REVIEW article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Special Educational Needs
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1443322
This article is part of the Research TopicBehavior-specific praise in preK-12 settings: Expanding the knowledge baseView all 6 articles
Supporting Educators to Implement Behavior-Specific Praise: A Research Synthesis
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Virginia, Charlottesville, United States
- 2University of Louisville, Louisville, Colorado, United States
- 3University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
We conducted a synthesis of recent systematic reviews by Ennis et al. (2020aEnnis et al. ( , 2020b) ) and Royer et al. (2019), with a specific focus on the professional learning aspects of behaviorspecific praise (BSP). We examined training procedures and support types aimed at facilitating effective BSP implementation, addressing the following research questions: What procedures were used in training the intervention agent to deliver BSP? To what degree were training integrity and social validity of training procedures assessed? What feedback did intervention agents receive about their implementation of BSP (e.g., emailed graph of BSP rate; selfmonitored rate of BSP)? We examined implications of these findings for informing future efforts to support educators implementing BSP, given effective implementation is a critical skill for reinforcing prosocial behaviors, fostering positive school cultures, and mitigating issues associated with exclusionary practices. Results indicated many studies included training for educators on how to implement praise and provide feedback effectively, yet few reported training integrity. We found social validity was primarily assessed in studies through surveys and interviews. Few studies included checks for understanding for educators with permanent products measuring knowledge to identify areas for support. Most studies utilized in-person and verbal BSPs, with some using notes. We discuss limitations and future directions, suggesting results from this review may be useful for informing future professional learning efforts to assist teachers in implementing BSP, a low-intensity strategy for supporting students and educators to promote a positive culture within educational settings.
Keywords: Behavior-specific praise (BSP), Professional learning (PL), evidence-based practices (EBPs), positive behavioral intervention and supports, applied behavior analysis (ABA)
Received: 03 Jun 2024; Accepted: 20 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Perez, Royer, Buckman and Lane. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Paloma Perez, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.