Attitudes of British secondary school teachers and pupils to rewards and punishments

Summary A specially designed questionnaire was given to 510 pupils and 99 teachers from four mixed comprehensive schools to gather their views on the effectiveness of commonly used rewards and punishments. Teachers and pupils agreed about the perceived effectiveness of some of the strategies, yet differed in their opinions of others. There was, however, sufficient agreement to draw some general conclusions. The majority of respondents felt that involving parents is of fundamental importance and that many traditional punishments serve little useful purpose.