First of all, material reward and its positive influence on individual behavior.
Material reward refers to providing tangible rewards such as money, medals and gifts. Behaviorists believe that the external environment plays a decisive role in shaping behavior, and rewards can strengthen children's behavior. In the late 1920s, Skinner used the "Skinner Box" to study animal learning experiments, and found that the result of behavior would affect the frequency of behavior reappearance. Skinner believes that reinforcement is a means to increase the probability of a certain reaction, and reinforcement is indispensable in shaping and maintaining behavior. At the same time, Thorndike put forward a mechanism to explain the function of operational conditions-the rule of effect. If the behavior is rewarded, the "result" will be enhanced, which makes the behavior more likely to appear in the future; On the contrary. If punished, it will be weakened and the possibility of subsequent occurrence will be reduced. According to the law of effect, reward is the key to the operational conditions. Kelle, a behaviorist learning theorist, also predicted that if rewards and activities continue to match, activities themselves will become secondary reinforcement and enhance the effect of rewards.
Second, the negative impact of material rewards on personal behavior.
DeCharms first thinks that external rewards may have a negative impact on internal motivation. DeCharms proposed that when external rewards are used as a stimulus to stimulate an activity with internal motivation, people will transfer their sense of control or their knowledge or feelings about personal cause and effect to external resources, which will lead them to feel that they are pawns of external rewards. The motivation of personal behavior changes from internal interests to external returns. Similarly, Fislinger believes that external rewards will affect individuals' ideas and attitudes towards work reasons. According to cognitive dissonance theory, external rewards will reduce internal motivation. Whether the reward can promote the occurrence of the target behavior can be considered separately. For uninterested activities, behaviorism is undoubtedly verifiable, and rewards play an important role in shaping and maintaining the target behavior. However, for an activity that is interested in it or has intrinsic motivation, its intrinsic motivation may be damaged after the external reward is stimulated, which is manifested in the reduction of the target behavior after the reward is stopped, and the intrinsic motivation may even fall back to a worse level than before.
To sum up, we find that the influence of material rewards on individual behavior is controversial. Then, in early childhood education, how should we give children material rewards? This is a question that we educators and front-line preschool teachers should ponder deeply. The following article provides some educational suggestions for the reference of preschool teachers, hoping to guide the improvement of preschool education quality.
First, make clear the ultimate goal of material reward.
In kindergarten, commonly used material rewards are small red flowers, small stickers, small medals and so on. Its role is to further strengthen children's good performance, so that they can continue to maintain positive behavior, and at the same time set an example for the whole class to learn and demonstrate the objects and contents of learning. However, in the previous kindergarten education, many kindergarten teachers may be rewarded for the sake of reward, and blindly giving material rewards will not play a positive role. The ultimate goal of reward should be to stimulate children's intrinsic motivation and let them spontaneously show positive behavior. If our teachers only know how to reward children's good behavior, they will make children regard the reward as their own goal and the ultimate goal of their good performance, so that they only care about their current reward and their comparison and show off with other children. As kindergarten teachers, we should carefully observe every child, understand the intrinsic motivation behind some behaviors of children, and stimulate their intrinsic motivation, so that our teachers can achieve the best guidance for children, while external stimulation only temporarily arouses children's good performance. Only by stimulating children's inner fun and enthusiasm is the best guarantee for children's sustained and good development. Blind mechanical rewards will only make our kindergarten teachers fail to achieve their ultimate goal. Therefore, as teachers, especially kindergarten teachers, we should pay special attention to the correct use of reward methods, not abuse rewards, understand the reinforcement that works for each child, adapt to local conditions, and be targeted, so as to get twice the result with half the effort.
Secondly, we should reasonably implement material rewards.
When using material rewards, preschool teachers are required to be witty and flexible, but not absolutely rigid. Teachers should carefully analyze the motivation and attitude behind children's positive behavior, and then give rewards to maximize the positive role of material rewards. However, some kindergarten teachers only regard material rewards as a form of activity or a means of expression, which is very one-sided. For example, some kindergarten teachers only reward children when they see positive behavior, but ignore children who don't act, and don't consider the reasons behind each child's behavior, whether they have made progress, whether they have done better than last time, and so on. Therefore, kindergarten teachers should use this reward method reasonably and comprehensively, and master its scale. In addition, kindergarten teachers should be clear about the specific reasons when giving children material rewards. For example, some teachers will give material rewards to children when they have positive behaviors, but they will not tell them why. This will cause children not to know what the reward is for, which will not only promote the shaping and maintenance of children's good behavior, but also enable children to develop a material utilitarian psychological and ideological state, and regard maintaining positive behavior as something that can be rewarded and praised. Therefore, in education and teaching, kindergarten teachers should be targeted and specific when using material rewards, so that children can know the specific reasons why they get rewards, and it is best to arouse the resonance of the whole class and let material rewards really play an incentive role.
Finally, material rewards and spiritual rewards go hand in hand.
A good spiritual reward can touch a child's soul and even change his life. For young children, the satisfaction of spiritual needs can produce lasting motivation more than the satisfaction of material needs. Excessive implementation of material rewards will easily weaken children's interest in learning, and will also lead children to form a utilitarian view of learning. Therefore, kindergarten teachers should insist on giving priority to spiritual rewards, supplemented by material rewards, according to children's age, gender, needs and family conditions, so as to avoid the negative impact of excessive material rewards on reward dependence and weakening motivation. In this regard, teachers should not implement material rewards frequently and excessively in classroom teaching, let alone mislead children to blindly pursue material rewards, but should gradually transition the types of rewards to the stage of spiritual rewards. For example, when a child shows good behavior, the kindergarten teacher can praise the child verbally in front of the whole class, tell the child that when mom and dad come to pick you up later, they will tell them about your positive performance today, and then gradually reduce the number of rewards to make the child pay more attention to his good behavior and performance. For another example, guiding children to maintain positive behavior within a specified period of time will make them aware of their own abilities and feel the control over the environment. When the pride of completing activities becomes a reward, children will be motivated by internal motivation and continue to produce this new behavior. In this way, with the growth of children's age, kindergarten teachers can gradually remove material rewards and gradually use spiritual rewards to strengthen and maintain children's new behaviors.
Rewards can not only shape behavior, but also destroy it. Preschool teachers should grasp the "degree" of material rewards in preschool education, implement reward strategies reasonably, develop children's positive qualities, and make children develop physically and mentally healthily.