> I would like to create learning software that emphasizes pride in failure over success. That the end is not the goal – continuous effort to try again and fail again, and try again and fail again is.
This reminds me of a study by Claudia M. Mueller and Carol S. Dweck of Columbia University - ‘Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation and Performance’ [1].
They said praise for the effort and not results.
They found that children who were praised for their intelligence, as compared to their effort, became overly focused on results. Following a failure, these same children persisted less, showed less enjoyment, attributed their failure to a lack of ability (which they believed they could not change), and performed poorly in future achievement efforts.
Children praised for effort chose problems that promised increased learning, they had continued interest in mastery by preferring to receive strategy-related information.
Praise is just a factor, and not even the most important one. You usually won't turn a lazy child successful by just switching from praising intelligence to praising effort. If the child is hardened in his/her intention to avoid effort, then you can't reach them with or without praise, until they develop an internal motivation. Nowadays school work has to compete with mobile games and other super addictive stuff that just overflows on the internet.
This reminds me of a study by Claudia M. Mueller and Carol S. Dweck of Columbia University - ‘Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation and Performance’ [1].
They said praise for the effort and not results.
They found that children who were praised for their intelligence, as compared to their effort, became overly focused on results. Following a failure, these same children persisted less, showed less enjoyment, attributed their failure to a lack of ability (which they believed they could not change), and performed poorly in future achievement efforts.
Children praised for effort chose problems that promised increased learning, they had continued interest in mastery by preferring to receive strategy-related information.
[1] PDF: https://psychology.stanford.edu/sites/all/files/Intelligence...