抄録
Relative effects of various types of external reinforcements by a teacher on children's intrinsic motivation were investigated. Four reinforcement procedures were examined: verbal feedback, symbolic reward such as testimonial, verbal praise with a slight bodily touch, and control. One of the investigators gave daily 30 minute lessons to 276 children of 2nd and 3rd grades during four consecutive days in their usual classes. After each lesson children were set a home task which they might do or not. For the performance of home task, one of the reinforcements was given every day except for the performance of home task in the 4 th day's lesson, which was regarded as a relative measure of intrinsic moti-vation. Results indicated that the symbolic reward and the praise had detrimental effects on intrinsic motivation, though the performance of home task increased while receiving these reinforcements. Verbal feedback did not have any significant effects on the perfor-mance of home task.
