A child performing well in the class, must be —

Concept: Positive reinforcement (from operant-conditioning theory) holds that recognising and rewarding a desired behaviour increases the likelihood of that behaviour recurring. In classroom pedagogy this reinforcement can take several equally valid forms — verbal praise, tangible reward, and public or social recognition — each of which strengthens a learner's motivation in a different way.

Application: A child who performs well in class is showing exactly the behaviour a teacher wants to encourage further. Sound teaching practice does not restrict the response to only one reinforcement channel — praising the child, rewarding the child, and recognising the child's effort are all legitimate and complementary responses. None of these three excludes the others; together they reinforce the desired behaviour most effectively.

Cross-check: Each individual response, taken alone, is only a partial reinforcement channel:

• "praised" alone — verbal praise reinforces the behaviour, but limiting the response to only this ignores the equally valid tangible and social channels.

• "given reward" alone — a tangible reward reinforces the behaviour, but confining the response to this single channel ignores praise and recognition.

• "recognised" alone — social recognition reinforces the behaviour, but is incomplete on its own since it excludes verbal praise and tangible reward.

Since each of these three responses is individually valid but only partial, the pedagogically complete response combines all three — the child must be praised, given reward, and recognised together.