way to help me do boring tasks. Awarding me badges for having deep, meaningful conversations with my partner . . . not so helpful. Alfie Kohn has collected decades of studies and written about that in his book Punished by Rewards. It's one of the books I try to give away to friends and coworkers who are interested in the subject. The pro-gamification folks seem to want to pretend that they're doing something totally different this time and they can ignore all the previous data.
https://www.alfiekohn.org/topics/motivation-inside/