An analysis of general education teachers’ use of diverse praise

Abstract The current study examined teachers’ use of diverse praise or the extent to which teachers used a variety of praise as opposed to using the same praise repeatedly. Verbatim general and behavior‐specific praise data were analyzed from a larger study where 5,721 min of direct observation were collected across 28 kindergarten through fifth‐grade classrooms. On average, teachers used 3.7 total diverse praise categories per observation. Teachers also used more general, diverse praise categories per observation per hour compared with behavior‐specific, diverse praise categories. Although results did not indicate statistically significant differences in the amount of diverse praise between early elementary school teachers and later elementary teachers, a clear pattern of diminishing diverse praise was observed such that later elementary teachers provided less diverse praise per observation per hour.