Impact of Verbal Praise on Teachers Motivation: Implications for Coping with 21st Century Challenges

Abstract

This work investigated the impact of verbal praise on teachers’ motivation. The study was conducted with 612 teachers in six public primary school in Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State, Nigeria. Teachers from the schools were assigned into treatment and control groups respectively. On the day of their experiment a Personal Orientation Questionnaire (POQ) was given to teachers as  pretest. Teachers were asked to take up four topics in primary science which lasted for four weeks. At the end of each lesson, teachers in the experimental group were encouraged verbally by the head of their schools and the research assistants but those in control group were not encouraged. At the end, Actualization Motivation Questionnaire, (AMQ) was given to the teachers as post-test. The data collected were analyzed with mean scores, standard deviation and ANCOVA. It was found that verbal praise promoted teachers actualization and motivation more than those non-verbal praise. Again,verbal praise enhanced female teachers performance higher than the male teachers. Recommendations were made based on the findings that school heads and government should accompany teachers’ school performance with public verbal praise.