In short
- In experiments, tangible rewards promised in advance lowered later interest in activities that people already enjoyed.
- The two main meta-analyses disagreed: Cameron and Pierce (1994) found little harm overall, and Deci, Koestner and Ryan (1999) found clear harm from expected tangible rewards.
- Both found that praise did better than prizes, and one reading study found that a book as a reward did less harm than a token.
- A certificate should name a specific reading achievement, come with honest praise for effort and strategy, and never be the reason to read.
Certificates are cheap and quick to print. Whether they make pupils read more is a harder question, and researchers have argued about it since the 1970s. The argument is worth knowing, because it shows when a reward helps and when it backfires. This article reports what the experiments found and why the two main meta-analyses disagreed. Then it turns to practice: what a certificate should say, when to give it, and what to do for pupils who never win.
Do reading certificates motivate students?
They can, but not reliably, and a badly designed certificate can do harm. A reward may get a pupil to start reading. A reward that is promised in advance, for simply doing the task, can leave the pupil less interested once the reward stops. The effect depends on what the certificate is for and how it is given.
The safest certificate names a specific achievement, arrives with honest praise and is tied closely to reading itself. The riskiest is a prize promised in advance, to pupils who already enjoy reading, for simply taking part.
What the first experiment found
The debate began with a study of a certificate. Lepper, Greene and Nisbett (1973) worked with preschool children who already liked drawing with felt-tip pens. The reward was a 'Good Player' award, a certificate with a gold star and the child's name.
Each child was placed in one of three groups. The first group was promised the award for drawing. The second received the same award as a surprise afterwards. The third received nothing. One to two weeks later, the pens were put out again in the classroom during free play, and observers recorded who chose to draw.
The children who had been promised the award showed less interest in drawing than either of the other groups. The surprise award did not have that effect. The authors had predicted this. Their 'overjustification' hypothesis was that a child who does something in order to get a reward comes to see it as a means to an end.
Note the sample. Every child was chosen because they already liked drawing. The study says nothing about pupils who dislike an activity to begin with.
Why the two main meta-analyses disagreed
Many experiments followed, and two teams pooled them with different results.
Cameron and Pierce (1994) analysed 96 experimental studies. They concluded that, overall, reward does not decrease intrinsic motivation. Verbal praise increased it. They found one negative effect, when expected tangible rewards were given simply for doing a task, and they described it as minimal.
Deci, Koestner and Ryan (1999) analysed 128 studies and reached a different conclusion. Rewards given for taking part, for finishing or for performing well all reduced later free-choice interest in the activity. So did tangible rewards as a whole, and expected rewards as a whole. Positive feedback raised interest. Unexpected rewards, and rewards that did not depend on the task, showed no effect.
Deci and colleagues argued that the earlier analysis had combined interesting and dull tasks. In their view the effect applies only to interesting tasks, because a boring task has little intrinsic motivation to lose. They also counted symbolic rewards such as good-player certificates as tangible rewards. In that research, a certificate is a prize.
They reported an age difference too. Tangible rewards tended to be more harmful for children than for college students.
The two analyses share more than the argument suggests. Both found that praise did better than tangible prizes. Both placed the risk in the same spot: a tangible reward, promised in advance, for doing the task. They disagree on how large and how general the harm is.
| Reward type | When it helps | When it harms | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Certificate or prize promised in advance | It may get a reluctant pupil to start. The experiments did not test this, because they used activities people already liked. | When pupils already enjoy the activity. Later free-choice interest fell, most of all when the reward was for simply taking part. | Lepper, Greene & Nisbett (1973); Deci, Koestner & Ryan (1999) |
| Unexpected certificate after the work | When it marks something the pupil has already done. No loss of interest was found. | Possibly when it becomes routine and pupils learn to expect it. That is reasoning, not a tested finding. | Lepper, Greene & Nisbett (1973); Deci, Koestner & Ryan (1999) |
| Praise and positive feedback | When it is sincere and is about effort and strategy, which the pupil controls. | When it leans on comparison with other pupils, or sets a standard the pupil cannot reach. | Henderlong & Lepper (2002); both meta-analyses |
| A book as the reward | Pupils given a book, like pupils given no reward, were more motivated to read afterwards than pupils given a token. | No harm was reported, but this is a single study of third-grade pupils. | Marinak & Gambrell (2008) |
| A token or unrelated prize | No benefit for later reading was reported. | Pupils given a token were less motivated to read afterwards than the book and no-reward groups. | Marinak & Gambrell (2008) |
Rewards close to reading behave differently
Marinak and Gambrell (2008) tested rewards for reading itself, with third-grade pupils. Some pupils received a book as a reward, some received a token and some received nothing. The researchers then measured how far pupils persisted with reading afterwards.
Pupils who received a book, and pupils who received no reward, were more motivated to read afterwards than pupils who received a token. The authors concluded that the closeness of the reward to the desired behaviour matters. Books were less undermining than tokens.
Note the limits. The finding is that a book did less harm than a token, not that a book beat no reward. It is also one study, with pupils of one age.
Gambrell (2011), writing for teachers, set out seven rules of engagement for reading motivation. They cover relevance, access to books, time for sustained reading, choice, talking with others about texts, success with challenging texts, and incentives that reflect the value of reading. A certificate can serve only the last of these. For more on reward design, see reading rewards, badges and streaks.
What praise adds to a certificate
What you say when you hand over a certificate may matter as much as the paper. Henderlong and Lepper (2002) reviewed research on praise and children's intrinsic motivation. They concluded that praise can undermine motivation, enhance it or make no difference.
According to their review, praise that the child perceives as sincere is most helpful when it does four things:
- It links the result to causes the child controls, such as effort and strategy.
- It supports the child's autonomy.
- It builds a sense of competence without leaning heavily on comparison with others.
- It sets standards and expectations the child can reach.
They add that age, gender and culture can change how praise is received. That caution matters in any EFL school.
How to give a reading certificate
The advice below applies the findings above. Where it goes beyond them, it says so.
Name a specific achievement, not a rank
Write what the pupil did. 'Finished ten stories at A2' and 'Read on 20 days this month' are achievements. 'Third place' is a comparison. Henderlong and Lepper (2002) favour praise that does not lean on social comparison. A specific achievement is also open to every pupil.
Surprise more often than you promise
In Lepper, Greene and Nisbett (1973), the promised award lowered later interest and the unexpected award did not. Deci, Koestner and Ryan (1999) found no effect of unexpected rewards across studies. So give some certificates without announcing them first. If you do announce criteria, tie them to a standard of reading, not to taking part.
Public or private?
None of the studies described here compared public and private presentation. What follows is reasoning. A public ceremony adds comparison, which the praise review warns against leaning on. A quiet handover, with a sentence about what the pupil did, keeps attention on the reading.
When to give it
Timing has not been tested for reading certificates either. These are practical suggestions:
- Give it soon after the achievement, while the pupil remembers the reading.
- Mark milestones in the reading, such as a finished level, not dates in the calendar.
- Give it rarely enough that it still tells the pupil something.
Classroom example (suggested wording, not a tested script)
Weaker: 'Certificate of Excellence. Awarded to Sara, Top Reader, 2nd place, Term 1.'
Stronger: 'Awarded to Sara, who finished twelve A2 stories this term and scored 80% or more on nine of the quizzes.'
What the teacher says: 'You went back and re-read the chapters you found hard. That is why your quiz scores went up.'
What comes with it: her choice of the next book from the class library.
What to do for pupils who never win
If certificates go only to the top readers, most pupils can expect never to receive one. You can change that without handing a certificate to everyone.
- Set criteria on personal progress: a first finished book, a first full week of daily reading, a move up one level.
- Match competitions by reading level, so lower-level readers have contests they can win. See fair reading competitions by level.
- Recognise strategies as well as totals: re-reading a hard chapter, following the audio, looking up a word.
- Avoid blanket participation certificates. Rewards for simply taking part showed the largest drop in later interest in Deci, Koestner and Ryan (1999).
- Build the conditions on Gambrell's (2011) list first: choice, access, time and texts a pupil can succeed with.
For pupils who avoid reading altogether, rewards are a small part of the answer. See strategies for reluctant readers.
Does this apply to older EFL pupils?
Transfer these findings with care. Lepper, Greene and Nisbett (1973) studied preschool children drawing. Marinak and Gambrell (2008) studied third-grade pupils, and their study was about reading motivation in general, not reading in a foreign language. In Deci, Koestner and Ryan (1999), most of the children in the pooled studies were preschool or elementary pupils. Only six studies used high school students.
Three things follow for a school that teaches EFL to pupils aged 8 to 16:
- The evidence fits your youngest pupils best and your teenagers least.
- The age trend in Deci, Koestner and Ryan (1999) suggests tangible rewards do less harm as learners get older. It does not show that they do good.
- The experiments used activities that participants already liked. Many EFL pupils do not yet enjoy reading in English, so the results may not transfer.
None of the studies described here tested certificates with EFL readers, so watch your own pupils. If reading drops when the certificates stop, the certificates were doing the work. See also motivating teenagers and young learners.
How iRead handles this
In iRead, badges unlock automatically as students play, in tiers, and track streaks, hint-free clears and mastery across games. Students also earn certificates and keep a Reading Passport, one record of their reading. In the daily run, reading is the only way to score. Public leaderboards show school-level results only, and a student sees their own standing privately inside the app.
The core principle: A certificate should tell a pupil what they did, not where they ranked. Tie it to reading, say why it was earned, and never make it the reason to read.
See it in iRead: Students earn trophies and certificates, and keep a Reading Passport, one record of their reading. Badges unlock automatically as students play, in tiers.
See the reading competitionKey takeaway
Use certificates to mark real reading achievements, often as a surprise, with specific praise. Do not promise prizes to pupils just for taking part.
Frequently asked questions
Do rewards motivate students to read?
They may start the behaviour, but experiments show a risk. Deci, Koestner and Ryan (1999) found that expected tangible rewards reduced later free-choice interest in activities people already liked. Positive feedback raised interest, and unexpected rewards showed no effect. So what matters is how a reward is given.
What should a reading certificate say?
Name the specific achievement: the number of stories finished, the level completed or the days read. Avoid ranks such as 'second place'. Add a spoken sentence about the effort or strategy behind the result. The Henderlong and Lepper (2002) review of praise supports that kind of feedback.
Are books better prizes than toys or tokens?
In one study, yes. Marinak and Gambrell (2008) found that third-grade pupils given a book were more motivated to read afterwards than pupils given a token. Pupils given no reward were also more motivated than the token group. So a book did less harm, not more good.
What reading award ideas do not rank pupils?
Award a first finished book, a completed level, a month of regular reading, a move up one level or a clear rise in quiz accuracy. Each names something the pupil did. Pair the certificate with a book or extra reading time, which keeps the reward close to reading.
Sources
- Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627-668. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.125.6.627
- Cameron, J., & Pierce, W. D. (1994). Reinforcement, reward, and intrinsic motivation: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 64(3), 363-423. doi.org/10.3102/00346543064003363
- Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (1973). Undermining children's intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the "overjustification" hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28(1), 129-137. doi.org/10.1037/h0035519
- Marinak, B. A., & Gambrell, L. B. (2008). Intrinsic motivation and rewards: What sustains young children's engagement with text?. Literacy Research and Instruction, 47(1), 9-26. doi.org/10.1080/19388070701749546
- Henderlong, J., & Lepper, M. R. (2002). The effects of praise on children's intrinsic motivation: A review and synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 128(5), 774-795. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.128.5.774
- Gambrell, L. B. (2011). Seven rules of engagement: What's most important to know about motivation to read. The Reading Teacher, 65(3), 172-178. doi.org/10.1002/TRTR.01024