Getting good grades can be hard. You have to put in hours and hours of studying and revision in order to complete long exams that more often than not can simply wear you out. After that long, hard process, you then get your grade and can only hope that your revision paid off. This can make you feel as though some kind of compensation is needed for you to get those good grades.
You may be thinking of some kind of treat, such as some kind of sweets, being able to do something you want or you may be thinking about a reward that’s a little bit more valuable, such as getting paid for these grades. The question is should you really be paid for these grades?
In short, no. Students shouldn’t get paid for their good grades as it can be counterproductive in the long run. This is because it may lead to them not challenging themselves to do better and can take away their internal motivation for studying and achieving those grades.
However, you’re fully entitled to your own opinion so let us if you agree or disagree and be sure to place your vote in the poll below.
Continue reading if you would like to learn more about why paying students to get good grades can often be a bad idea. This article will go through the pros and cons of paying students and give you the scientific research behind this.
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Should students get rewarded for good grades?
The question of whether we should get rewarded for getting good grades is largely debatable. However, research shows that rewarding students, children especially for their good grades can be motivating, particularly at first. This is called extrinsic motivation, which generally just means that you do something in order to get a reward or to achieve a certain outcome.
Giving students a reward for good grades can act as a positive reinforcement. This is particularly true if they’re not interested in studying as it can motivate them to do something they wouldn’t normally do.
However, this external motivation can rob them of the chance to have intrinsic or internal motivation for studying and getting good grades. Intrinsic motivation is the opposite of extrinsic motivation and simply means that you do something for your love of it or the benefits you gain while doing it, such as learning new things or improving your skills.
Due to this, it can be argued that students shouldn’t be rewarded for getting good grades as it can take away the satisfaction that comes with getting grades, especially if a reward isn’t given. To learn more about this, check out this article by Parenting for Brain.
However, I personally feel that there’s nothing wrong with rewarding a student for doing well as it shows them that they’re valued and that their efforts are appreciated and noticed. To avoid the drawbacks of rewards, it could be done only for the most important exams, such as final GCSE or A-Level exams, or it could be done less regularly. This would help to avoid students from expecting it and only getting extrinsic motivation from their studies and achieving the grades.
Why should students get paid for good grades?
Getting paid for getting good grades can feel like a great idea, especially to us students. As a financial incentive can encourage us to do well in exams, paying students could lead to a range of positives.
To begin with, getting paid for their good grades can help to motivate students. In fact, studies in America showed that cash payments tend to improve performance initially. In fact, researchers found that students work improved by 5% when paid. To learn more about this, check out this article by CNBC.
Also, paying students for their good grades can act as a way of teaching them about money from early on. Regardless of whether this payment is from parents or schools themselves, students can learn to save up and how to spend wisely before they’re even able to get a job. This can greatly improve their financial prospects as it will enable them to avoid making financial mistakes with larger sums.
It can also teach them the value of money and of working hard to get, which can also be an important life skill. To learn more about this, check out this article by Twinkl.
How much should students get paid for good grades?
While getting paid for good grades is a controversial enough topic on its own, the question of how much they should be paid can make it even worse. Some may feel that good grades should be rewarded generously with a large sum of money, while others may feel that students should only get a more modest sum.
What counts as a “generous” and a “modest” sum would vary based on your own situation and how much you (or your family members) have to offer. Due to this, I couldn’t even try to give you an exact sum of how much students should be paid for their good grades.
However, it could be a good idea to pay more for higher grades, such as an A*/A or a grade 7, 8 or 9 and then slightly less for Bs or 6s and so on. After all, what counts as a “good” grade is fully up to how you look at things and what your aims are. To learn more about what “good” grades are, check out this Think Student article.
Why shouldn’t students get paid for good grades?
As students, going to school and getting good grades can often feel like a full-time job. The hours seem too long, and the work seems too hard. It can make you wonder, why shouldn’t we get compensation for all the time and effort we put in?
However, paying students for good grades isn’t particularly recommended. This is for various reasons, particularly to do with the adverse effects it can have on the student’s learning and motivation.
First of all, paying students for their good grades may only work in the short term. This is because students may learn that they can just meet the minimum requirements in order to get the payment, rather than actually challenging themselves to get the best grades they can.
Moreover, if students are only looking at the money they can earn, they may lose sight of what getting good grades can give them. This is because good grades can lead to a range of future opportunities. For example, it may their chances of getting into higher education and may even increase their employability.
As mentioned above, the problem with rewarding students for their good grades is that it can remove all internal motivation that they get from learning and studying for these exams. This can even lead them to undervalue their education and it may prevent them from picking up important transferable skills that they’d learn on the way, including how to enjoy the work rather than just doing it for the money. To learn more about this, check out this article by Twinkl and this article by iMOM.
Also, paying students for their good grades assumes that they’re simply unmotivated and not trying hard enough. However, the student may be struggling with their course and may need a more practical solution to enable them to do better in exam.
This may be in the form of tutoring or simply talking to their teachers for them to collectively come up with an improvement plan. For more on this, check out this article by NatWest Rooster Money.
Let us know what you think about students being paid for good grades by voting in the poll. You can also explain your answer in the comments section.