Professional Documents
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Home Study
Aaron Basham
College of DuPage
HOME STUDY
An interesting question that is not often thought about would be just how long has the
debate on students doing homework been going on? There are some people who might think that
it has only been for the past ten, twenty, or maybe even fifty years, but that would be
underestimating the interest that the public has shown in this important subject. The debate over
homework has been going on, more or less uninterrupted, for more than a hundred years, with
one school district in 1913 even going as far as boasting that In Sacramento all required home
study has been abolished, and more time is given in school for the preparation of lessons.
(Special Features, pg21) Throughout the whole time, public opinion, as well as the research and
literature which has influenced said opinions, has fluctuated wildly, with many different opinions
focusing on a single question: is homework necessary for a student to succeed in the lives they
will lead outside of school? In order to decide whether or not homework is truly effective, one
must look at the history behind the debate, what the actual effects of homework are on the
students, and also if good performance in homework is actually a sign of a students success, or
if it is the other way around.
In order to properly understand how the debate on homework has ended up the way it
has, it is necessary for one to go through the history of the debate and to see how it has evolved.
The earliest recorded points where the debate on homework seems to have started is around the
early 1900s, with the arguments being presented focusing more on the amounts being given out,
as they could interfere with a students home life, but still often included thoughts on the general
value of the homework that was being done. Even though public opinion was more or less with
the idea of homework, academically speaking, the article, When Is Homework Worth the Time, is
quick to point out that ...much of the research done during the first half of the 1900s concluded
that homework has little effect on student learning... (Maltese, Tai, & Xitao, pg.53). However,
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both the research and the opinion the public had made a sudden turn in 1957, when the Soviet
Union launched the first satellite into space. Now suddenly, the country as a whole felt that they
needed to make up for this apparent deficiency, and suddenly, With increased attention on
making education more rigorous, research from this period often indicated positive achievement
outcomes associated with greater amounts of homework. (Maltese, Tai, & Xitao, pg.53)
So after 1957, education became a top priority in many peoples minds, and students
were forced into doing more, and less diverse, homework as a result. However, the hysteria
caused by the Russian satellite did eventually manage to die down, resulting in a more diverse
set of classes and less homework, but this shift also happened to coincide with a general decline
in the overall performance from the students. This all came to a head with the publictation of the
book, A Nation at Risk, and By 1983 the poor performance of Americas schools was once
again identified by politicians as a risk to Americas nation security. (Watkins & Stevens,
pg.81) Now with an even higher focus on education than before, which in itself is not a bad
thing, the United States began passing federal laws concerning learning, such as the No Child
Left Behind, and also began encouraging states to adopt things such as the Common Core
standards. At the same time all these changes and increased focus on education was occurring
though, there were not very many bills increasing the amount of funds that the schools had to use
in order to actually improve the quality of learning, so One avenue to improve student learning
without increasing education spending is through the assignment of homework. (Grodner &
Rupp, pg.93)
Now with the history of the debate on homework out of the way, the fact that, for the
longest time, research on the effectiveness of homework tended to change with the whims of
public opinion until very recently. Even when reasearching the effectiveness of homework, there
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are many pitfalls that researchers must watch out for, most notable among them being the
Simpsons paradox: a statistical fallacy where by the actual performance of groups taken as a
whole can actually result in a lower overall performance than the individual groups. Grodner and
Rupp summarize up another one of the major, non-statistical, problems that occur when studying
the effectiveness of homework, when they pointed out that, In sum, requiring homework (or
using a grading scheme that incorporates homework assignments) does not increase test
performance directly; rather, the results are driven by completion of and performance on
homework assignments. (pg.107) In all honesty, the disagreement over whether the homework
is actually improving the student or showing the students who are improving seems to be a
running theme in the research that is performed on homework, with some pieces of research
agreeing that it is more the way and type of homework that is assigned then the actual homework
itself. Watkins and Stevens, while in the process of studying the effects that homework had on a
school, also noted that homework performance also appeared to be more attitude based when,
after observing the changes in the schools treatment of homework, they listed off the facts that:
First, a culture of accountability in the school was overtaking ambivalence toward homework.
Second, the quality of student work improved with support and honest feedback from faculty and
home. Finally, a sense of empowerment among stakeholders continues to sustain the No Excuses
Homework initiative. (pg.82)
Continuing on the theme of research, the actual figures still have to be taken into account
when dealing with this subject, as the numbers do still show some interesting things. One of
these things is that there does seem to be notable differences between different types of
homework, with the a teacher giving out digital based homework versus giving out pen and
paper work providing one of the clearest examples. Keen on researching this topic, Arora, Rho,
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and Masson, compiled their findings from a three year study, which noted that For the group in
2008 [paper homework], the mean scores (in percentages) of midterm and final exams were
71.55 (SD = 10.96) and 70.32 (SD = 16.13), respectively. In general, the mean scores for the
group in 2009 [online homework] were higher compared to 2008. The mean scores were 81.31
(SD = 8.65) for the midterm and 78.58 (SD = 8.27) for the final exam. (pg.38-39) Later on, they
reported even more improvements in the classes that continued to use the online homework, and
those courses that did not choose to continue using homework, so that it eventually became
apparent that For the group prepared by paper homework in fall 2009, the mean scores (in
percentages) of the midterm and final exams were 75 (SD = 13.54) and 62.74 (SD = 17.74),
respectively. The mean scores for spring 2010 (prepared with an online homework system) were
78.84 (SD = 15.97) for the midterm and 78.58 (SD = 8.27) for the final exam. (Arora, Rho, &
Masson, pg.39) This study shows that, at the very least, it is more the type of homework that is
assigned then the actual homework itself, which allows the students to perform.
Even if homework were reduced to simply being a way to gauge how well the students
were doing without posing a significant threat to the students overall performance, one must ask
still ask if there is a perfect balance between the amount of time students spend working at
school and the amount of time students spend working at home. The government seems to think
this, as they have recently mandated some changes to how homework is handled, as pointed out
by Watkins and Stevens, when they said that, Homework was clearly defined as assignments
that require time outside the classroom to reinforce and/or enhance instruction... Students were
required to revise or redo work that did not meet the basic level of 70 percent Zeroes were not
allowed. Students were given after-school tutorial time in PASS (Performance Achievement
System for Success). (pg.81) These types of changes appear to be more concerned with the fact
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that a student should at least attempt their homework, and allows students to revise it if they have
made serious mistakes on it, thus focusing more on what the students have actually learned while
also allowing their performance to be easily measured. These facts actually fit together very well,
as allowing a student to revise their homework, especially if they didnt understand it in the first
place, will allow the students to learn from their mistakes. Those facts also feeds well into
improving the attitudes of students towards learning, as Maltese, Tai, and Xitao point out in their
research on correlations in homework and school performance that The two most common
explanations for this positive relationship are: a) doing more homework causes higher
achievement scores and b) students who obtain higher scores have a more positive disposition
toward school and are therefore likely to complete more homework. (pg.59)
One question that has not been raised directly in this paper is honestly one of the
simplest ones that does the attitude of the students affect homework? The shortest possible
answer would have to be a simple, yes; the attitude that the students have, as well as society as a
whole, does have an effect on both the homework completed and the students test scores. Even
if the homework that is assigned is completely fair and balanced, it is almost entirely up to the
attitudes that the students have adopted over the years towards it that will determine its
completion and performance. This was noted very early on in Watkins & Stevens research, when
they reported that Something had to change. One teacher explained that when she investigated
missing assignments, she found that the same students were spending a year in class without
turning in any homework. (pg.82) In those extreme cases, all the homework in the world would
not have much of an effect on the students attitude, unless the teacher in question was willing to
find a way to make the homework relate more directly to that students life. However, giving a
student too much of a free reign in determining their homework can also be a strange thing to do,
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as Studies investigating homework compliance have indicated that clients frequently do not
complete all of the tasks collaboratively assigned as part of therapy...Conversely, studies
attempting to control for homework in randomized controlled trials of homeworks causal eects
have reported that some clients have designed and implemented their own homework.
(Dattilio, Kazantzis, Shinkfield, & Carr, pg.121)
After all the facts have been presented, it is more or less clear that homework serves
mainly as a way to measure how a student is going to perform as well as their attitudes towards
working in general. None of this is to say that homework itself is ineffective in any means, as a
teacher who wants to know how exactly their students are interpreting the information they have
been presented in class could then use it as feedback for improving their lessons. At the same
time, a teacher should be careful of how much, what kind, and how they present their homework,
as that could change how the students decide what amount of effort and skill they use in the
given homework. Allowing the amount and type of homework to be dictated by the forces of
popular opinion can diminish its effectiveness, but even then, a good teacher should be able to
still use learn from the homework regardless. Hopefully, people will realize that homework, even
if reduced down, is still a useful tool for teaching; not directly teaching, but from when they are
used in direct conjunction for what is being learned in the classroom.
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8
References
Arora, M. L., Rho, Y. J., & Masson, C. (2013) Longitudinal Study of Online Statics Homework
as a Method to Improve Learning Journal of STEM Education: Innovations and
Research, v14 n1 p36-44 Retrieved from:http://ojs.jstem.org/index.php?journal=
JSTEM&page=article&op=view&path[]=1700&path[]=1508
Dattilio, F. M., Kazantzis, N., & Shinkfield, G.; Carr, Amanda G. (2011) A Survey of
Homework Use, Experience of Barriers to Homework, and Attitudes about the Barriers to
Homework among Couples and Family Therapists Journal of Marital and Family
Therapy, v37 n2 p121-136 Apr 2011. 16 pp Retrieved from:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/
j.1752-0606.2011.00223.x
Grodner, A., & Rupp, N. G. (2013) The Role of Homework in Student Learning Outcomes:
Evidence from a Field Experiment Journal of Economic Education, v44 n2 p93-109
2013. 17 pp. Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220485.2013.770334
Maltese, A. V., Tai, R. H., & Fan, X. (2012) When Is Homework Worth the Time?: Evaluating
the Association between Homework and Achievement in High School Science and Math
High School Journal, v96 n1 p52-72 Fall 2012. 21 pp. Retrieved from:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hsj.2012.0015
United States Bureau of Education, Department of the Interior. (1913) Special Features in City
School Systems. Bulletin, 1913, No. 31. Whole Number 541. Retrieved from:
http://ojs.jstem.org/index.php?journal=JSTEM&page=article&op=view&path[]=1700&p
ath[]=1508
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Watkins, P. J., & Stevens, D. W. (2013) The Goldilocks Dilemma: Homework Policy Creating a
Culture Where Simply Good Is Just Not Good Enough Clearing House: A Journal of
Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, v86 n2 p80-85 2013. 6 pp. Retrieved from:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00098655.2012.748642