homework effects on teachers

Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

A conversation with a Wheelock researcher, a BU student, and a fourth-grade teacher

“Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives,” says Wheelock’s Janine Bempechat. “It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.” Photo by iStock/Glenn Cook Photography

Do your homework.

If only it were that simple.

Educators have debated the merits of homework since the late 19th century. In recent years, amid concerns of some parents and teachers that children are being stressed out by too much homework, things have only gotten more fraught.

“Homework is complicated,” says developmental psychologist Janine Bempechat, a Wheelock College of Education & Human Development clinical professor. The author of the essay “ The Case for (Quality) Homework—Why It Improves Learning and How Parents Can Help ” in the winter 2019 issue of Education Next , Bempechat has studied how the debate about homework is influencing teacher preparation, parent and student beliefs about learning, and school policies.

She worries especially about socioeconomically disadvantaged students from low-performing schools who, according to research by Bempechat and others, get little or no homework.

BU Today  sat down with Bempechat and Erin Bruce (Wheelock’17,’18), a new fourth-grade teacher at a suburban Boston school, and future teacher freshman Emma Ardizzone (Wheelock) to talk about what quality homework looks like, how it can help children learn, and how schools can equip teachers to design it, evaluate it, and facilitate parents’ role in it.

BU Today: Parents and educators who are against homework in elementary school say there is no research definitively linking it to academic performance for kids in the early grades. You’ve said that they’re missing the point.

Bempechat : I think teachers assign homework in elementary school as a way to help kids develop skills they’ll need when they’re older—to begin to instill a sense of responsibility and to learn planning and organizational skills. That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success. If we greatly reduce or eliminate homework in elementary school, we deprive kids and parents of opportunities to instill these important learning habits and skills.

We do know that beginning in late middle school, and continuing through high school, there is a strong and positive correlation between homework completion and academic success.

That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success.

You talk about the importance of quality homework. What is that?

Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives. It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.

What are your concerns about homework and low-income children?

The argument that some people make—that homework “punishes the poor” because lower-income parents may not be as well-equipped as affluent parents to help their children with homework—is very troubling to me. There are no parents who don’t care about their children’s learning. Parents don’t actually have to help with homework completion in order for kids to do well. They can help in other ways—by helping children organize a study space, providing snacks, being there as a support, helping children work in groups with siblings or friends.

Isn’t the discussion about getting rid of homework happening mostly in affluent communities?

Yes, and the stories we hear of kids being stressed out from too much homework—four or five hours of homework a night—are real. That’s problematic for physical and mental health and overall well-being. But the research shows that higher-income students get a lot more homework than lower-income kids.

Teachers may not have as high expectations for lower-income children. Schools should bear responsibility for providing supports for kids to be able to get their homework done—after-school clubs, community support, peer group support. It does kids a disservice when our expectations are lower for them.

The conversation around homework is to some extent a social class and social justice issue. If we eliminate homework for all children because affluent children have too much, we’re really doing a disservice to low-income children. They need the challenge, and every student can rise to the challenge with enough supports in place.

What did you learn by studying how education schools are preparing future teachers to handle homework?

My colleague, Margarita Jimenez-Silva, at the University of California, Davis, School of Education, and I interviewed faculty members at education schools, as well as supervising teachers, to find out how students are being prepared. And it seemed that they weren’t. There didn’t seem to be any readings on the research, or conversations on what high-quality homework is and how to design it.

Erin, what kind of training did you get in handling homework?

Bruce : I had phenomenal professors at Wheelock, but homework just didn’t come up. I did lots of student teaching. I’ve been in classrooms where the teachers didn’t assign any homework, and I’ve been in rooms where they assigned hours of homework a night. But I never even considered homework as something that was my decision. I just thought it was something I’d pull out of a book and it’d be done.

I started giving homework on the first night of school this year. My first assignment was to go home and draw a picture of the room where you do your homework. I want to know if it’s at a table and if there are chairs around it and if mom’s cooking dinner while you’re doing homework.

The second night I asked them to talk to a grown-up about how are you going to be able to get your homework done during the week. The kids really enjoyed it. There’s a running joke that I’m teaching life skills.

Friday nights, I read all my kids’ responses to me on their homework from the week and it’s wonderful. They pour their hearts out. It’s like we’re having a conversation on my couch Friday night.

It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Bempechat : I can’t imagine that most new teachers would have the intuition Erin had in designing homework the way she did.

Ardizzone : Conversations with kids about homework, feeling you’re being listened to—that’s such a big part of wanting to do homework….I grew up in Westchester County. It was a pretty demanding school district. My junior year English teacher—I loved her—she would give us feedback, have meetings with all of us. She’d say, “If you have any questions, if you have anything you want to talk about, you can talk to me, here are my office hours.” It felt like she actually cared.

Bempechat : It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Ardizzone : But can’t it lead to parents being overbearing and too involved in their children’s lives as students?

Bempechat : There’s good help and there’s bad help. The bad help is what you’re describing—when parents hover inappropriately, when they micromanage, when they see their children confused and struggling and tell them what to do.

Good help is when parents recognize there’s a struggle going on and instead ask informative questions: “Where do you think you went wrong?” They give hints, or pointers, rather than saying, “You missed this,” or “You didn’t read that.”

Bruce : I hope something comes of this. I hope BU or Wheelock can think of some way to make this a more pressing issue. As a first-year teacher, it was not something I even thought about on the first day of school—until a kid raised his hand and said, “Do we have homework?” It would have been wonderful if I’d had a plan from day one.

Explore Related Topics:

• Share this story

Senior Contributing Editor

Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald , Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times , where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Profile

She can be reached at [email protected] .

Comments & Discussion

Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 81 comments on Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

Insightful! The values about homework in elementary schools are well aligned with my intuition as a parent.

when i finish my work i do my homework and i sometimes forget what to do because i did not get enough sleep

same omg it does not help me it is stressful and if I have it in more than one class I hate it.

Same I think my parent wants to help me but, she doesn’t care if I get bad grades so I just try my best and my grades are great.

I think that last question about Good help from parents is not know to all parents, we do as our parents did or how we best think it can be done, so maybe coaching parents or giving them resources on how to help with homework would be very beneficial for the parent on how to help and for the teacher to have consistency and improve homework results, and of course for the child. I do see how homework helps reaffirm the knowledge obtained in the classroom, I also have the ability to see progress and it is a time I share with my kids

The answer to the headline question is a no-brainer – a more pressing problem is why there is a difference in how students from different cultures succeed. Perfect example is the student population at BU – why is there a majority population of Asian students and only about 3% black students at BU? In fact at some universities there are law suits by Asians to stop discrimination and quotas against admitting Asian students because the real truth is that as a group they are demonstrating better qualifications for admittance, while at the same time there are quotas and reduced requirements for black students to boost their portion of the student population because as a group they do more poorly in meeting admissions standards – and it is not about the Benjamins. The real problem is that in our PC society no one has the gazuntas to explore this issue as it may reveal that all people are not created equal after all. Or is it just environmental cultural differences??????

I get you have a concern about the issue but that is not even what the point of this article is about. If you have an issue please take this to the site we have and only post your opinion about the actual topic

This is not at all what the article is talking about.

This literally has nothing to do with the article brought up. You should really take your opinions somewhere else before you speak about something that doesn’t make sense.

we have the same name

so they have the same name what of it?

lol you tell her

totally agree

What does that have to do with homework, that is not what the article talks about AT ALL.

Yes, I think homework plays an important role in the development of student life. Through homework, students have to face challenges on a daily basis and they try to solve them quickly.I am an intense online tutor at 24x7homeworkhelp and I give homework to my students at that level in which they handle it easily.

More than two-thirds of students said they used alcohol and drugs, primarily marijuana, to cope with stress.

You know what’s funny? I got this assignment to write an argument for homework about homework and this article was really helpful and understandable, and I also agree with this article’s point of view.

I also got the same task as you! I was looking for some good resources and I found this! I really found this article useful and easy to understand, just like you! ^^

i think that homework is the best thing that a child can have on the school because it help them with their thinking and memory.

I am a child myself and i think homework is a terrific pass time because i can’t play video games during the week. It also helps me set goals.

Homework is not harmful ,but it will if there is too much

I feel like, from a minors point of view that we shouldn’t get homework. Not only is the homework stressful, but it takes us away from relaxing and being social. For example, me and my friends was supposed to hang at the mall last week but we had to postpone it since we all had some sort of work to do. Our minds shouldn’t be focused on finishing an assignment that in realty, doesn’t matter. I completely understand that we should have homework. I have to write a paper on the unimportance of homework so thanks.

homework isn’t that bad

Are you a student? if not then i don’t really think you know how much and how severe todays homework really is

i am a student and i do not enjoy homework because i practice my sport 4 out of the five days we have school for 4 hours and that’s not even counting the commute time or the fact i still have to shower and eat dinner when i get home. its draining!

i totally agree with you. these people are such boomers

why just why

they do make a really good point, i think that there should be a limit though. hours and hours of homework can be really stressful, and the extra work isn’t making a difference to our learning, but i do believe homework should be optional and extra credit. that would make it for students to not have the leaning stress of a assignment and if you have a low grade you you can catch up.

Studies show that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicates that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” On both standardized tests and grades, students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school.

So how are your measuring student achievement? That’s the real question. The argument that doing homework is simply a tool for teaching responsibility isn’t enough for me. We can teach responsibility in a number of ways. Also the poor argument that parents don’t need to help with homework, and that students can do it on their own, is wishful thinking at best. It completely ignores neurodiverse students. Students in poverty aren’t magically going to find a space to do homework, a friend’s or siblings to help them do it, and snacks to eat. I feel like the author of this piece has never set foot in a classroom of students.

THIS. This article is pathetic coming from a university. So intellectually dishonest, refusing to address the havoc of capitalism and poverty plays on academic success in life. How can they in one sentence use poor kids in an argument and never once address that poor children have access to damn near 0 of the resources affluent kids have? Draw me a picture and let’s talk about feelings lmao what a joke is that gonna put food in their belly so they can have the calories to burn in order to use their brain to study? What about quiet their 7 other siblings that they share a single bedroom with for hours? Is it gonna force the single mom to magically be at home and at work at the same time to cook food while you study and be there to throw an encouraging word?

Also the “parents don’t need to be a parent and be able to guide their kid at all academically they just need to exist in the next room” is wild. Its one thing if a parent straight up is not equipped but to say kids can just figured it out is…. wow coming from an educator What’s next the teacher doesn’t need to teach cause the kid can just follow the packet and figure it out?

Well then get a tutor right? Oh wait you are poor only affluent kids can afford a tutor for their hours of homework a day were they on average have none of the worries a poor child does. Does this address that poor children are more likely to also suffer abuse and mental illness? Like mentioned what about kids that can’t learn or comprehend the forced standardized way? Just let em fail? These children regularly are not in “special education”(some of those are a joke in their own and full of neglect and abuse) programs cause most aren’t even acknowledged as having disabilities or disorders.

But yes all and all those pesky poor kids just aren’t being worked hard enough lol pretty sure poor children’s existence just in childhood is more work, stress, and responsibility alone than an affluent child’s entire life cycle. Love they never once talked about the quality of education in the classroom being so bad between the poor and affluent it can qualify as segregation, just basically blamed poor people for being lazy, good job capitalism for failing us once again!

why the hell?

you should feel bad for saying this, this article can be helpful for people who has to write a essay about it

This is more of a political rant than it is about homework

I know a teacher who has told his students their homework is to find something they are interested in, pursue it and then come share what they learn. The student responses are quite compelling. One girl taught herself German so she could talk to her grandfather. One boy did a research project on Nelson Mandela because the teacher had mentioned him in class. Another boy, a both on the autism spectrum, fixed his family’s computer. The list goes on. This is fourth grade. I think students are highly motivated to learn, when we step aside and encourage them.

The whole point of homework is to give the students a chance to use the material that they have been presented with in class. If they never have the opportunity to use that information, and discover that it is actually useful, it will be in one ear and out the other. As a science teacher, it is critical that the students are challenged to use the material they have been presented with, which gives them the opportunity to actually think about it rather than regurgitate “facts”. Well designed homework forces the student to think conceptually, as opposed to regurgitation, which is never a pretty sight

Wonderful discussion. and yes, homework helps in learning and building skills in students.

not true it just causes kids to stress

Homework can be both beneficial and unuseful, if you will. There are students who are gifted in all subjects in school and ones with disabilities. Why should the students who are gifted get the lucky break, whereas the people who have disabilities suffer? The people who were born with this “gift” go through school with ease whereas people with disabilities struggle with the work given to them. I speak from experience because I am one of those students: the ones with disabilities. Homework doesn’t benefit “us”, it only tears us down and put us in an abyss of confusion and stress and hopelessness because we can’t learn as fast as others. Or we can’t handle the amount of work given whereas the gifted students go through it with ease. It just brings us down and makes us feel lost; because no mater what, it feels like we are destined to fail. It feels like we weren’t “cut out” for success.

homework does help

here is the thing though, if a child is shoved in the face with a whole ton of homework that isn’t really even considered homework it is assignments, it’s not helpful. the teacher should make homework more of a fun learning experience rather than something that is dreaded

This article was wonderful, I am going to ask my teachers about extra, or at all giving homework.

I agree. Especially when you have homework before an exam. Which is distasteful as you’ll need that time to study. It doesn’t make any sense, nor does us doing homework really matters as It’s just facts thrown at us.

Homework is too severe and is just too much for students, schools need to decrease the amount of homework. When teachers assign homework they forget that the students have other classes that give them the same amount of homework each day. Students need to work on social skills and life skills.

I disagree.

Beyond achievement, proponents of homework argue that it can have many other beneficial effects. They claim it can help students develop good study habits so they are ready to grow as their cognitive capacities mature. It can help students recognize that learning can occur at home as well as at school. Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits. And it can give parents an opportunity to see what’s going on at school and let them express positive attitudes toward achievement.

Homework is helpful because homework helps us by teaching us how to learn a specific topic.

As a student myself, I can say that I have almost never gotten the full 9 hours of recommended sleep time, because of homework. (Now I’m writing an essay on it in the middle of the night D=)

I am a 10 year old kid doing a report about “Is homework good or bad” for homework before i was going to do homework is bad but the sources from this site changed my mind!

Homeowkr is god for stusenrs

I agree with hunter because homework can be so stressful especially with this whole covid thing no one has time for homework and every one just wants to get back to there normal lives it is especially stressful when you go on a 2 week vaca 3 weeks into the new school year and and then less then a week after you come back from the vaca you are out for over a month because of covid and you have no way to get the assignment done and turned in

As great as homework is said to be in the is article, I feel like the viewpoint of the students was left out. Every where I go on the internet researching about this topic it almost always has interviews from teachers, professors, and the like. However isn’t that a little biased? Of course teachers are going to be for homework, they’re not the ones that have to stay up past midnight completing the homework from not just one class, but all of them. I just feel like this site is one-sided and you should include what the students of today think of spending four hours every night completing 6-8 classes worth of work.

Are we talking about homework or practice? Those are two very different things and can result in different outcomes.

Homework is a graded assignment. I do not know of research showing the benefits of graded assignments going home.

Practice; however, can be extremely beneficial, especially if there is some sort of feedback (not a grade but feedback). That feedback can come from the teacher, another student or even an automated grading program.

As a former band director, I assigned daily practice. I never once thought it would be appropriate for me to require the students to turn in a recording of their practice for me to grade. Instead, I had in-class assignments/assessments that were graded and directly related to the practice assigned.

I would really like to read articles on “homework” that truly distinguish between the two.

oof i feel bad good luck!

thank you guys for the artical because I have to finish an assingment. yes i did cite it but just thanks

thx for the article guys.

Homework is good

I think homework is helpful AND harmful. Sometimes u can’t get sleep bc of homework but it helps u practice for school too so idk.

I agree with this Article. And does anyone know when this was published. I would like to know.

It was published FEb 19, 2019.

Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college.

i think homework can help kids but at the same time not help kids

This article is so out of touch with majority of homes it would be laughable if it wasn’t so incredibly sad.

There is no value to homework all it does is add stress to already stressed homes. Parents or adults magically having the time or energy to shepherd kids through homework is dome sort of 1950’s fantasy.

What lala land do these teachers live in?

Homework gives noting to the kid

Homework is Bad

homework is bad.

why do kids even have homework?

Comments are closed.

Latest from Bostonia

Opening doors: michele courton brown (cas’83), six bu alums to remember this memorial day, american academy of arts & sciences welcomes five bu members, com’s newest journalism grad took her time, could boston be the next city to impose congestion pricing, alum has traveled the world to witness total solar eclipses, opening doors: rhonda harrison (eng’98,’04, grs’04), campus reacts and responds to israel-hamas war, reading list: what the pandemic revealed, remembering com’s david anable, cas’ john stone, “intellectual brilliance and brilliant kindness”, one good deed: christine kannler (cas’96, sph’00, camed’00), william fairfield warren society inducts new members, spreading art appreciation, restoring the “black angels” to medical history, in the kitchen with jacques pépin, feedback: readers weigh in on bu’s new president, com’s new expert on misinformation, and what’s really dividing the nation, the gifts of great teaching, sth’s walter fluker honored by roosevelt institute, alum’s debut book is a ramadan story for children.

• Future Students
• Current Students
• Faculty/Staff

News and Media

• News & Media Home
• Research Stories
• School's In
• In the Media

You are here

More than two hours of homework may be counterproductive, research suggests.

A Stanford education researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.   "Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good," wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .   The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students' views on homework.   Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.   Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.   "The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students' advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being," Pope wrote.   Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.   Their study found that too much homework is associated with:   • Greater stress : 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.   • Reductions in health : In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.   • Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits : Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were "not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills," according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.   A balancing act   The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.   Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as "pointless" or "mindless" in order to keep their grades up.   "This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points," said Pope, who is also a co-founder of Challenge Success , a nonprofit organization affiliated with the GSE that conducts research and works with schools and parents to improve students' educational experiences..   Pope said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.   "Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development," wrote Pope.   High-performing paradox   In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. "Young people are spending more time alone," they wrote, "which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities."   Student perspectives   The researchers say that while their open-ended or "self-reporting" methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for "typical adolescent complaining" – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.   The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Clifton B. Parker is a writer at the Stanford News Service .

More Stories

⟵ Go to all Research Stories

Get the Educator

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

Stanford Graduate School of Education

482 Galvez Mall Stanford, CA 94305-3096 Tel: (650) 723-2109

• Contact Admissions
• GSE Leadership
• Site Feedback
• Web Accessibility
• Career Resources
• Faculty Open Positions
• Explore Courses
• Academic Calendar
• Office of the Registrar
• Cubberley Library
• StanfordWho
• StanfordYou

Improving lives through learning

• Stanford Home
• Maps & Directions
• Search Stanford
• Emergency Info
• Terms of Use
• Non-Discrimination
• Accessibility

© Stanford University , Stanford , California 94305 .

• About the Hub
• Announcements
• Faculty Experts Guide
• Subscribe to the newsletter

Explore by Topic

• Arts+Culture
• Politics+Society
• Science+Technology
• Student Life
• University News
• Voices+Opinion
• About Hub at Work
• Gazette Archive
• Benefits+Perks
• Health+Well-Being
• Current Issue
• About the Magazine
• Past Issues
• Support Johns Hopkins Magazine
• Subscribe to the Magazine

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.

Credit: August de Richelieu

Does homework still have value? A Johns Hopkins education expert weighs in

Joyce epstein, co-director of the center on school, family, and community partnerships, discusses why homework is essential, how to maximize its benefit to learners, and what the 'no-homework' approach gets wrong.

By Vicky Hallett

The necessity of homework has been a subject of debate since at least as far back as the 1890s, according to Joyce L. Epstein , co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University. "It's always been the case that parents, kids—and sometimes teachers, too—wonder if this is just busy work," Epstein says.

But after decades of researching how to improve schools, the professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Education remains certain that homework is essential—as long as the teachers have done their homework, too. The National Network of Partnership Schools , which she founded in 1995 to advise schools and districts on ways to improve comprehensive programs of family engagement, has developed hundreds of improved homework ideas through its Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program. For an English class, a student might interview a parent on popular hairstyles from their youth and write about the differences between then and now. Or for science class, a family could identify forms of matter over the dinner table, labeling foods as liquids or solids. These innovative and interactive assignments not only reinforce concepts from the classroom but also foster creativity, spark discussions, and boost student motivation.

"We're not trying to eliminate homework procedures, but expand and enrich them," says Epstein, who is packing this research into a forthcoming book on the purposes and designs of homework. In the meantime, the Hub couldn't wait to ask her some questions:

What kind of homework training do teachers typically get?

Future teachers and administrators really have little formal training on how to design homework before they assign it. This means that most just repeat what their teachers did, or they follow textbook suggestions at the end of units. For example, future teachers are well prepared to teach reading and literacy skills at each grade level, and they continue to learn to improve their teaching of reading in ongoing in-service education. By contrast, most receive little or no training on the purposes and designs of homework in reading or other subjects. It is really important for future teachers to receive systematic training to understand that they have the power, opportunity, and obligation to design homework with a purpose.

Why do students need more interactive homework?

If homework assignments are always the same—10 math problems, six sentences with spelling words—homework can get boring and some kids just stop doing their assignments, especially in the middle and high school years. When we've asked teachers what's the best homework you've ever had or designed, invariably we hear examples of talking with a parent or grandparent or peer to share ideas. To be clear, parents should never be asked to "teach" seventh grade science or any other subject. Rather, teachers set up the homework assignments so that the student is in charge. It's always the student's homework. But a good activity can engage parents in a fun, collaborative way. Our data show that with "good" assignments, more kids finish their work, more kids interact with a family partner, and more parents say, "I learned what's happening in the curriculum." It all works around what the youngsters are learning.

Is family engagement really that important?

At Hopkins, I am part of the Center for Social Organization of Schools , a research center that studies how to improve many aspects of education to help all students do their best in school. One thing my colleagues and I realized was that we needed to look deeply into family and community engagement. There were so few references to this topic when we started that we had to build the field of study. When children go to school, their families "attend" with them whether a teacher can "see" the parents or not. So, family engagement is ever-present in the life of a school.

My daughter's elementary school doesn't assign homework until third grade. What's your take on "no homework" policies?

There are some parents, writers, and commentators who have argued against homework, especially for very young children. They suggest that children should have time to play after school. This, of course is true, but many kindergarten kids are excited to have homework like their older siblings. If they give homework, most teachers of young children make assignments very short—often following an informal rule of 10 minutes per grade level. "No homework" does not guarantee that all students will spend their free time in productive and imaginative play.

Some researchers and critics have consistently misinterpreted research findings. They have argued that homework should be assigned only at the high school level where data point to a strong connection of doing assignments with higher student achievement . However, as we discussed, some students stop doing homework. This leads, statistically, to results showing that doing homework or spending more minutes on homework is linked to higher student achievement. If slow or struggling students are not doing their assignments, they contribute to—or cause—this "result."

Teachers need to design homework that even struggling students want to do because it is interesting. Just about all students at any age level react positively to good assignments and will tell you so.

Did COVID change how schools and parents view homework?

Within 24 hours of the day school doors closed in March 2020, just about every school and district in the country figured out that teachers had to talk to and work with students' parents. This was not the same as homeschooling—teachers were still working hard to provide daily lessons. But if a child was learning at home in the living room, parents were more aware of what they were doing in school. One of the silver linings of COVID was that teachers reported that they gained a better understanding of their students' families. We collected wonderfully creative examples of activities from members of the National Network of Partnership Schools. I'm thinking of one art activity where every child talked with a parent about something that made their family unique. Then they drew their finding on a snowflake and returned it to share in class. In math, students talked with a parent about something the family liked so much that they could represent it 100 times. Conversations about schoolwork at home was the point.

How did you create so many homework activities via the Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program?

We had several projects with educators to help them design interactive assignments, not just "do the next three examples on page 38." Teachers worked in teams to create TIPS activities, and then we turned their work into a standard TIPS format in math, reading/language arts, and science for grades K-8. Any teacher can use or adapt our prototypes to match their curricula.

Overall, we know that if future teachers and practicing educators were prepared to design homework assignments to meet specific purposes—including but not limited to interactive activities—more students would benefit from the important experience of doing their homework. And more parents would, indeed, be partners in education.

Posted in Voices+Opinion

You might also like

News network.

• Johns Hopkins Magazine
• Get Email Updates
• Submit an Announcement
• Submit an Event
• Privacy Statement
• Accessibility

Discover JHU

• About the University
• Schools & Divisions
• Academic Programs
• Plan a Visit
• my.JohnsHopkins.edu
• © 2024 Johns Hopkins University . All rights reserved.
• University Communications
• 3910 Keswick Rd., Suite N2600, Baltimore, MD
• X Facebook LinkedIn YouTube Instagram

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Front Psychol

“Homework Feedback Is…”: Elementary and Middle School Teachers’ Conceptions of Homework Feedback

Jennifer cunha.

1 Departamento de Psicologia Aplicada, Escola de Psicologia, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal

Pedro Rosário

José carlos núñez.

2 Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

Ana Rita Nunes

Tânia moreira, tânia nunes.

This study explored mathematics teachers’ conceptions of the homework feedback focusing on four key aspects: definition, purpose, types, and perceived impact. Forty-seven teachers from elementary and middle schools participated in six focus groups. Data were analyzed using content analysis. To enhance the trustworthiness of findings, classroom observations were used for triangulation of data. Participants conceptualized homework feedback in three directions (i.e., teachers’ feedback provided to students, students’ feedback provided to teachers, and homework self-feedback), being teachers’ monitoring of students’ learning the purpose reported by most teachers. Participants also reported the types of homework feedback more frequently used in class (e.g., checking homework completion, checking homework on the board), and their perceived impact on students. Findings provide valuable information to deepen the understanding of the homework feedback process, which may help develop new avenues for future research.

Introduction

Homework may be defined as tasks assigned by teachers to be completed in non-instructive time ( Cooper, 2001 ), and has proved to enhance students’ academic achievement when endowed with particular characteristics (e.g., short, purposeful, frequent assignments, high quality) (e.g., Dettmers et al., 2010 ; Fernández-Alonso et al., 2015 ; Rosário et al., 2015a ).

In addition, the homework feedback provided by the teacher in class is an important tool to increase the impact of homework on students’ learning and academic achievement (e.g., Walberg and Paik, 2000 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ; Rosário et al., 2015b ), and a crucial aspect of the quality of homework ( Cooper, 2001 ). However, detailed information on elementary and middle school teachers’ perspectives about their practices and on the reasons why teachers choose and use particular types of homework feedback in class is still scarce ( Bang et al., 2009 ; Deslandes, 2009 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). Investigating teachers’ conceptions of the homework feedback, particularly in elementary and middle school, may provide new insights into research on homework (e.g., helping further explain previous quantitative results; improving homework feedback measures), as well as into educational practices (e.g., teachers getting training on homework feedback practices).

Teachers’ Role on the Homework Feedback Process

Teachers play an important role in the first phase of the homework process by setting up the objectives of homework assignments and designing tasks, and also in the final phase by implementing classroom follow-up practices ( Cooper, 2001 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ; Rosário et al., 2015a , b ). The latter includes, among other practices, homework feedback provided in class: oral or written praise, criticism, written comments (highlighting right and wrong answers), rewards, general review of homework in class, and grading (i.e., teachers giving numerical grades) (e.g., Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Murphy et al., 1987 ; Corno, 2000 ; Cooper, 2001 ). These homework feedback practices are an important instructional tool for teachers in their teaching process (e.g., helping identify students’ difficulties, errors or misconceptions in homework; approaching the learning contents to accommodate students’ lack of prior knowledge, and redesigning homework to match students’ needs) ( Corno, 2000 ; Walberg and Paik, 2000 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ; An and Wu, 2012 ; Bang, 2012 ).

Extant research lacks studies which have focused specifically on each of the above-mentioned types of homework feedback; still, some studies have shed some light on the usage and benefits of the various types of homework feedback. For example, Murphy et al. (1987 , p. 68) found that “class discussion on homework,” and grading and commenting on homework were the practices most frequently used by high school teachers (i.e., English, mathematics, science, and social science) to monitor students’ completion of homework. Focusing on mathematics, Kaur (2011) explored the nature of homework tasks assigned by three 8th grade mathematics teachers (e.g., types of homework, sources of homework tasks), and found that teachers provided feedback on errors by grading assignments, orienting discussions and checking homework on the board when needed. Using the TIMSS 2003 data set, Zhu and Leung (2012) found that a high percentage of 8th grade mathematics teachers reported checking homework completion (85%), providing feedback regularly (i.e., at least “sometimes”, 100%), and discussing homework in class (96%). Nevertheless, none of these studies deeply explored the process of homework feedback.

Students’ Role on the Homework Feedback Process

Students engaging in school tasks with autonomy and responsibility are expected to develop a sense of personal agency for self-managing their behaviors ( Zimmerman, 1989 ). Besides, students who proactively manage their behaviors to attain self-set goals are likely to self-regulate their learning efficiently ( Zimmerman, 1989 ). From a social cognitive perspective, self-regulated learning (SRL) may be defined as an active learning process whereby students self-set goals that direct their cognitions, motivations and behaviors toward those goals ( Zimmerman, 1989 ; Núñez et al., 2013 ; Rosário et al., 2013 ). For example, robust self-efficacy and autonomy, good study skills, commitment to self-set goals, and positive academic attitudes are examples of core elements of academic self-regulation which are necessary to complete homework ( Zimmerman and Kitsantas, 2005 ; Ramdass and Zimmerman, 2011 ; Schmitz and Perels, 2011 ; Núñez et al., 2015c ). Regarding the latter, extant literature highlighted self-regulation competencies as essential tools not only to help students complete their homework, but also use the homework feedback delivered with efficacy and responsibility ( Ramdass and Zimmerman, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ; Xu and Wu, 2013 ). In fact, students are given homework feedback in class and play an important role deciding what to do next with the information given (e.g., ignoring feedback, self-evaluating their homework performance, using SRL learning strategies).

However, to authors’ knowledge, research has not yet provided information to contribute to understanding how teachers’ homework feedback may promote students’ active role in the homework feedback process. As Corno (2000) reported, teachers are expected to promote students’ capacity to self-evaluate their homework, which would involve addressing important self-regulatory processes. Otherwise, homework feedback may fail to benefit students ( Zhu and Leung, 2012 ).

The Benefits of Homework Feedback

Research has analyzed the effect of specific types of homework feedback provided by teachers on students’ academic performance in a particular subject (e.g., Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ), and also the relationships between homework variables (e.g., homework feedback perceived by students, students’ interest, homework management) using non-subject-centered designs ( Xu, 2012 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ). Focusing on the former (i.e., investigating homework feedback in a particular subject), Cardelle and Corno (1981) examined the effect of three types of written homework feedback (i.e., praise, constructive criticism, and constructive criticism plus praise) on college students’ written performance in a second language. Findings showed that students under the constructive criticism plus praise condition achieved a better written performance than their counterparts. Moreover, irrespective of performance levels (i.e., high, middle, and low), participants reported their preference for the constructive criticism plus praise condition. Elawar and Corno (1985) conducted a similar study in mathematics with 6th grade students. Findings showed that students under the constructive criticism plus praise condition showed better achievement and a more positive attitude toward mathematics (e.g., enthusiasm for mathematics) than students of the control group.

The synthesis by Walberg et al. (1985) , and also recent findings by Rosário et al. (2015b) , indicated that specific and individual feedback (i.e., giving written comments or grading homework) positively impacts students’ academic achievement. However, checking homework, grading, and providing individual feedback on homework assignments for every single student in class may not always be feasible because of teacher’s heavy workload (e.g., large numbers of students per class, large numbers of classes to teach, many school meetings per week) ( Cooper, 2001 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). This educational constraint may help explain why checking homework on the board and checking homework orally are among the homework follow-up practices most frequently used by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers ( Rosário et al., 2015b ). These practices are useful to teachers because they allow providing feedback to the whole class (e.g., Brookhart, 2008 ) with less effort than that needed to grade homework or comment on students’ assignments.

Moreover, homework feedback perceived by students was also investigated using non-subject-centered designs (e.g., Xu, 2011 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ; for exceptions see Tas et al., 2016 ; Xu et al., 2017 ). In general, findings showed some of the benefits of homework feedback for students. For example, Xu’s studies using multilevel designs found that at student level teachers’ homework feedback reported by 8th and 11th grade students was positively associated with students’ interest in homework ( Xu, 2008 ), students’ reasons for doing homework ( Xu, 2010 ), students’ homework management ( Xu and Wu, 2013 ; Xu et al., 2017 ), and students’ homework motivation management ( Xu, 2014 ).

Analyzing students’ homework completion at 8th and 11th grade levels, Xu (2011) found a positive association with teacher homework feedback at both student level and class level. The explained variance was higher at class level. The author concluded that students’ homework completion is related to teachers’ provision of homework feedback ( Xu, 2011 ). This proposition is further substantiated by the findings by Bang (2011) , showing that high school immigrant students perceived teachers’ feedback as a facilitating factor, and the lack of it as an obstacle to homework completion.

More recently, Núñez et al. (2015b) conducted a study with students from various school years (grades 5–12) and concluded that the stronger the teachers’ homework feedback is perceived by students, the greater the amount of homework completed and the better the quality of homework time management (e.g., how well students managed time devoted to homework and avoided distractions). Moreover, these authors found that students’ academic achievement is indirectly and positively associated with homework feedback through students’ homework behaviors (i.e., amount of homework completed) and self-regulation (i.e., quality of homework time management), highlighting the importance of student engagement in the homework process ( Núñez et al., 2015b ). The results of Tas et al. (2016) are consistent with those, showing that middle school students’ homework self-regulation (e.g., orientation goals, learning strategies) mediated the relationship between perceived homework feedback and science achievement.

Bang (2012) reported that teachers acknowledged homework feedback (i.e., grading homework) as an important tool to motivate immigrant students to complete homework. Still, teachers admitted the educational challenge of providing homework feedback because of the time-consuming nature of this strategy. In fact, Rosário et al. (2015b) also reported the difficulties faced by EFL teachers to collect and grade homework on a regular basis. Both studies ( Bang, 2012 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ) called for further research on teachers’ perspectives about homework feedback.

In spite of the benefits of homework feedback for students previously reported, the literature has shown that teachers’ support in homework perceived by students decreases from elementary to middle school ( Katz et al., 2010 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ), without specifying in what aspects. Moreover, Kukliansky et al. (2016) recently observed middle school teachers’ behaviors in science classes (3–5 consecutive times) and found that in-class instructional feedback was not always provided, even when demanded by students. However, the authors did not explore the reasons why teachers did not provide feedback in this situation.

In sum, extant research on homework feedback has been conducted on controlled domain-centered contexts (e.g., Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ), on single grade levels (e.g., Kaur, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ; Xu et al., 2017 ), is non-subject-centered (e.g., Xu, 2011 ), or explored specific populations (e.g., teachers of immigrant students, Bang, 2012 ) (cf. Table ​ Table1 1 ), thus further research is needed to deepen the understanding of the homework feedback process.

Summary of studies that focus homework feedback.

The Present Study

Teachers are an important source of information in the study of the homework feedback process because they actually manage feedback in class ( Cooper, 2001 ). Still, little is known about how mathematics teachers of different school levels perceive homework feedback. Examining elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of the homework feedback is expected to reveal useful information on the homework process, especially teachers’ beliefs and practices concerning homework feedback (cf. Irving et al., 2011 ). The model of teachers’ conceptions of assessment and feedback ( Irving et al., 2011 ; see also Peterson and Irving, 2008 ) provides a relevant theoretical framework for the current research, and guided the research questions, data collection and analysis. This model addresses four key aspects of assessment and feedback: definition, purpose, personal response (i.e., types of assessment and feedback used) and perceived impact. Analyzing these key aspects focused on the homework feedback may provide data to help explain previous findings showing small effect sizes or low explained variances (see Zhu and Leung, 2012 ; Xu, 2014 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ; Rosário et al., 2015b ), and design future studies, homework policies or school-based interventions.

The following research questions guided the current study:

What are elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback?

How do the four key aspects of the homework feedback relate to each other?

The current study explores the conceptions of teachers of two school levels for two reasons. Firstly, there are some differences as to the educational goals of those school levels; while teachers at elementary school focus on working on the foundations of mathematics (e.g., giving support in the development of number sense), middle school students are expected to learn high-level concepts (e.g., application of proportional relationships). Secondly, homework research found that the characteristics of the homework assigned (e.g., amount of homework assigned, homework purposes) vary for elementary and middle school. For example, Mullis et al. (2004) found that middle school students are expected to do larger amounts of homework than elementary school students. Besides, the purposes of assignments may also vary for both school grades. While homework purposes for middle school may be more related to school contents assessed in tests, homework purposes for elementary school are more likely to aim at developing personal skills such as time management (e.g., Muhlenbruck et al., 1999 ; Cooper and Valentine, 2001 ). Notwithstanding, the recent meta-analysis focused on mathematics and science by Fan et al. (2017) included a study in which elementary school teachers reported to assign homework to practice basic mathematics skills (see Bedford, 2014 ). Those differences (e.g., amount of homework assigned, homework purposes) may help explain the differential results regarding the benefits of homework in elementary and middle school (e.g., Cooper et al., 2006 ; Fan et al., 2017 ). Hence, elementary and middle school teachers were invited to talk about homework feedback in order to learn their conceptions and reported practices.

The current study focuses on mathematics (see Trautwein et al., 2006 on the importance of focusing homework research on a specific domain). The reason is threefold: students’ achievement levels, educational relevance of the subject, and previous research findings on homework. There is a global educational concern about students’ poor performance in mathematics. The PISA 2012 report indicates that students from 35 countries show a mathematics performance below the OECD average ( OECD, 2014 ). This worrying educational scenario raises serious challenges for some countries (among which is Portugal), given the fundamental role played by mathematics in other subjects (e.g., biology, physics) and in the development of life and citizenship skills (e.g., Reyna and Brainerd, 2007 ; OECD, 2014 ; Hagger et al., 2015 ). Moreover, mathematics was chosen because of the great amount of homework that is regularly set by teachers (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2006 ; Schmitz and Perels, 2011 ; Xu, 2015 ).

Materials and Methods

School and participants characteristics.

The last 2 years of elementary school in the Portuguese educational system encompass 5th and 6th grades (10 and 11 years old), while middle school includes 7th, 8th, and 9th grade (12–14 years old). Students have 270 min of mathematics per week in 5th and 6th grade, and 225 min per week in each of the three middle school years. At the end of 6th and 9th grade students complete a final exam that counts toward 30% of the overall grade.

Homework is an educational tool often used by Portuguese teachers as part of their lessons; still, there are no formal homework policies for Portuguese public schools (e.g., characteristics of homework assignments, homework follow-up practices; Rosário et al., 2015b ).

In the current study, participants were involved in focus group discussions and some of them in classroom observations.

Participants in Focus Groups

Six focus group discussions were conducted in this study, each of which comprised 7–9 mathematics teachers. Three focus groups were set up with elementary school teachers (5th and 6th grade) and three focus groups with middle school teachers (7th, 8th, and 9th grade). Following Morgan (1997) , homogeneity of groups was ensured in order to encourage participation among participants and minimize inhibition. Participating teachers met the following criteria: (i) having experience in teaching mathematics at elementary or middle school for at least 2 years, and (ii) assigning homework and providing homework feedback regularly (at least once a week). These requirements aimed to guarantee participants’ ability to generate ideas and opinions to share in their focus group.

The school administrators from the pool of schools which had previously enrolled in other university research projects were contacted by the authors. From those schools who agreed to participate, 20 public schools (approximately 25%) were randomly selected, and 75 mathematics teachers (approximately 25% of the pool of available elementary and middle school teachers) were randomly selected. Teachers were e-mailed about the purposes and procedures of the study (e.g., duration of the session, videotaping of the session) and invited to participate. To encourage participation (see Krueger and Casey, 2010 ), teachers were offered a participation reward (i.e., gift card), free baby-sitting services and a 3-h seminar on homework process and SRL to be held after the study had concluded.

In the end, 47 mathematics teachers (an acceptance rate of 63%) from 12 schools agreed to participate in the present study. The first author phoned the volunteer teachers to schedule the focus group meeting. Then, teachers were distributed into the various groups considering criteria such as: school, school level, and preferred scheduled time. Teachers with a hierarchical relationship were not allocated in the same focus group because this might affect their responses and the dynamics of the discussion ( Kitzinger, 1995 ; Irving et al., 2011 ). In order to encourage attendance, all participants were reminded of the focus group session 1 week before and were asked to arrive 10 min early. A map with the location was sent to all participants.

All teachers attended the focus group discussions on the scheduled day (see Table ​ Table2 2 for focus group demographics). Twenty-four teachers (51.1%) were teaching at elementary school level, and 23 (48.9%) at middle school level. In general, participating teachers had 21 years of teaching experience ( SD = 6.11); taught students from middle-class families, as evidenced by the low percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch (19.7%, data collected from the secretary’s office of the participating schools).

Summary of demographic information of the focus groups.

Participants in Classroom Observations

Given the time-consuming nature of observational studies, of these 47 teachers, 25% of the participants were randomly selected and asked to be observed in their mathematics classes. Finally, six teachers of each school level ( N = 12; four males) were observed in their classrooms. These teachers had been teaching between two to five classes and they had an average of 19 years of teaching experience ( SD = 6.93).

Data Collection

Data was collected from two data sources: focus groups and classroom observations. The research team had previously enrolled in a qualitative research course offered by the University of Minho. Following a hands-on approach, the course training addressed topics including the following: how to lead focus group discussions (e.g., encouraging participation) and observations, and how to ensure the quality and credibility of a qualitative study.

This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the ethics committee of the University of Minho. All subjects gave written informed consent to the different phases of the research (i.e., focus groups and classroom observations) in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Focus Group Discussions

Focus group interviews allow for in-depth exploration of meanings, attitudes, and personal experiences of participants about a particular topic during an informal, but structured, group discussion ( Kitzinger, 1995 ; Krueger and Casey, 2010 ). This method of data collection helps capture teachers’ tacit knowledge in order to fill research gaps ( Ryan et al., 2014 ). The focus group interviews were conducted by two members of the research team as facilitators while a third member filmed the sessions. To meet teachers’ availability requirements to participate, four focus group discussions were held at the end of the school year (July), and two at the beginning of the following school year (October). Each focus group session lasted approximately 60 min and took place in a room with appropriate light and sound conditions. To create a friendly environment, snacks and refreshments were offered to participants before and after the discussion. The chairs were arranged in a half circle to allow participants to see each other and to facilitate the filming of everyone in the room.

Prior to the discussions, teachers filled in a socio-demographic questionnaire (e.g., gender, years of teaching experience) and signed the written informed consent form. Then, the facilitators introduced themselves, read aloud the study purpose and the basic rules of the focus group discussion, and ensured confidentiality of participants’ responses (i.e., any information that may identify participants or their schools was eliminated at the end of the study).

To facilitate the interaction between participants, all focus group sessions started with a warm-up activity. Then, the facilitators started the discussion with general questions (e.g., the importance of homework) and, following Peterson and Irving (2008) and Irving et al. (2011) , specific questions related to the four key aspects of homework feedback were asked: definition, purpose, types of homework feedback, and perceived impact (see Table ​ Table3 3 ). This set of questions was previously asked to two teachers in order to ensure comprehensibility. These teachers did not participate in the focus group discussions.

Key areas and guiding questions used in teachers’ focus groups.

Classroom Observations

Classroom observations were conducted to capture teachers’ spontaneous behaviors regarding the homework feedback process. All invited teachers were informed that they would be observed five times on average (see Kukliansky et al., 2016 ), in a period of 3 weeks in the middle of the school year (March). Teachers were blind to the exact date or timetable of the observations (dates of the mathematics assessment tests were excluded from the observations schedule) and all agreed to participate acknowledging these requirements. Two other members of the research team, who were knowledgeable about homework research, conducted the classroom observations. These observations incorporated a structured content based on previous homework research to direct researchers’ attention to teacher’s responses to students’ homework completion (see Choo et al., 2015 ). The instrument used to collect data included the five homework feedback types reported in the literature (e.g., Rosário et al., 2015b ). Additionally, researchers took field notes independently on the homework feedback process (e.g., time spent and how homework feedback was delivered), cross-checked and expanded upon their notes as promptly as possible. In the end, each teacher was observed on average five times, thus gathering a total of 64 h of classroom observations.

Data Analysis

Transcriptions of focus group discussions and observation field notes were analyzed using content analysis ( Bardin, 1996 ). The latter is a qualitative research technique used to search for and identify categories, following systematic procedures ( Bardin, 1996 ).

The researchers who conducted the focus groups carried out the data analysis. Content analysis followed three main steps ( Bardin, 1996 ): (i) reading the focus groups’ verbatim transcriptions to get an overview of the data (pre-analysis), (ii) coding (exploration of data), and (iii) treatment (e.g., percentages) and interpretation of data (e.g., comparing frequencies of coded categories). The organization, management, coding, and querying process of the data were conducted using the QSR International’s NVivo 10 software (e.g., Richards, 2005 ).

The extensiveness of comments (i.e., number of participants who convey an idea, Krueger and Casey, 2000 ) in the current study was the criterion used to identify categories. The identification of categories followed a deductive and inductive iterative process ( Bardin, 1996 ). The categories were organized a priori in a coding scheme based on the theoretical model by Irving et al. (2011) , and on the homework research (e.g., Walberg et al., 1985 ; Cooper, 2001 ; Xu, 2011 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). For example, the categories “definition,” “purposes,” “types,” and “perceived impact” of homework feedback were driven by the Irving et al. (2011) theoretical model, while each type of homework feedback (e.g., subcategory “checking homework on the board”) was driven by homework research (e.g., Rosário et al., 2015b ). New categories were added during the analysis using participants’ words ( Bardin, 1996 ). For example, the subcategories “homework feedback provided to teacher,” “self-esteem,” “homework self-feedback” were subcategories build upon teachers’ words. In the end, all transcripts were reviewed in order to check whether the already coded material fit the new subcategories.

Finally, the two researchers reviewed all the categories and sub-categories and discussed the differences found in order to reach a consensus (e.g., elimination of the subcategory “teachers assess students’ progress” because it was highly related to the subcategory “teachers monitor students’ learning”). After the data analysis of four focus group discussions (two from each school level), the researchers coded the two other focus group discussions and no new information was added. To ensure the reliability of findings, the Kappa value was calculated using the Coding Comparison Queries in the Navigation View of the NVivo software. The Kappa value was 0.86, which may be considered “almost perfect” according to Landis and Koch (1977 , p. 165). Then data from the elementary and middle school teachers were analyzed separately conducting a matrix-coding query, crossing nodes with attributes (i.e., school level). The number of participants for each subcategory was converted into a percentage.

The two researchers who conducted the classroom observations coded independently the process of homework feedback delivery described in the field notes according to the codebook used in the focus groups. No new categories or subcategories were identified or redefined. Data from the elementary and middle school teachers were analyzed separately following the procedure used in focus groups, and the number of participants for each subcategory was converted into a percentage. To avoid bias on the Kappa value in NVivo, due to different numbers of characters of the researchers’ field notes ( Kim et al., 2016 ), data was exported and IBM SPSS was used to calculate Cohen’s Kappa for nominal variables. The Cohen’s Kappa value for each subcategory ranged between 0.81 and 1.0, which indicates high agreement across observers.

To answer the second research question (i.e., How do the four key aspects of the homework feedback relate to each other?), data analysis followed two steps using the same software. First, a Cluster Analysis Wizard by word similarity between nodes was conducted to explore patterns and connections between nodes in an initial phase of data analysis ( Bazeley and Jackson, 2013 ). Second, a case-by-nodes matrix was conducted to explore the relationships between each category in the focus group discussion transcripts as suggested by Bazeley and Jackson (2013) .

Specific quality procedures were used to enhance the trustworthiness of the findings of the current study ( Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ): investigator triangulation (i.e., several investigators were involved in the analysis process), methodological triangulation (i.e., patterns in data from focus groups and classroom observations were compared using a matrix-coding query, crossing nodes with classified sources – focus group and observations), and a member checking run at the University facilities. The researchers randomly selected and invited 25% of the participants of each grade level to do a member check ( Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ). Ten teachers agreed to participate (six from elementary school and four from middle school) (response rate of 83%). Member checking session lasted approximately 2 h. Firstly, participants were informed of the findings (approximately 45 min). Afterward, they were given a copy of the findings and asked to analyze and discuss whether the description was an authentic representation of the topics covered during the focus group interviews. The participants also analyzed whether the description of the homework feedback types provided to students was an authentic representation of what usually happens in class. Participants were invited to critically analyze the findings and comment on them ( Creswell, 2007 ).

Data were organized and reported according to each of the key aspects of teachers’ conceptions of the homework feedback (see Peterson and Irving, 2008 ): definition, purpose, types of homework feedback practices, and perceived impact of homework feedback (see Figures ​ Figures1 1 , ​ 2 2 ). Furthermore, the relationships between these four aspects were presented (see Figure ​ Figure3 3 ). Teachers’ verbatim quotes were introduced to illustrate the categories and conversations held in the focus group discussions (see also Table ​ Table4 4 ). In addition, whenever possible, data from classroom observations were included to illustrate findings. Categories were reported using the criteria by Hill et al. (2005 , p. 16) as follows: general (i.e., categories include all, or all but one, of the cases), typical (i.e., categories include more than half of the cases) and variant (i.e., categories include more than three cases or up to half of the cases). For reasons of parsimony, rare categories (two or three cases) were not reported.

Elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback for each key aspect.

Observed elementary and middle school teachers’ homework feedback practices.

Relationships among teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback.

Summary of findings.

Initial Data Screening

All participants reported assigning homework regularly and considered homework feedback as an important element for homework effectiveness. Data showed that, for each homework assignment, 96% of the elementary school teachers and 52% of the middle school teachers reported spending approximately 30 min giving homework feedback in class. Moreover, 48% of the middle school teachers spent on average 15 min giving homework feedback in class. Classroom observations provided precise information on the time spent in class giving homework feedback: 3–80 min in elementary school classes ( M = 32.75; SD = 19.91), and 5–55 min in middle school classes ( M = 29.89; SD = 17.36).

Definitions of Homework Feedback

When teachers were asked about their definition of homework feedback, the majority said they “had never thought about it” (F1P1). Still, elementary and middle school teachers elaborated on homework feedback differently (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ). Teachers from elementary school proposed two meanings for homework feedback: (i) homework feedback provided by the teacher and (ii) students’ homework self-feedback. For middle school teachers, homework feedback was conceptualized as threefold): (i) homework feedback provided by the teacher; (ii) homework feedback provided by the student; and (iii) students’ homework self-feedback. The analysis of the frequency labels for each category revealed no general categories, which allows concluding that definitions of homework feedback vary among teachers, irrespective of the grade level. Moreover, while “homework feedback provided to students” is a variant category in elementary school, in middle school is a typical category (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ).

For elementary school teachers in one focus group discussion and for middle school teachers in two focus groups, homework feedback provided by teachers was defined as a message provided to students with information concerning their homework behaviors (i.e., completion, effort), and comprehension of homework tasks and performance (e.g., how well students answered, why answers are wrong).

Middle school teachers in all focus groups conceptualized homework feedback in the reverse direction (i.e., from the students to the teacher), as the following statement illustrates:

• simple  F5P2: Some weeks ago, I noticed that several students in class had not understood some homework exercises. I asked the whole class and found out that no one had understood. Two or three students said: Sir, these exercises were a bit complicated… We did not understand what we were expected to do, how to start… This was the homework feedback they gave me.

The remaining teachers nodded their heads in agreement and added that this piece of information gathered at the beginning of a lesson helps them choose the type of homework feedback to give to students.

Lastly, elementary school teachers of two focus groups, and middle school teachers of one focus group (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ) proposed another meaning for homework feedback: “homework self-feedback” (typical category in elementary school and variant category in middle school). The following utterance illustrates this conceptualization:

• simple  F2P3: Homework feedback is when students can explain or reflect upon what they are doing…or checking from their seats when we check homework on the board.

Another elementary school teacher elaborated on students’ homework self-feedback:

• simple  F4P4: Homework feedback is also related to students’ homework completion. All my students draw a grid in their notebooks and devote one row to homework. Every day they write 1 for “completed” homework and 0 for “missing.” At the end of the term they have a score. I believe this to be self-feedback because students know their score and link it to school grades. They know that those who complete homework are likely to achieve better results. The opposite is also true….

This type of homework feedback (i.e., self-feedback) is more focused on students’ homework behaviors than on students’ homework performance. Still, other teachers from the same focus group reported that they do not use this strategy with their students.

Purposes of Homework Feedback

The homework feedback purposes identified by teachers at both school levels were similar. Teachers enthusiastically talked about homework feedback as a “working tool” serving three main purposes (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ): (i) teachers monitor students’ learning and behavior (typical category in both school levels); (ii) students monitor their own learning (typical category in elementary school and variant category in middle school); and (iii) promotion of students’ self-esteem (variant category in both school levels).

When asked to expand on this idea, participants explained that homework feedback helps teachers identify students’ difficulties and monitor their content knowledge, which provides information to self-evaluate the instruction process and introduce changes if necessary. In fact, some students struggle to learn and show difficulties to understand and complete homework. To promote students’ motivation to do homework, teachers agreed on the need – “after charging our batteries of patience” (F6P3) – to explain in class how to do homework exercises. Besides, teachers exemplified the usefulness of homework feedback for monitoring students’ homework behaviors (e.g., checking whether students have completed their homework, whether they have copied the solutions from a textbook). This category emerged in all focus group discussions, and was consensual among participants. Teachers emphatically agreed on the examples discussed and expanded on others’ ideas. The following statements illustrate some of the conversations held:

• simple  F2P4: Homework feedback is important in order to learn about what is happening on earth [some teachers laughed], to learn whether most students do their homework, whether they manage to do it alone or need some help, but also to learn about their difficulties during the learning process and act upon their mistakes.
• simple  F2P1: To know whether I delivered the message well or not so… Homework feedback should make us change our instruction methodologies. If the message was not properly delivered, it’s necessary to change the course of action…

Moreover, many elementary and some middle school teachers in all focus groups mentioned students’ monitoring of their own learning as an important purpose of homework feedback, as illustrated by the following opinion:

• simple  F5P3: With the help of homework feedback, students can learn what is right or wrong in their homework. If the homework assignment is correct, they get some positive reinforcement. If it is not correct, they learn that they have to study more and do additional exercises.

Some points made by participants focused exclusively on one of the two previous purposes (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ). However, some teachers in all focus groups irrespective of grade level considered homework feedback a purposeful tool for teachers or students to monitor progress in learning. In sum, teachers admitted that homework feedback provides on-task opportunities for teachers and students to monitor the teaching and learning process.

Moreover, teachers from five focus groups pointed at the promotion of students’ self-esteem as another purpose of homework feedback (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ). Elementary and middle school teachers supported this idea, showing concern about students’ wellbeing, mainly of low achievers:

• simple  F5P6: When they [students] realize that they are capable of doing homework exercises, they feel very happy and proud of themselves. When they fail to complete or feel frustrated because they couldn’t find a way to do the exercises, I try to make positive comments, highlighting what they did well in order to make them feel confident. It is crucial to give them positive reinforcements to improve their self-esteem.

Types of Homework Feedback Practices

Going further in the discussion, teachers identified the most frequently used homework feedback practices: (i) checking homework completion; (ii) checking homework on the board; (iii) testing related content; (iv) considering homework in the overall grade; (v) informing parents of their children’s homework non-compliance (homework feedback to parents); and (vi) giving written comments (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ).

The two types of homework feedback practices first mentioned in all focus group discussions were: checking who completes homework and checking homework on the board. The classroom observations (see Figure ​ Figure2 2 ) provided information on the classroom routines and, with some exceptions, allowed concluding that classes usually begin with similar routines: checking who did homework and then checking homework on the board.

As Figure ​ Figure1 1 shows, checking homework completion is a general and typical category among elementary and middle school teachers, respectively. When discussing this practice (see Table ​ Table4 4 ), some of the elementary and middle school teachers argued that they simply ask who completed homework. On the other hand, most elementary and some middle school teachers explained that they walk around the class having a glance at students’ notebooks in order to check homework completion. This strategy allows noting who actually did their homework and gathers information on how students did it (e.g., whether students followed all the steps to solve a problem). In this process, teachers reported that they try to understand the reasons why students did not complete homework (e.g., is failing to complete homework a class problem or is it only associated with a particular student?). The participating teachers considered this type of homework feedback useful because it gives information on the process and allows them to respond to students’ maladaptive homework behaviors (e.g., missing homework, copying solutions from peer students, writing down results without checking). Teachers from both school levels reported using logs in class to record who missed homework, and data from the classroom observations corroborated this finding. When asked how they usually deal with maladaptive homework completion behaviors, some teachers at both school levels reported criticizing students who repeatedly fail to complete homework or copy answers from the textbook, as the following utterance illustrates:

• simple  F6P5: Where is your homework? Oh, I see. Keep working like this and you will get far… [ironic tone]

The use of public criticism and irony in response to maladaptive homework behaviors was observed sometimes in elementary school classes, and often in middle school classes.

When discussing the best practice regarding homework, participants at both school levels named checking homework on the board as a practice that “reaches all students” (F6P4). All teachers were very emphatic about the importance and usefulness of this type of feedback. As Figure ​ Figure1 1 shows, this practice is the most frequently used by elementary and middle school teachers. Moreover, present data (i.e., focus group discussions and classroom observations) suggest several ways in which this type of homework feedback may be put into practice. For example, some teachers reported that they check homework on the board; others mentioned writing on the board the answers dictated by students from their seats; while others explained that they randomly choose one or more students to do homework exercises on the board. Elementary and middle school teachers further explained additional homework feedback practices adopted after displaying the solution for the exercise on the board: (i) whole-class discussion led by the teacher; (ii) further explanation provided by the teacher or by the students on what is written on the board; (iii) teachers’ praise for students’ efforts in learning or good performance, or (iv) general incentives encouraging students to persist when doing homework. The observations conducted in the classrooms provided data that showed that all these strategies were used in class when teachers were checking homework on the board. Still, frequency and sequence of the strategies used by teachers (e.g., students check homework on the board, teacher explains problem solving procedures, class discussion) varied according to the needs and characteristics of the class. Moreover, classroom observations revealed that when students ask teachers for help, some teachers provide individual explanations while checking homework on the board. For example, when students raise their hand to show a lack of understanding while checking homework on the board, some teachers go to the student’s desk to answer their question individually.

Teachers at both school levels also emphasized checking homework on the board as a way of giving feedback to the whole class with minimum time and effort:

• simple  F1P1: When homework is being checked on the board by a student, I identify what is incorrect and explain how the exercise may be approached. Still, this feedback is very general because I cannot check every single assignment that students hands in. I simple cannot do it!

However, some participating teachers alerted that students who check homework on the board get a more detailed type of feedback than those who passively watch from their seats or do not pay attention to the checking process.

Moreover, many elementary and some middle school teachers in all focus group discussions mentioned asking questions, or assigning exercises similar to those of previous homework assignments (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 , Testing of related content). Data from the classroom observations confirmed this practice. Participants stressed that this practice provides students with a new feedback event centered on the level of accuracy of their responses and on their ability to transfer the knowledge learned to new tasks. However, despite the general agreement regarding this homework feedback practice, some middle school teachers admitted that they only check students’ ability to transfer knowledge in assessment tests and claimed that this practice should not be considered homework feedback – “This is assessment, not feedback! [Emphatic tone]” (F1P5).

Most participants at both school levels reported following their school’s assessment criteria regarding homework. Generally, homework completion counts for 2–5% of the overall grade in mathematics. When asked to be more specific, several teachers explained that they use information on homework completion recorded in class logs, while others declared using information on students’ performance when checking homework on the board. Teachers admitted that they do not examine the quality of all homework assignments given in class because of the heavy workload they faced on a daily basis. During classroom observations, teachers registered who did not complete homework and sometimes they referred that this behavior would decrease their overall grade. Most teachers in all focus groups reported including information on homework completion in the overall mathematics grade; still, less than half identified this practice as a type of homework feedback.

Furthermore, some of the elementary and middle school teachers in all focus groups mentioned sending parents a message when their children miss homework three times as a type of homework feedback. This practice was confirmed by data from classroom observations. Interestingly, participants did not mention reporting children’s progress on homework to parents during the focus group discussions, and accordingly this practice was not observed in class.

Finally, a few elementary school teachers in two focus group discussions and a few middle school teachers in one focus group reported commenting on students’ homework regularly. Comments address the strengths and weaknesses of homework, pointing out the topics that need to be improved, as the following quotation exemplifies:

• simple  F4P1: I comment on what is done well, but I also point out mistakes and suggest ways to improve what is wrong or not so well done. For example, I’d write: “Great line of reasoning but try to do x so you’ll only have to do two calculations and you’ll finish the exercises faster.” Unfortunately, sometimes I have to write other kinds of comments such as “What a coincidence, your answer is exactly the same as Joana’s or Catarina’s … and the three of you have made exactly the same mistakes…”

These few participants were asked by their focus group peers how they managed to comment on students’ homework regularly. A teacher answered that she could do it because she had been assigned only one class; still, “I spent my lunch hour and some of my free time at school working on this” (F3P3). Another teacher explained that she provides this type of homework feedback weekly, except for those weeks when students have assessment tests. According to this last participant, the negative side of this practice, “frustrating I should say” (F4P1), is when students copy homework answers from another student. Commenting on students’ homework is a very time-consuming practice, and this participant expressed feeling discouraged when such maladaptive behaviors occur in class. To overcome the “very time-consuming obstacle,” another teacher who also claimed to use this practice explained that he usually asks the whole class to complete homework on a separate sheet – “I choose only one good exercise which reflects the material covered in class” (F5P7). In the next lesson, and without prior notice, he collects four or five homework assignments, which are returned with feedback comments in the following class. Participants in the three focus group discussions agreed that this type of homework feedback is very useful, but also stressed the unlikelihood of giving it in class because of the heavy workload they as teachers have to bear (e.g., teachers have to teach five or six classes at different grade levels, each of them with over 25 students, heavy curriculums). In this context, one participant complained: “I’m not a rubber band that may be stretched [endlessly]” (F5P5).

Perceived Impact of Homework Feedback

As Figure ​ Figure1 1 shows, elementary and middle school teachers highlighted the positive impact of homework feedback on content learning, self-esteem, and homework completion (some categories are typical and others are variant).

The following dialog among elementary school teachers illustrates their conceptions on the impact of homework feedback:

• simple  F4P9: Students who complete homework regularly are more willing to understand the contents covered.
• simple  F4P2: …and they complete homework more often… At least I notice more effort.

Moreover, both elementary and middle school teachers related homework feedback to class participation (variant category in both school levels), as the following participant argued:

• simple  F4P5: Yes…they [students who complete homework regularly] follow classroom instructions and participate in class more actively, for example, by asking me questions and answering mine more frequently…

Only elementary school teachers in two focus group discussions related homework feedback to students’ achievement, while none of the middle school teachers did so (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ). In fact, some of the middle school teachers in all the focus group discussions defended the need for students to play an active role in their learning, arguing that homework feedback is not worthwhile for those who are not interested in learning.

Relationships between Teachers’ Conceptions of Homework Feedback

The second research question aimed to examine how the four key aspects of the homework feedback are related. Figure ​ Figure3 3 provides a graphical model of teachers’ most salient conceptions of homework feedback and the relationships among them. The bold solid lines represent typical cases (more than 50%), the thinner solid lines represent variant categories (between 25 and 50% cases), and the dotted lines represent variant categories (between 17 and 24% cases). All lines represent the conceptions of both elementary and middle school teachers except for the lines with an asterisk, which refer to a specific school level (see legend of Figure ​ Figure3 3 ).

As Figure ​ Figure3 3 shows, the definitions of homework feedback provided by elementary and middle school teachers differ regarding the purposes for giving homework feedback. The middle school teachers perceived homework feedback as the feedback provided by the teacher to their students about their homework. The purpose for this homework feedback was described by teachers as twofold: help teachers monitor students’ learning and help students monitor their own learning. The latter was mentioned less often by middle school teachers. Besides, the middle school teachers conceptualized homework feedback provided to teachers by their students with the purpose of helping teachers monitor students’ learning.

In turn, elementary school teachers perceived homework feedback mainly as self-feedback and, accordingly, conceptualized students’ monitoring of their learning as the main purpose for giving homework feedback. While discussing, these teachers highlighted students’ active role in self-regulate their learning during and after homework completion (e.g., students checking their answers when solutions are written on the board). Still, the elementary school teachers did not explain how they promote these self-regulation skills in class. Moreover, the second set of relationships (i.e., purposes and homework feedback types) reveals a different pattern of results as described below.

Interestingly, the participating teachers operationalized both homework purposes (i.e., teachers monitoring students learning and students’ monitoring their own learning, the latter less often; see Figure ​ Figure3 3 ) through the “checking homework on the board” homework feedback type. Teachers’ arguments were twofold: this practice allows checking students’ level of understanding of content (e.g., students solving exercises autonomously on the board), and students can learn about their skills while checking their answers with those written on the board.

The homework feedback practice testing related contents was also linked to both purposes but only by elementary school teachers. These teachers argued that providing students with similar exercises to those previously set as homework helps teachers monitor their students’ learning and students to monitor their own learning.

The purpose “teachers’ monitoring their students’ learning” was linked to the practice “checking homework completion” by elementary and middle school teachers. This homework feedback practice helps teachers learn who completed homework and collect information on the content with which students are struggling the most. This information is expected to help teachers meet their students’ needs.

Finally, the various types of homework feedback were associated with various perceived impacts. Teachers at both school levels converged in the fact that checking homework completion impacts students’ homework completion positively. In general, teachers mentioned that some students are “immature” and their lack of active involvement and strong volition prevent them from completing homework. Thus, most of the teachers at both school levels anticipated that external control is needed to help students complete homework. Checking homework completion was referred to as an important tool for encouraging students to do homework.

As Figure ​ Figure3 3 depicts, teachers described checking homework on the board as the homework feedback practice that most benefits students. According to participants, this practice fosters self-esteem (only reported by elementary school teachers), homework completion (reported by some teachers at both school levels), class participation (reported by some teachers at both levels), and learning of the content taught in class (reported by most of the teachers from both levels). Teachers explained that praising students on their good performance while doing exercises on the board is likely to increase their self-esteem. Furthermore, teachers said that this practice encourages homework completion and increases class participation because it provides students with specific information on how to solve exercises.

Some elementary school teachers reported that testing related content helps students participate more in class (e.g., answering teacher’s questions, asking more questions) and be more engaged in their learning.

A few teachers at both school levels (see Figure ​ Figure3 3 ) mentioned counting homework in the overall grade, and communicating with parents when their children miss homework three times as two types of homework feedback with impact on students’ homework completion. Counting homework completion in the overall grade was referred to as a direct incentive for students to complete homework. However, some teachers alerted that this practice may not always be effective because of the time gap between students’ homework behaviors and the end of term when they get their final grade report. Thus, all agreed that teachers should respond to students’ homework behaviors (e.g., missing homework or doing assignments correctly) as soon as possible. Participants highlighted the importance of communicating with families about children’s homework behaviors. However, teachers alerted that this type of homework feedback may not be effective without the implication of the family in the learning process; “if the family is aware of the importance of this type of practice, then it will be effective, otherwise it will have no effect” (F3P4).

As reported previously, 17% of the elementary and middle school teachers claimed to make written comments on students’ homework assignments (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ). However, when discussing the possible impact of the various types of homework feedback, more teachers (than that 17%) agreed that written comments on students’ assignments would improve students’ learning of content (see Figure ​ Figure3 3 ). These teachers mentioned that personalized homework feedback would help students correct their mistakes and might provide guidance on the topics that need to be further studied. As a result, students were likely to improve their grades.

The discussion of the current study is organized according to each key aspect of teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback. Regarding the first key aspect of homework feedback, teachers proposed a multifaceted definition of homework feedback: (i) homework feedback provided by the teacher, (ii) homework feedback provided by the student, and (iii) homework self-feedback. The latter extends the definition of Cooper (2001) , who defined homework feedback as the teachers’ responses to students’ homework completion as a follow-up (e.g., comments, incentives, grades). The definition of homework self-feedback is linked to the internal feedback or self-feedback proposed by Butler and Winne (1995) and Hattie and Timperley (2007) , respectively. According to these authors, students are expected to display self-regulatory skills to self-evaluate their performance in homework assignments (see Hattie and Timperley, 2007 ). Interestingly, this category is typical in elementary school, but variant in middle school. This is an important finding because the generation of internal feedback requires knowledge on strategies and standards, as well as the capacity to judge the quality of a task in relation to standards, which not all students are capable of, especially those at lower grade levels ( Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons, 1990 ; Butler and Winne, 1995 ; Rosário et al., 2016 ). Moreover, low achievers struggling to learn often fail to activate and control the SRL process ( Núñez et al., 2015a ). In fact, these students are likely to fail to monitor their homework behaviors because they do not know “whether they are on the right track” (F4P8).

Consistently with literature, teachers’ major conceptions of homework feedback purposes addressed monitoring students’ learning, either focusing on teachers’ or on students’ role ( Corno, 2000 ; An and Wu, 2012 ; Bang, 2012 ). This may be particularly important in mathematics where contents are organized so as to follow a continuous progression and lower levels prepare the foundations of subsequent levels ( Pijls and Dekker, 2011 ). Teachers’ monitoring provides the opportunity for teachers to change their teaching practices in response to students’ needs ( Walberg and Paik, 2000 ; Kralovec and Buell, 2001 ), which may be understood as a “student-centered” approach (see Sheridan, 2013 ). The conception of homework feedback purposes focused on students’ monitoring their work emphasizes students’ active role during the homework process and the use of SRL competencies such as self-monitoring and self-reflection (e.g., Ramdass and Zimmerman, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ). The last purpose of homework feedback proposed by participants is to “promote self-esteem.” This purpose is not mentioned in homework literature; however, in the study by Irving et al. (2011) , teachers mentioned the need to inform students about the positive aspects of their performance, thus incentivizing their progress, especially among low achievers showing low self-esteem.

Regarding the third topic of homework feedback (homework feedback types), findings in the current study are consistent with literature ( Cooper, 2001 ; Mullis et al., 2004 ; Kaur, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ; Kukliansky et al., 2016 ). However, despite the similarity of the homework feedback practices reported by elementary and middle school teachers, the percentages of each reported category vary. For example, checking homework completion and checking homework on the board are general categories in elementary school and typical categories in middle school; while testing of related content is a typical category in elementary school and a variant category in middle school. These findings are consistent with students’ reports on their teachers’ support in homework ( Katz et al., 2010 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ). A decrease in teachers’ support in homework at middle school level is expected because older students are likely to be more autonomous. However, Katz et al. (2010) found that the middle school students who perceived low teachers’ homework support reported high psychological needs and low intrinsic motivation. Other important finding to note is the use of criticism observed in elementary and middle school classrooms which may have the opposite effect of teachers’ intentions (e.g., reduce homework non-compliance). In fact, being criticized in class is likely to be non-constructive because it may reduce students’ willingness to accept criticism and result in low favorable responses toward homework. On the contrary, criticism delivered in private is likely to lead to better responses (see Leung et al., 2001 ).

According to participants, homework feedback impacts in the following aspects: content learning, self-esteem, homework completion, class participation, and achievement. Globally, this finding is consistent with previous research (e.g., Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2009 ; Xu, 2011 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ), except for class participation and self-esteem which have not yet been studied. It is interesting to note, however, that despite most teachers reported spending 30 min or more providing homework feedback in each class (see Initial Data Screening subsection); about one third of elementary school teachers related homework feedback to students’ achievement, while none of the middle school teachers did so. However, prior research has evidenced the positive impact of homework feedback on students’ academic achievement ( Núñez et al., 2015b ), especially when teachers provide suggestions on how to improve learning (see Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Walberg et al., 1985 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ).

Moreover, middle school teachers added that when students do not play an active role in their learning, feedback is not likely to have any impact. This conception is consistent with the SRL approach to the homework process (e.g., Xu and Wu, 2013 ; Xu, 2014 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ) which stresses, for example, the role that teachers may play in helping students define their own homework goals and reflect on the relationship between homework completion and achieving self-set learning goals (e.g., Núñez et al., 2015b ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). As Labuhn et al. (2010) observed, the feedback provided by teachers may not impact students’ learning and behaviors if students do not understand what is intended with homework feedback.

Findings gathered from relationships between teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback provide additional useful insights. Interestingly, the two most frequently reported types of homework feedback (i.e., checking homework completion and checking homework on the board) in both school levels are more linked to the purpose “teachers monitoring students’ learning” than to the purpose “students monitoring their own learning.” This data may suggest that teachers may not be fully aware of the importance of promoting students’ SRL competencies to increase the benefits of homework feedback or they may lack the knowledge to promote these skills in class (see Spruce and Bol, 2015 ).

Practical Implications

The current study provides four major findings of relevance for educational practice: (i) decrease of teachers’ reported homework feedback practices from elementary to middle school level; (ii) a few teachers from elementary school and none from middle school level perceive homework feedback impacting on students’ academic achievement; (iii) usage of public criticism in class, especially in middle school; and (iv) teachers’ lack of awareness on SRL strategies.

First, teachers and school administrators with the help of school psychologists could examine homework practices delivered in class, namely homework feedback, to analyze whether they are set to be responsive to students’ educational needs. As found in the current study, there is a decrease of the homework feedback from elementary to middle school; however, this finding should be considered by teachers because, according to literature, many middle school students still report the need of teachers’ homework support (e.g., Katz et al., 2010 ).

Data also showed that both elementary and middle school teachers spend around 30 min providing homework feedback in class, but the perceived impact of this school practice on students’ achievement was barely mentioned in the focus groups. This data merit reflection within the school context to understand whether homework feedback is being used with efficacy. For example, school-based training for teachers’ on homework models (e.g., Cooper, 2001 ; Trautwein et al., 2006 ) could theoretically ground their homework practices in schools. This training would also help teachers understand that criticism and irony in class may discourage homework compliance, but it also may lead to undesirable outcomes such as children homework disengagement.

Finally, data (e.g., elementary school teachers believe that students generate homework self-feedback; the homework feedback practices most used in class are more closely related to the purpose “teachers monitoring students’ learning” than to the purpose “students monitoring their own learning”) suggest the need to set school-based training for teachers on SRL strategies. This training could consider addressing the homework process in relation with SRL to promote students’ agency and sense of responsibility over homework and homework feedback in particular. For example, teachers are expected to learn and practice how to model the use of SRL strategies in class ( Rosário et al., 2013 ; Spruce and Bol, 2015 ). In fact, students lacking SRL skills may fail to use the homework feedback delivered in class, which may compromise the impact of this instructional tool on students learning and achievement (see Corno, 2000 ; Peterson and Irving, 2008 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ). To promote the development of students SRL competencies and increase the benefits of homework feedback, teachers may also consider using “diary tasks” to promote students’ homework self-reflection in class (see Ferreira et al., 2015 ).

Strengths, Limitations, and Future Research

To authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to map mathematics teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback and examine the relationships between teachers’ definitions, purposes, types, and perceived impact of homework feedback. The analysis of these relationships focusing on a specific content domain at two school levels showed which categories were linked, and how, by the participating teachers. This study extended previous research conducted with mathematics teachers from a single grade level (see Kaur, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ).

According to the current findings, elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback vary, as well as the time spent in class providing feedback. Moreover, in spite of the fact that the types of homework feedback practices are the same, the type of categories (i.e., general vs. typical and typical vs. variant) varies in the two school levels, and the dynamic of providing homework feedback at those school levels is diverse and complex (e.g., usage of various strategies to provide some types of homework feedback, even by the same teacher). These findings may help understand why the relationship between homework and academic achievement reported in the literature varies from elementary to middle school (see Cooper et al., 2006 ; Fan et al., 2017 ).

Furthermore, the complexity of the homework feedback process reflected by the collected data may not be captured by extant instruments that examine teachers’ homework feedback practices. To some extent, this may contribute to understand the low effect sizes and explained variances found in the homework feedback research (e.g., Xu, 2014 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). This finding reinforces the need for future studies collect data using more than one method to capture and better understand the phenomenon of the homework process and its influence on students’ academic outcomes (e.g., Cooper et al., 2006 ). Furthermore, findings showed positive relationships between some types of homework feedback practices and perceived impact on students’ variables that have not yet been examined in homework research (e.g., checking homework on the blackboard and class participation). Future studies may consider further examining these relationships.

The present study followed methodological procedures to enhance trustworthiness of findings such as random sampling, investigator and methodological triangulation, provision of direct quotations, and member checking ( Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ; Shenton, 2004 ; Elo et al., 2014 ). Results from member checking were very positive. The majority of the participants agreed that the description of the findings was a genuine reflection of the topics covered in the focus group discussions, and of the homework routines in the classroom. No suggestions were made to change the description of data. Such data have strengthened present findings. In addition, teachers highlighted that they usually choose types of homework feedback that reach all students because of the professional constraints they experience daily (i.e., heavy workload). This topic was mentioned during the discussions and may merit further investigation because it may be an important factor compromising the homework feedback process.

Notwithstanding the strengths of the current study, there are also some limitations that need to be addressed. Classroom observations helped strengthen findings, nevertheless only 25% of the participating teachers were observed in a limited period of time. Moreover, most of the participants have extensive experience in teaching, which may have contributed to the results. As Hattie (2003) reported, expert teachers are more capable of seeking and giving feedback, and also monitoring their students’ learning than novice teachers. Conducting studies on novice teachers would help identify their specific needs for training on instructional variables, and design school-based interventions to meet these professionals’ needs.

Elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback were mapped, but the role of students in the homework feedback process should be further researched. Further investigation may want to explore elementary and middle school students’ conceptions of homework feedback and compare their responses with current findings. The information provided would be useful to learn how students understand (e.g., in what ways students perceive teachers’ homework feedback practices as helpful, see Xu, 2016 ) and cope with the homework feedback given in class. Examining the (mis)alignment of both conceptions of homework feedback (elementary and middle school teachers and students) may help deepen the understanding of the impact of homework feedback and further examine the differential relationship between doing homework and academic achievement at these two school levels (see Cooper et al., 2006 ). The results, although promising, should be further investigated in different school grades and subjects. At this level, however, they may be useful to researchers looking for an in-depth understanding of homework feedback and willing to explore new research topics on the “last but not least” aspect of the homework process.

Ethics Statement

This study was reviewed and approved by the ethics committee of the University of Minho. All research participants provided written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Author Contributions

JC and PR substantially contributed to the conception and the design of the work. JC was responsible for the literature search. JC, AN, TM, JN, and TN were responsible for the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data for the work. PR was also in charge of technical guidance. JN made important intellectual contribution in manuscript revision. JC wrote the manuscript with valuable inputs from the remaining authors. All authors agreed for all aspects of the work and approved the version to be published.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

Authors would like to thank Sofia Kirkman and Fuensanta Monroy for the English editing of the manuscript.

Funding. This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre (UID/PSI/01662/2013), University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653). JC was supported by a Ph.D. fellowship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT – SFRH/BD/95341/2013).

• An S., Wu Z. (2012). Enhancing mathematics teachers’ knowledge of students’ thinking from assessing and analyzing misconceptions in homework. Int. J. Sci. Math. Educ. 10 717–753. 10.1007/s10763-011-9324-x [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bang H. (2012). Promising homework practices: teachers’ perspectives on making homework work for newcomer immigrant students. High Sch. J. 95 3–31. 10.1353/hsj.2012.0001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bang H., Suárez-Orozco C., Pakes J., O’Conner E. (2009). The importance of homework in determining immigrant students’ grades in schools in the USA context. Educ. Res. 51 1–25. 10.1080/00131880802704624 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bang H. J. (2011). What makes it easy or hard for you to do your homework? An account of newcomer immigrant youths’ afterschool academic lives. Curr. Issues Educ. 14 1–26. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bardin L. (1996). The Content Analysis. Paris: PUF. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bazeley P., Jackson K. (2013). Qualitative Data Analysis with NVivo. London: Sage. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bedford P. D. (2014). Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices Regarding Homework: An Examination of the Cognitive Domain Embedded in Third Grade Mathematics Homework. Doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI. [ Google Scholar ]
• Brookhart S. M. (2008). How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. [ Google Scholar ]
• Butler D. L., Winne P. H. (1995). Feedback and self-regulated learning: a theoretical synthesis. Rev. Educ. Res. 65 245–281. 10.3102/00346543065003245 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cardelle M., Corno L. (1981). Effects on second language learning of variations in written feedback on homework assignments. TESOL Q. 15 k251–261. 10.2307/3586751 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Choo E. K., Garro A. C., Ranney M. L., Meisel Z. F., Morrow Guthrie K. (2015). Qualitative research in emergency care part I: research principles and common applications. Acad. Emerg. Med. 22 1096–1102. 10.1111/acem.12736 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cooper H. (2001). The Battle Over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents , 2nd Edn Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. [ Google Scholar ]
• Cooper H., Robinson J., Patall E. (2006). Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research. Rev. Educ. Res. 76 1–62. 10.3102/00346543076001001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cooper H., Valentine J. C. (2001). Using research to answer practical questions about homework. Educ. Psychol. 36 143–153. 10.1207/S15326985EP3603_1 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Corno L. (2000). Looking at homework differently. Elem. Sch. J. 100 529–548. 10.1086/499654 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Creswell J. W. (2007). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Method: Choosing Among Five Approaches , 2nd Edn Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. [ Google Scholar ]
• Deslandes R. (2009). “Elementary school teachers’ views of homework and parents - school relations,” in Perspectives on Student Outcomes and Homework: Family-School-Community Partnerships , ed. Deslandes R. (New York, NY: Routledge; ), 128–140. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dettmers S., Trautwein U., Lüdtke O., Kunter M., Baumert J. (2010). Homework works if homework quality is high: using multilevel modeling to predict the development of achievement in mathematics. J. Educ. Psychol. 102 467–482. 10.1037/a0018453 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Elawar M. C., Corno L. (1985). A factorial experiment in teachers’ written feedback on student homework: changing teacher behavior a little rather than a lot. J. Educ. Psychol. 77 162–173. 10.1037/0022-0663.77.2.162 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Elo S., Kääriäinen M., Kanste O., Pölkki T., Utriainen K., Kyngäs H. (2014). Qualitative content analysis: a focus on trustworthiness. SAGE Open 4 1–10. 10.1177/2158244014522633 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Epstein J. L., Van Voorhis F. L. (2001). More than ten minutes: teachers’ roles in designing homework. Educ. Psychol. 36 181–193. 10.1207/S15326985EP3603_4 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fan H., Xu J., Cai Z., He J., Fan X. (2017). Homework and students’ achievement in math and science: a 30-year meta-analysis, 1986-2015. Educ. Res. Rev. 20 35–54. 10.1016/j.edurev.2016.11.003 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fernández-Alonso R., Suárez-Álvarez J., Muñiz J. (2015). Adolescents’ homework performance in mathematics and science: personal factors and teaching practices. J. Educ. Psychol. 107 1075–1085. 10.1037/edu0000032 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ferreira P. C., Simão A. V., Silva A. L. (2015). Does training in how to regulate one’s learning affect how students report self-regulated learning in diary tasks? Metacogn. Learn. 10 199–230. 10.1007/s11409-014-9121-3 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hagger M., Sultan S., Hardcastle S., Chatzisarantis N. (2015). Perceived autonomy support and autonomous motivation toward mathematics activities in educational and out-of-school contexts is related to mathematics homework behavior and attainment. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 41 111–123. 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2014.12.002 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hattie J., Timperley H. (2007). The power of feedback. Rev. Educ. Res. 77 81–112. 10.3102/003465430298487 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hattie J. A. (2003). Teachers make a difference: what is the research evidence?. Paper Presented at the Building Teacher Quality Research Conference , Melbourne, VIC. Available at: https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=research_conference_2003 [ Google Scholar ]
• Hill C. E., Knox S., Thompson B. J., Williams E. N., Hess S. A., Ladany N. (2005). Consensual qualitative research: an update. J. Couns. Psychol. 52 k196–205. 10.1037/a0033361 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Irving S., Harris L., Peterson E. (2011). ‘One assessment doesn’t serve all the purposes’ or does it? New Zealand teachers describe assessment and feedback. Asia Pac. Educ. Rev. 12 413–426. 10.1007/s12564-011-9145-1 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Katz I., Kaplan A., Gueta G. (2010). Students’ needs, teachers’ support, and motivation for doing homework: a cross-sectional study. J. Exp. Educ. 78 246–267. 10.1080/00220970903292868 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kaur B. (2011). Mathematics homework: a study of three grade eight classrooms in Singapore. Int. J. Sci. Math. Educ. 9 187–206. 10.1007/s10763-010-9237-0 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kim S. Y., Graham S. S., Ahn S., Olson M. K., Card D. J., Kessler M. M., et al. (2016). Correcting biased Cohen’s Kappa in NVivo. Commun. Methods Meas. 10 217–232. 10.1080/19312458.2016.1227772 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kitzinger J. (1995). Qualitative research: introducing focus groups. BMJ 311 299–302. 10.1136/bmj.311.7000.299 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kralovec E., Buell J. (2001). End homework now. Educ. Leadersh. 58 39–42. [ Google Scholar ]
• Krueger R. A., Casey M. A. (2000). Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research , 3rd Edn Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; 10.1037/10518-189 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Krueger R. A., Casey M. A. (2010). “Focus group interviewing,” in Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation , 3rd Edn, eds Newcomer K. E., Hatry H. P., Wholey J. S. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; ), 506–534. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kukliansky I., Shosberger I., Eshach H. (2016). Science teachers’ voice on homework: beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Int. J. Sci. Math. Educ. 14 229–250. 10.1007/s10763-014-9555-8 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Labuhn A. S., Zimmerman B. J., Hasselhorn M. (2010). Enhancing students’ self-regulation and mathematics performance: the influence of feedback and self-evaluative standards. Metacogn. Learn. 5 173–194. 10.1007/s11409-010-9056-2 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Landis J. R., Koch G. G. (1977). The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics 33 159–174. 10.2307/2529310 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Leung K., Su S., Morris M. W. (2001). When is criticism not constructive? The roles of fairness perceptions and dispositional attributions in employee acceptance of critical supervisory feedback. Hum. Relat. 54 1155–1187. 10.1177/0018726701549002 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lincoln Y. S., Guba E. G. (1985). Naturalistic Inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. [ Google Scholar ]
• Morgan D. L. (1997). Focus Group as Qualitative Research , 2nd Edn Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; 10.4135/9781412984287 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Muhlenbruck L., Cooper H., Nye B., Lindsay J. J. (1999). Homework and achievement: explaining the different strengths of relation at the elementary and secondary school levels. Soc. Psych. Educ. 3 295–317. 10.1023/A:1009680513901 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mullis I. V., Martin M. O., Gonzalez E. J., Chrostowski S. J. (2004). TIMSS 2003 International Mathematics Report: Findings from IEA’s Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study at the Fourth and Eighth Grades. Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College. [ Google Scholar ]
• Murphy J., Decker K., Chaplin C., Dagenais R., Heller J., Jones R., et al. (1987). An exploratory analysis of the structure of homework assignments in high schools. Res. Rural Educ. 4 61–71. [ Google Scholar ]
• Núñez J. C., Rosário P., Vallejo G., González-Pienda J. (2013). A longitudinal assessment of the effectiveness of a school-based mentoring program in middle school. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 38 11–21. 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2012.10.002 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Núñez J. C., Suárez N., Cerezo R., González-Pienda J., Rosário P., Mourão R., et al. (2015a). Homework and academic achievement across Spanish compulsory education. Educ. Psychol. 35 726–746. 10.1080/01443410.2013.817537 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Núñez J. C., Suárez N., Rosário P., Vallejo G., Cerezo R., Valle A. (2015b). Teachers’ feedback on homework, homework-related behaviors, and academic achievement. J. Educ. Res. 108 204–216. 10.1080/00220671.2013.878298 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Núñez J. C., Suárez N., Rosário P., Vallejo G., Valle A., Epstein J. L. (2015c). Relationships between parental involvement in homework, student homework behaviors, and academic achievement: differences among elementary, junior high, and high school students. Metacogn. Learn. 10 375–406. 10.1007/s11409-015-9135-5 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• OECD (2014). PISA 2012 Results in Focus: What 15-Year-Olds Know and what they can do with what they know, PISA. Paris: OECD Publishing. [ Google Scholar ]
• Peterson E., Irving S. (2008). Secondary school students’ conceptions of assessment and feedback. Learn. Instr. 18 238–250. 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2007.05.001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pijls M., Dekker R. (2011). Students discussing their mathematical ideas: the role of the teacher. Math. Educ. Res. J. 23 379–396. 10.1007/s13394-011-0022-3 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ramdass D., Zimmerman B. J. (2011). Developing self-regulation skills: the important role of homework. J. Adv. Acad. 22 194–218. 10.1177/1932202X1102200202 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Reyna V. F., Brainerd C. J. (2007). The importance of mathematics in health and human judgment: numeracy, risk communication, and medical decision making. Learn. Individ. Diff. 17 147–159. 10.1016/j.lindif.2007.03.010 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Richards L. (2005). Handling Qualitative Data: A Practical Guide. London: Sage Publications. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosário P., Núñez J. C., Valle A., González-Pienda J., Lourenço A. (2013). Grade level, study time, and grade retention and their effects on motivation, self-regulated learning strategies, and mathematics achievement: a structural equation model. Eur. J. Psychol. Educ. 28 1311–1331. 10.1007/s10212-012-0167-9 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosário P., Núñez J. C., Vallejo G., Cunha J., Azevedo R., Pereira R., et al. (2016). Promoting Gypsy children school engagement: a story-tool project to enhance self-regulated learning. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 47 84–94. 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2015.11.005 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosário P., Núñez J. C., Vallejo G., Cunha J., Nunes T., Mourão R., et al. (2015a). Does homework design matter? The role of homework’s purpose in student mathematics achievement. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 43 10–24. 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2015.08.001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosário P., Núñez J. C., Vallejo G., Cunha J., Nunes T., Suárez N., et al. (2015b). The effects of teachers’ homework follow-up practices on students’ EFL performance: a randomized-group design. Front. Psychol. 6 : 1528 . 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01528 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ryan K. E., Gandha T., Culbertson M. J., Carlson C. (2014). Focus group evidence: implications for design and analysis. Am. J. Eval. 35 328–345. 10.1177/1098214013508300 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Schmitz B., Perels F. (2011). Self-monitoring of self-regulation during math homework behaviour using standardized diaries. Metacogn. Learn. 6 255–273. 10.1007/s11409-011-9076-6 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shenton A. (2004). Strategies for ensuring trustworthiness in qualitative research projects. Educ. Inf. 22 63–75. 10.3233/EFI-2004-22201 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sheridan L. D. (2013). Changes in pre-service teachers perceptions’ of teacher qualities: development from egocentric to student centric. Aust. J. Teach. Educ. 38 55–75. 10.14221/ajte.2013v38n9.2 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Spruce R., Bol L. (2015). Teacher beliefs, knowledge, and practice of self-regulated learning. Metacogn. Learn. 10 245–277. 10.1007/s11409-014-9124-0 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tas Y., Sungur S., Oztekin C. (2016). Development and validation of science homework scale for middle-school students. Int. J. Sci. Math. Educ. 14 417–444. 10.1007/s10763-014-9582-5 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Trautwein U., Lüdtke O. (2009). Predicting homework motivation and homework effort in six school subjects: the role of person and family characteristics, classroom factors, and school track. Learn. Instr. 19 243–258. 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2008.05.001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Trautwein U., Lüdtke O., Schnyder I., Niggli A. (2006). Predicting homework effort: support for a domain-specific, multilevel homework model. J. Educ. Psychol. 98 438–456. 10.1037/0022-0663.98.2.438 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Walberg H. J., Paik S. J. (2000). Effective Educational Practices. Brussels: International Academy of Education & International Bureau of Education. [ Google Scholar ]
• Walberg H. J., Paschal R. A., Weinstein T. (1985). Homework’s powerful effects on learning. Educ. Leadersh. 42 76–79. [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2008). Models of secondary school students’ interest in homework: a multilevel analysis. Am. Educ. Res. J. 45 1180–1205. 10.3102/0002831208323276 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2010). Homework purposes reported by secondary school students: a multilevel analysis. J. Educ. Res. 103 171–182. 10.1080/00220670903382939 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2011). Homework completion at the secondary school level: a multilevel analysis. J. Educ. Res. 104 171–182. 10.1080/00220671003636752 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2012). Predicting students’ homework environment management at the secondary school level. Educ. Psychol. 32 183–200. 10.1080/01443410.2011.635639 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2014). Regulation of motivation: predicting students’ homework motivation management at the secondary school level. Res. Pap. Educ. 29 457–478. 10.1080/02671522.2013.775324 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2015). Investigating factors that influence conventional distraction and tech-related distraction in math homework. Comput. Educ. 81 304–314. 10.1016/j.compedu.2014.10.024 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2016). A study of the validity and reliability of the teacher homework involvement scale: a psychometric evaluation. Measurement 93 102–107. 10.1016/j.measurement.2016.07.012 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J., Du J., Fan X. (2017). Self-regulation of mathematics homework behavior: an empirical investigation. J. Educ. Res. 110 467–477. 10.1080/00220671.2015.1125837 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J., Wu H. (2013). Self-regulation of homework behavior: homework management at the secondary school level. J. Educ. Res. 106 1–13. 10.1080/00220671.2012.658457 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhu Y., Leung F. (2012). Homework and mathematics achievement in Hong Kong: evidence from the TIMSS 2003. Int. J. Sci. Math. Educ. 10 907–925. 10.1007/s10763-011-9302-3 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zimmerman B. J. (1989). A social cognitive view of self-regulated academic learning. J. Educ. Psychol. 81 329–339. 10.1037/0022-0663.81.3.329 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zimmerman B. J., Kitsantas A. (2005). Homework practices and academic achievement: the mediating role of self-efficacy and perceived responsibility beliefs. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 30 397–417. 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2005.05.003 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zimmerman B. J., Martinez-Pons M. (1990). Student differences in self-regulated learning: relating grade, sex, and giftedness to self-efficacy and strategy use. J. Educ. Psychol. 82 51–59. 10.1037/0022-0663.82.1.51 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Student Opinion

Should We Get Rid of Homework?

Some educators are pushing to get rid of homework. Would that be a good thing?

By Jeremy Engle and Michael Gonchar

Do you like doing homework? Do you think it has benefited you educationally?

Has homework ever helped you practice a difficult skill — in math, for example — until you mastered it? Has it helped you learn new concepts in history or science? Has it helped to teach you life skills, such as independence and responsibility? Or, have you had a more negative experience with homework? Does it stress you out, numb your brain from busywork or actually make you fall behind in your classes?

Should we get rid of homework?

In “ The Movement to End Homework Is Wrong, ” published in July, the Times Opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang argues that homework may be imperfect, but it still serves an important purpose in school. The essay begins:

Do students really need to do their homework? As a parent and a former teacher, I have been pondering this question for quite a long time. The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value. But I also imagine that some of my students never would have done their basic reading if they hadn’t been trained to complete expected assignments, which would have made the task of teaching an English class nearly impossible. As a parent, I would rather my daughter not get stuck doing the sort of pointless homework I would occasionally assign, but I also think there’s a lot of value in saying, “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” I certainly am not the only person wondering about the value of homework. Recently, the sociologist Jessica McCrory Calarco and the mathematics education scholars Ilana Horn and Grace Chen published a paper, “ You Need to Be More Responsible: The Myth of Meritocracy and Teachers’ Accounts of Homework Inequalities .” They argued that while there’s some evidence that homework might help students learn, it also exacerbates inequalities and reinforces what they call the “meritocratic” narrative that says kids who do well in school do so because of “individual competence, effort and responsibility.” The authors believe this meritocratic narrative is a myth and that homework — math homework in particular — further entrenches the myth in the minds of teachers and their students. Calarco, Horn and Chen write, “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.”

Mr. Kang argues:

But there’s a defense of homework that doesn’t really have much to do with class mobility, equality or any sense of reinforcing the notion of meritocracy. It’s one that became quite clear to me when I was a teacher: Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day. Even if we could perfectly equalize opportunity in school and empower all students not to be encumbered by the weight of their socioeconomic status or ethnicity, I’m not sure what good it would do if the kids didn’t know how to do something relentlessly, over and over again, until they perfected it. Most teachers know that type of progress is very difficult to achieve inside the classroom, regardless of a student’s background, which is why, I imagine, Calarco, Horn and Chen found that most teachers weren’t thinking in a structural inequalities frame. Holistic ideas of education, in which learning is emphasized and students can explore concepts and ideas, are largely for the types of kids who don’t need to worry about class mobility. A defense of rote practice through homework might seem revanchist at this moment, but if we truly believe that schools should teach children lessons that fall outside the meritocracy, I can’t think of one that matters more than the simple satisfaction of mastering something that you were once bad at. That takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

Should we get rid of homework? Why, or why not?

Is homework an outdated, ineffective or counterproductive tool for learning? Do you agree with the authors of the paper that homework is harmful and worsens inequalities that exist between students’ home circumstances?

Or do you agree with Mr. Kang that homework still has real educational value?

When you get home after school, how much homework will you do? Do you think the amount is appropriate, too much or too little? Is homework, including the projects and writing assignments you do at home, an important part of your learning experience? Or, in your opinion, is it not a good use of time? Explain.

In these letters to the editor , one reader makes a distinction between elementary school and high school:

Homework’s value is unclear for younger students. But by high school and college, homework is absolutely essential for any student who wishes to excel. There simply isn’t time to digest Dostoyevsky if you only ever read him in class.

What do you think? How much does grade level matter when discussing the value of homework?

Is there a way to make homework more effective?

If you were a teacher, would you assign homework? What kind of assignments would you give and why?

Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column . Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle

Along with Stanford news and stories, show me:

• Student information
• Faculty/Staff information

We want to provide announcements, events, leadership messages and resources that are relevant to you. Your selection is stored in a browser cookie which you can remove at any time using “Clear all personalization” below.

Education scholar Denise Pope has found that too much homework has negative effects on student well-being and behavioral engagement. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

A Stanford researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.

“Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good,” wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .

The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students’ views on homework.

Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.

Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.

“The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students’ advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being,” Pope wrote.

Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.

Their study found that too much homework is associated with:

* Greater stress: 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.

* Reductions in health: In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.

* Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits: Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were “not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills,” according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.

A balancing act

The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.

Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as “pointless” or “mindless” in order to keep their grades up.

“This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points,” Pope said.

She said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.

“Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development,” wrote Pope.

High-performing paradox

In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. “Young people are spending more time alone,” they wrote, “which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities.”

Student perspectives

The researchers say that while their open-ended or “self-reporting” methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for “typical adolescent complaining” – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.

The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Media Contacts

Denise Pope, Stanford Graduate School of Education: (650) 725-7412, [email protected] Clifton B. Parker, Stanford News Service: (650) 725-0224, [email protected]

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

The effects of teachers' homework follow-up practices on students' efl performance: a randomized-group design.

• 1 Departamento de Psicologia Aplicada, Escola de Psicologia, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal
• 2 Departamento de Psicologia, Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain
• 3 Vicerrectoría Académica, Universidad Central de Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile
• 4 Facultad de Educación, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile

This study analyzed the effects of five types of homework follow-up practices (i.e., checking homework completion; answering questions about homework; checking homework orally; checking homework on the board; and collecting and grading homework) used in class by 26 teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) using a randomized-group design. Once a week, for 6 weeks, the EFL teachers used a particular type of homework follow-up practice they had previously been assigned to. At the end of the 6 weeks students completed an EFL exam as an outcome measure. The results showed that three types of homework follow-up practices (i.e., checking homework orally; checking homework on the board; and collecting and grading homework) had a positive impact on students' performance, thus highlighting the role of EFL teachers in the homework process. The effect of EFL teachers' homework follow-up practices on students' performance was affected by students' prior knowledge, but not by the number of homework follow-up sessions.

Introduction

Homework is defined as a set of school tasks assigned by teachers to be completed by students out of school ( Cooper, 2001 ). Several studies have showed the positive impact of this instructional tool to enhance students' school performance and develop study skills, self-regulation, school engagement, discipline, and responsibility (e.g., Cooper et al., 2006 ; Rosário et al., 2009 , 2011 ; Buijs and Admiraal, 2013 ; Hagger et al., 2015 ).

In the homework process teachers have two major tasks: designing and setting activities ( Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 , 2012 ; Trautwein et al., 2009a ), and checking and/or providing homework feedback to students ( Trautwein et al., 2006b ; Núñez et al., 2014 ). Cooper (1989) called the later “classroom follow-up” (p. 87). Classroom follow-up includes feedback provided by the teacher (e.g., written comments, marking homework, and incentives; Cooper, 1989 , 2001 ). Hattie and Timperley (2007) defined feedback as the information provided by an educational agent or the student (self) on aspects of the performance. Feedback is an important source of information for checking answers ( Narciss, 2004 ) and improving academic performance ( Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006 ; Shute, 2008 ; Duijnhouwer et al., 2012 ). According to Walberg and Paik (2000) , feedback is “the key to maximizing the positive impact of homework” (p. 9) because teachers take advantage of the opportunity to reinforce the work that was well-done by the students or teach them something new that would help them improve their work. Moreover, Cooper (1989 , 2001) argued that the way teachers manage students' homework assignments presented in classroom may influence how much students benefit from homework.

Research on homework, with a particular focus on the homework follow-up practices commonly used by teachers, has looked into various practices such as homework control perceived by students (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2006a , b ), teachers' feedback on homework ( Cardelle and Corno, 1981 ; Elawar and Corno, 1985 ), and feedback on homework perceived by students (e.g., Xu, 2008 , 2010 ). Studies conducted in several countries (e.g., Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore) reported homework control (i.e., checking whether students have completed their homework) as the homework follow-up practice teachers use in class most often in elementary and middle school levels (see Trautwein et al., 2009a ; Kaur, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ). However, studies carried out in mathematics and French as a second language concluded that controlling homework completion reported by middle school students, or controlling students' homework style reported by teachers (e.g., “By looking at a student's assignment, I can quickly tell how much effort he/she has put into it”) did not have any effect on middle school students' achievement ( Trautwein et al., 2002 , 2009a ). To our knowledge, only the study by Trautwein et al. (2006b) found a positive predictive effect of homework control perceived by middle school students on students' homework effort in French as a Foreign Language at the student level but not at the class level.

Regarding homework feedback, Walberg and Paik (2000) described “[homework feedback as] the key to maximizing the positive impact of homework” (p. 9). In fact, the literature has evidenced a positive relationship between homework feedback and students' outcomes. For example, Xu (2008 , 2010) examined the benefits of homework feedback using a measure of teacher's feedback on homework. This measure assessed middle and high school students' perceptions on topics such as: discussing homework, collecting homework, checking homework, grading homework [i.e., assigning numerical grades for homework], and counting homework completion for students' overall grade. However, Xu (2008) ; Xu (2010) did notanalyzed the impact of any particular feedback practice. The same author found a positive relationship between homework feedback provided by teachers (as perceived by the middle and high school students) and students' interest in homework ( Xu, 2008 ); students' homework management ( Xu, 2012 ; Xu and Wu, 2013 ); and students' homework completion ( Xu, 2011 ). More recently, Núñez et al. (2014) analyzed the relationship between teachers' homework feedback as perceived by students from the fifth to the twelfth grade and academic achievement, and reported an indirect relationship between homework feedback and academic achievement through students' homework behaviors (e.g., amount of homework completed).

Other studies on homework have examined the effects of written feedback on students' academic outcomes. In particular, Cardelle and Corno (1981) and Elawar and Corno (1985) , examined the effects of three types of written homework feedback (i.e., praise, constructive criticism, constructive criticism plus praise) using an experimental design, and concluded that student's performance when given constructive criticism plus praise was higher than when given the other two types of feedback in primary education ( Elawar and Corno, 1985 ) or in higher education ( Cardelle and Corno, 1981 ). These results stress how important teachers' feedback may be not only because of its positive effect on homework, but also because it provides students with information on how to improve their work ( Cardelle and Corno, 1981 ). The synthesis by Walberg et al. (1985) confirmed the results of previous studies and showed that “commented upon or graded homework” (p.76) increased the positive effect of homework on academic achievement of elementary and secondary students.

The literature has shown the effect of some teachers' homework follow-up practices on students' homework behaviors and academic achievement ( Xu, 2012 ; Xu and Wu, 2013 ; Núñez et al., 2014 ), yet the use of different measures and sources of information (e.g., see Trautwein et al., 2006b , 2009a ) makes it difficult for researchers to draw conclusions about the benefits of the various types of homework follow-up practices. Moreover, Trautwein et al. (2006b) suggested that future studies should include other dimensions of teachers' homework practices (e.g., checking homework completion, grading homework). However, to our knowledge, research has not yet analyzed the effects of the various types of homework follow-up practices used by teachers.

To address this call, we used a quasi-experimental design in a study conducted in an authentic learning environment in order to analyze the relationship between five types of homework follow-up practices (i.e., 1, Checking homework completion ; 2, Answering questions about homework ; 3, Checking homework orally ; 4, Checking homework on the board ; and 5, Collecting and grading homework ) used by EFL teachers and their students' performance in English. Findings may be useful to school administrators and teachers as they may learn and reflect upon the effects of the homework follow-up practices used in class, which may in turn promote homework effectiveness and school success.

Considering the scarce results of prior studies, it was not possible to establish specific hypotheses regarding the relationship between type of homework feedback and student academic performance. However, taking into account the nature of each type of feedback and its implications for student learning process, in this study we hypothesize that:

(1) The types of homework feedback analyzed are differentially associated with student academic performance (increasing from types 1–5);

(2) The magnitude of the impact of the types of teacher homework feedback on academic performance is associated with students' prior level of performance.

Participants

A randomized-group design study was conducted in which 45 EFL teachers (classes) were randomly assigned to five homework follow-up conditions (nine EFL teachers per condition). Nineteen teachers were excluded from the study for various reasons (three were laid off, six did not give an accurate report of the procedures followed or submitted the data requested, and 10 did not follow the protocol closely. In the end 26 EFL teachers (20 females) aged 28–54 participated in the study. The final distribution of the teachers per condition was as follows: Type 1 (4); Type 2 (3); Type 3 (5); Type 4 (15); Type 5 (2). Participants had 3–30 years of teaching experience ( M = 19) and taught English to a total of 553 sixth-graders at six state schools in the north of Portugal. Students' age ranged 10–13 ( M = 11.05; SD = 0.87), and there were 278 girls (50.3%) and 275 boys (49.7%).

Learning English as a foreign language is compulsory from fifth to ninth grade in all Portuguese middle schools. Middle school is divided into two stages: the first stage includes fifth and sixth grade (age range 10–11), and the second stage includes seventh to ninth grade (age range 12–14). Our study was conducted with sixth grade students, which is the last year of the first stage. English is taught in two 90-min weekly lessons. As the Portuguese public school system has not enacted any specific homework policies, teachers are free to decide on the amount, frequency, and type of homework they design. This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the ethics committee of the University of Minho, with written informed consent from all subjects enrolled (i.e., teachers and their students). All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

The two English performance measures used in this study were collected from the schools' secretary's office. Prior performance (used as a pretest) was obtained from students' grades in a final English exam completed at the end of the previous school year (end of June). Fifth grade EFL students from the six public schools enrolled in the study (all from the same region of the country) completed the same non-standardized exam in the end of the school year (June). This English exam comprised 30 questions on reading comprehension skills, vocabulary, and grammar which were calibrated by a group of EFL teachers from all the intervening schools.

Final academic performance (used as a posttest) was obtained from the students' grades in a final English exam set up specifically for this study and completed at the end of it (beginning of November). The posttest exam was made up of 20 questions designed to assess students' reading comprehension skills, vocabulary, grammar (contents covered in homework assignments 1, 2, 4, and 5), translation skills from English into Portuguese and vice versa, and writing of a short text (5–10 lines; contents covered in homework assignments 3 and 6). The exam lasted 45 min. Grades in the Portuguese compulsory educational system (first to ninth grade) range from 1 to 5, where 1 and 2 is fail, 3 pass, 4 good, and 5 excellent.

To accomplish our goal, the types of homework follow-up practices were selected from the ones identified in the literature (e.g., Walberg et al., 1985 ; Murphy et al., 1987 ; Cooper, 1989 , 2001 ; Trautwein et al., 2006b ). To learn which homework follow-up practices were used by teachers in class to deal with students' delivery of homework assignments, 15 Portuguese middle school EFL teachers were invited to participate in two focus group interviews (one group comprised seven teachers and the other eight teachers). Note that these EFL teachers did not participate in the research intervention.

Findings from this ancillary study allowed the confirmation of the two homework follow-up practices reported in the literature (i.e., checking homework completion, collecting, and grading homework ), and identified three additional practices which were used in the current study. Data from this ancillary study will not be described in detail due to space constraints. Nevertheless, some examples of each homework practice are presented in Table 1 .

Table 1. The five types of homework follow-up practices exemplified with quotations from the participating teachers in the focus group interviews .

Five homework follow-up practices were included in our study as follows: (1) Checking homework completion; (2) Answering questions about homework; (3) Checking homework orally; (4) Checking homework on the board; and (5) Collecting and grading homework. Types 1 and 5 were based on the literature ( Walberg et al., 1985 ; Murphy et al., 1987 ; Trautwein et al., 2006b ), and types 2–4 emerged in the focus group interviews with the EFL teachers, and were included in this study because of their local relevance.

Data were collected at the beginning of the school year (between mid-September and end of October) after obtaining permission from schools' head offices. EFL teachers confirmed their intention to participate via email, and from those who had confirmed participation, 45 and their students were randomly selected. Two weeks before the beginning of the study, the 45 EFL teachers participated in a 4-h information meeting which explained the project's aims and the research design in detail (e.g., analysis and discussion of the format and content of the English exam to assess students' performance; and information on the frequency, number, and type of homework assignments; guidelines to mark the homework assignments; and the five types of homework follow-up practices). Additionally, teachers were informed that they would be randomly assigned to an experimental condition, and the associated methodological reasons were discussed with the participants. All teachers agreed and were then randomly assigned to one of the five homework follow-up conditions (nine teachers per condition). However, only 26 teachers completed the study (see Section Participants). At the meeting, all teachers agreed to assign homework to their students only once a week (in the first class of the week) and to check homework completion in the following class using the type of homework follow-up condition they had been assigned to. The six homework assignments were extracted from the English textbook and common to all participants. Two different types of homework were assigned. The first type had reading comprehension, vocabulary, and grammar questions (homework assignments 1, 2, 4, and 5). The second type (homework assignments 3 and 6) had a translation exercise from English into Portuguese and vice versa, and writing of a short text in English (5–10 lines). After selecting the homework exercises, teachers worked on the guidelines to mark each homework assignment, and built a grade tracking sheet to be filled in with information regarding each student and each homework. The grade tracking sheet filled in with students data was delivered to researchers in the following class.

At the end of each lesson, the students noted down the instructions for the homework assignment in their notebooks and completed it out of class.

The researchers gave the EFL teachers extensive training on the homework follow-up practices in order to guarantee that all the participants under each condition followed the same protocol. During the information meeting a combination of theory and practice, open discussion, and role-playing exercises were used.

For each condition, the protocol was as follows. For homework follow-up condition no. 1 ( checking homework completion ), the teacher began the class asking students whether they had completed their homework assignment (i.e., yes, no) and recorded the data on a homework assignment sheet. For homework follow-up condition no. 2 ( answering questions about homework ), the teacher began the class asking students if they had any questions about the homework assignment (e.g., Please, ask any questions if there is something in the homework which you did not understand.), in which case the teacher would answer them. For homework follow-up condition no. 3 ( checking homework orally ), the teacher began the class checking homework orally. Under this condition the teachers proactively read the homework previously assigned to students and orally checked all the tasks or questions (i.e., the teacher read the questions and students answered them aloud, followed by an explanation of the mistakes made by students). For homework follow-up condition no. 4 ( checking homework on the board ), the teacher started the class by writing the answer to each of the homework questions on the board. Following the explanation to a specific question or task, the EFL teachers explicitly asked the class: “Do you have any other questions?” and moved on to the next question. In the case of homework follow-up condition no. 5 ( collecting and grading homework ), the teacher began the class handing out individually checked and graded homework to students. For homework assignments 1, 2, 4, and 5 (i.e., reading comprehension, vocabulary, and grammar questions) the EFL teachers pointed out which of answers were incorrect, and provided the correct answer. A numerical grade for each of the exercises and a global grade were awarded. For the second type of homework assignments (3 and 6; i.e., translation from English into Portuguese and vice versa, and writing of a short text in English), the EFL teachers made comments on the text in terms of contents and style, and gave a numerical grade. Students were encouraged to read the teachers' comments on their homework and asked if they had any questions.

To guarantee the reliability of the measurements (i.e., whether the EFL teachers followed the protocol), three research assistants were present at the beginning of each class. For 15 min, the research assistants took notes on the type of homework follow-up used by the teachers using a diary log. The level of overall agreement among the research assistants was estimated with Fleiss's Kappa ( Fleiss, 1981 ). According to Landis and Koch (1977) , the reliability among the research assistants may be rated as good (κ = 0.746; p < 0.001).

Data from the 19 EFL teachers who did not follow the protocol for their assigned homework follow-up condition were not included in the data set. Three weeks after the study, EFL teachers attended a 2-h post-research evaluation meeting with the aim to discuss their experience (e.g., comments and suggestions that could help in future studies; difficulties faced in implementing their experimental condition; reasons for not following the protocol), and analyze preliminary data. At the end of the six homework follow-up sessions, students completed a final English exam as a measure of academic performance (posttest).

Data Analysis

Each of the five homework follow-up practices was to be administered by the same number of EFL teachers (nine). However, as mentioned above, 19 EFL teachers were excluded from the study, which led to an uneven distribution of the participating teachers under the five conditions. As the number of homework follow-up sessions was not even in terms of type, it was not possible to guarantee the independence of these two variables (i.e., number of homework follow-up and type of homework follow-up practice). Thus, the amount of treatments (number of homework follow-up sessions) was taken as a control variable. The effect of the EFL teachers nested within the treatment levels (the five homework follow-up practices) was also controlled, but within the type of design (cluster randomized design). Furthermore, students' prior performance was controlled because of its potential to influence the relationship between homework and academic achievement ( Trautwein et al., 2002 , 2009b ).

Finally, the design included an independent variable (type of homework follow-up), a dependent variable (post-homework follow-up academic performance), and two covariates (number of homework follow-up sessions administered and performance prior to homework follow-up). The statistical treatment of the data was carried out using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Data analysis followed a two-stage strategy. First, we examined whether prior performance (pretest) significantly explained academic performance at posttest (which led to testing whether the regression slopes were null). If the result was positive, it would not be necessary to include any covariate in the model, and an ANOVA model would be fitted. On the other hand, if the result was negative, second stage, it would be necessary to verify whether the regression slopes were parallel (that is, whether the relationship between prior and final performance was similar across the different types of homework follow-up). Finally, in case the parallelism assumption were accepted, paired comparisons between the adjusted homework follow-up type variable measures (i.e., purged of covariate correlations) would be run using the method based on the false discovery rate (FDR) developed by Benjamini and Hochberg (1995) (BH).

Data were analyzed using SAS version 9.4 [ SAS Institute, Inc., (SAS), 2013 ]. The hypotheses referring to nullity and parallelism of the regression slopes were tested using SAS PROC MIXED with the solution proposed by Kenward and Roger (2009) . PROC MIXED allows the use of a linear model that relaxes the assumption of constant variance (for details, see Vallejo et al., 2010 ; Vallejo and Ato, 2012 ). The post-hoc contrasts were done using the ESTIMATE expression in SAS PROC MIXED and the BH/FDR option in SAS PROC MULTITEST.

Descriptive Statistics

Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics of the homework follow-up type variable and the two covariates (prior performance and the number of homework follow-up sessions).

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of the variable homework follow-up practice and covariates (prior performance and number of times feedback is provided) .

Analysis of Covariance

Null regression curve test.

To determine whether prior performance (pretest) significantly explained academic performance at posttest, a type III sum of squares model without an intercept was created. This model included the homework follow-up type (A), and interactions of homework follow-up type with the covariates prior performance ( X 1 ), and number of homework follow-up sessions ( X 2 ); that is, A × X 1 and A × X 2 . The information obtained in this analysis allowed to consider regression slopes for each level of the homework follow-up type variable, and to evaluate its nullity and, to a certain extent, its parallelism. In summary, the technique used aimed to determine whether covariates (number of homework follow-up sessions administered and performance prior to homework follow-up) modified the interaction between homework follow-up type and final performance. Table 3 addresses this question and shows two model effects: the principal effect (A) and secondary effects ( A × X 1 and A × X 2 ).

Table 3. Estimators of interaction parameters obtained in the first modeling stage after creating a regression model without an intercept .

Data show that all regression coefficients involving the prior performance covariate were statistically significant ( p < 0.001) with very similar levels for the homework follow-up type variable (between p = 0.86 and 0.96). Thus, we may conclude that the slopes were not null. A strong similarity was also observed between the regression coefficients, which indicates that the number of homework follow-up sessions, with the exception of the coefficient corresponding to level 2 of the homework follow-up type variable ( b A 2 × S = 0.15), was also statistically significant ( p = 0.011).

Parallel Regression Slope Test

To test the hypothesis of regression slope parallelism for the covariates prior performance ( X 1 ) and number of homework follow-up sessions ( X 2 ) on final academic performance, the interaction components A × X 1 and A × X 2 of Model A shown in Table 4 are particularly interesting.

Table 4. Results of fitting three ANCOVA models and one ANOVA model during the second stage of the modeling strategy .

The data show that the regression slope parallelism hypothesis was not rejected [ F (4, 160) = 0.62, p = 0.646 and F (4, 144) = 2.20, p = 0.071], although the interaction between the number of homework follow-up sessions and the type of homework follow-up turned out to be marginally non-significant. Thus, we provisionally adopted the ANCOVA model that used equal slopes to describe the influence of the covariates on homework follow-up type. Note that the variance component of the students who received homework follow-up type no. 1 was approximately five times the variance of the students receiving type no. 5. Thus, to control the heterogeneity of the data, the GROUP expression in SAS PROC MIXED was used with the solution proposed by Kenward–Roger to adjust for the degrees of freedom ( Kenward and Roger, 2009 ). Moreover, the variance component referring to EFL teachers nested within the homework follow-up types was not statistically significant ( z = 0.15, p = 0.44), so we proceeded with the single-level ANCOVA model.

Findings indicate that the differences among the various homework follow-up types do not depend on the teacher that uses them. This preliminary result stresses the relevance of conducting multilevel designs analyzing data at two levels, students and class. This finding is aligned with those of Rosário et al. (2013) which found a small effect in the relationship between teachers' reported approaches to teaching and students' reported approaches to learning.

Table 4 also shows information regarding the fit of other ANCOVA models with identical slopes: Model B and Model C. Model B shows that the types of homework follow-up did not differ in terms of the number of homework follow-up sessions provided by the EFL teachers ( X 2 ), [ F (1, 373) = 0.16, p = 0.689]. Note that the ANCOVA model with equal regression slope that left out the number of homework follow-up sessions (Model C) was more parsimonious and showed the best fit. The model with the fewest information criteria, Akaike information criteria (AIC) and Bayesian information criteria (BIC), is the model that best fits the data.

The ANCOVA model with equal slopes is shown in Figure 1 . The essential characteristic of the model is worth noting: separate regression lines for each type of homework follow-up and approximately parallel slopes among the homework follow-up types. Figure 1 also shows two subsets of means, each with means that barely differed from each other and were thus considered equal from a statistical standpoint. These subsets encompassed, on the one hand, the first two levels of the homework follow-up type variable (types 1 and 2), and on the other hand, the three last levels of the variable. The equal regression slope ( b = 0.882) between prior performance and final performance, averaging all levels of homework follow-up type, was statistically significant [ t (467) = 36.86, p < 0.001].

Figure 1. Pretest performance level .

Comparisons between the Adjusted Homework Follow-up Type Means

The common slope ( b = 0.882) was used to calculate the final performance means adjusted to the effect of the prior performance covariate. Purged of the correlation with the prior performance covariate, the adjusted final EFL performance means were A 1 = 3.14; A 2 = 3.11; A 3 = 3.44; A 4 = 3.88; and A 5 = 4.03.

Given the two homogeneous subsets of means previously detected, the family of pairwise comparisons that appear in Table 5 was tested. To control for the probability of making one or more type I errors at the chosen level of significance (α = 0.05) for the specified family or group of contrasts, assuming heterogeneity, the ESTIMATE expression in SAS PROC MIXED was used, as was the BH/FDR option in SAS PROC MULTITEST. As indicated in the last column of Table 5 , the procedure detected statistically significant differences ( p < 0.05) in five of the six contrasts analyzed (see Figure 2 as well).

Table 5. Pairwise comparisons between the homework follow-up practices based on ANCOVA BH/FDR that controlled for prior performance .

Figure 2. Types of homework follow-up practices .

Discussion of Results

This study analyzed whether the relationship between academic performance and homework follow-up practices depended on the type of homework follow-up practice used in class. We found that the five types of homework feedback were associated with student academic performance, despite the unbalanced number of teachers in each condition, and the low number of sessions (six sessions). The magnitude of the effects found was small, which may be due to the two previously mentioned limitations. Data from the ancillary analysis collected in the two focus groups run to identify the types of homework follow-up used by EFL teachers in class, and data from the post-research evaluation meeting run with the participating teachers contributed to the discussion of our findings.

Types of EFL Teachers' Homework Follow-up Practices and Academic Performance

As Model C (see Table 4 ) shows, and once the effect of the pretest was controlled for, the differences among the types of EFL teachers' homework follow-up practices on students' performance were statistically significant, as hypothesized. Moreover, considering the positive value of the coefficients shown in Table 4 , the data indicate that students' performance improved from homework follow-up types 1–5 (see also Figure 2 ), and also that the differences between the five homework follow-up types are not of the same magnitude. In fact, after checking the error rate for comparison family using the FDR procedure, two homogeneous subsets of treatment means were identified. The first subset encompassed homework follow-up types 1 and 2, whereas the second accounted for homework follow-up types 3–5. As shown in Table 5 , significant differences were found between adjusted treatments' means for both subsets (homework follow-up types 1 and 2 vs. homework follow-up types 3–5).

What are the commonalities and differences between these two subsets of homework follow-up types that could help explain findings? Homework follow-up types 1 and 2 did not yield differences in school performance. One possible explanation might be that neither of these types of homework follow-up provides specific information about the mistakes made by students; information which could help them improve their learning in a similar way to when EFL teachers provide feedback ( Hattie and Timperley, 2007 ). Besides, as the control for homework completion is low for these two types of homework follow-up practices, students may not have put the appropriate effort to complete the homework. The following statement was shared by most of the teachers that participated in the focus group and may help explain this latter finding: “[in class] I only ask students if they have done their homework. I know that this strategy does not help them correct their mistakes, but if I don't do it, I suspect they will give up doing their homework …” (F2P3).

In homework follow-up type 2, EFL teachers only addressed difficulties mentioned by the students, so some mistakes may have not been addressed and checked by the EFL teachers. This type of practice does not provide feedback to students. As the following quotation from a participant in the focus group revealed: “At the beginning of the class, I specifically ask students if they have any questions about their homework. The truth is, students who struggle to learn seldom ask questions…I guess that they don't do their homework, or they copy the answers from peers during the break, and just asking questions does not help a lot…but they are 28 in class.” (F2P4).

The second group of homework follow-up practices includes types 3–5. Our data indicate that there were no statistically significant differences among these three types of homework follow-up (intra-group comparisons) at posttest performance (see Table 4 ). Under each of these three conditions (homework follow-up types 3–5) homework contents were checked by the teacher. In these three types of homework follow-up, students experienced opportunities to analyze EFL teachers' explanations and to check their mistakes, which may help explain our findings and those of previous studies (see Cardelle and Corno, 1981 ; Elawar and Corno, 1985 ).

According to Cooper's model ( 1989 , 2001 ), homework follow-up type 5 may be considered the homework feedback practice, because when EFL teachers grade students' assignments and provide individual feedback, students' learning improve. This idea was mentioned by one of our participants: “I collect students' exercise books, not every day, but often enough. That is because I've learned that my students improve whenever I comment upon and grade their homework assignments. I wish I had time to do this regularly…That would be real feedback, that's for sure.” (F1P6).

When analyzing students' conceptions of feedback, Peterson and Irving (2008) concluded that students believe that having their reports graded is a “clearer and more honest” (p. 246) type of feedback. These authors also argued that good grades generate a tangible evidence of students' work for parents, which may also give way to another opportunity for feedback(e.g., praise) delivered by parents and peers ( Núñez et al., 2015 ). It is likely that students see graded homework more worthwhile when compared to other types of homework follow-up practices (e.g., answering questions about homework). This idea supports studies which found a positive association between homework effort and achievement (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2006b , 2009b ). Walberg et al. (1985) claimed that graded homework has a powerful effect on learning. However, Trautwein et al. (2009a) alerted that graded homework may have a negative impact whenever experienced as overcontrolling, as “…students may feel tempted to copy from high-achieving classmates to escape negative consequences” (p. 185). These findings ( Trautwein et al., 2006b , 2009a , b ), aligned with ours, suggest the need to analyze homework feedback in more depth. For example, there are several variables that were not considered in the current research (e.g., number of students per class, number of different grade levels teachers are teaching or number of different classes teachers teach, different level of students' expertise in class, type of content domain; but also career related issues such as frozen salaries, reduced retirement costs), which may help explain our results.

We also noticed that the effect of EFL teachers' homework follow-up practices on performance was affected by students' prior performance, confirming our second hypothesis, but not by the number of homework follow-up sessions (i.e., the number of homework follow-up sessions was only marginally non-significant as a secondary factor, not as the principal factor). A quotation from a teacher under the third condition may help illustrate this finding: “reflecting on my experience under condition 3 [checking homework orally], I can tell that students' prior knowledge was very important for explaining the variations in the efficacy of this strategy. Some of my students, for example, attend language schools and master vocabulary and grammar, but others clearly need extra help. For example, checking homework on the board so that students may copy the answers and study them at home would be very beneficial for many of my students” (M15).

The results of this preliminary study were obtained in a real learning environment and focused on homework follow-up practices commonly used by EFL teachers. We acknowledge the difficulties to set up and run a randomized-group design in a real learning environment (i.e., motivating teachers to participate, training teachers to follow the protocol, control the process). Still, we believe in the importance of collecting data on-task. Plus, we consider that our preliminary findings may help teachers and school administrators to organize school-based teachers' training and educational policies on homework. For example, studies conducted in several countries (e.g., Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, Israel) reported that checking homework completion is the homework follow-up practice most often used by teachers to keep track of students' homework (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2009a ; Kaur, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ), and in some cases the only homework follow-up practice used in class (e.g., see Kukliansky et al., 2014 ). However, this type of homework follow-up does not provide students with appropriate information on how they may improve their learning. Our data show that, when EFL teachers offer individual and specific information to help student progress (e.g., homework correction, graded homework), the impact on school performance is higher, even when this help is provided for only 6 weeks. This main finding, that should be further investigated, may help teachers' in class practices and contribute to foster students' behaviors toward homework and school achievement.

In sum, our findings indicate that the time and effort teachers devote assessing, presenting, and discussing homework with students is worth the effort. In fact, students consider limited feedback an impediment to homework completion, and recognize teacher's feedback as a homework completion facilitator ( Bang, 2011 ).

During the focus group interviews, and consistent with findings by Rosário et al. (2015) , several EFL teachers stressed that, despite their positive belief about the efficacy of delivering feedback to students, they do not find the necessary time to provide feedback in class (e.g., comment on homework and grading homework). This is due to, among other reasons, the long list of contents to cover in class and the large number of students per class. Pelletier et al.'s (2002) show that the major constraint perceived by teachers in their job is related to the pressure to follow the school curriculum. Data from the focus group helped understand our findings, and highlights the need for school administrators to become aware of the educational constraints faced daily by EFL teachers at school and to find alternatives to support the use of in class homework follow-up practices. Thus, we believe that teachers, directly, and students, indirectly, would benefit from teacher training on effective homework follow-up practices with a focus on, for example, how to manage the extensive curriculum and time, and learning about different homework follow-up practices, mainly feedback. Some authors (e.g., Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2012 ; Núñez et al., 2014 ; Rosário et al., 2015 ) have warned about the importance of organizing school-based teacher training with an emphasis on homework (i.e., purposes of homework, homework feedback type, amount of homework assigned, schools homework policies, and written homework feedback practices). With the focus group interviews we learned that several EFL teachers did not differentiate feedback from other homework follow-up practices, such as checking homework completion (e.g., see F2P7 statement, Table 1 ). EFL teachers termed all the homework follow-up practices used in class as feedback, despite the fact that some of these practices did not deliver useful information to improve the quality of students' homework and promote progress. These data suggest a need to foster opportunities for teachers to reflect upon their in-class instructional practices (e.g., type and purposes of the homework assigned, number and type of questions asked in class) and its impact on the quality of the learning process. For example, school-based teacher training focusing on discussing the various types of homework follow-up practices and their impact on homework quality and academic achievement would enhance teachers' practice and contribute to improve their approaches to teaching ( Rosário et al., 2013 ).

Limitations of the Study and Future Research

This study is a preliminary examination of the relationship between five types of EFL teachers' homework follow-up practices and performance in the EFL class. Therefore, some limitations must be addressed as they may play a role in our findings. First, participating EFL teachers were assigned to one and only one of five homework follow-up conditions, but 19 of them were excluded for not adhering to the protocol. As a result, the number of EFL teachers under each condition was unbalanced, especially in the case of homework follow-up condition number 5. This fact should be considered when analyzing conclusions.

Several reasons may explain why 19 EFL teachers were excluded from our research protocol (i.e., three were laid off, six did not report the work done correctly or submitted the data requested, and ten did not followed the protocol closely). Nevertheless, during the post-research evaluation meeting the EFL teachers addressed this topic which helped understand their motives for not adhering to the protocol. For example: “I'm sorry for abandoning your research, but I couldn't collect and grade homework every week. I have 30 students in class, as you know, and it was impossible for me to spend so many hours grading.” (M7). Our findings suggest that teachers' attitudes toward homework follow-up practices are important, as well as the need to set educational environments that may facilitate their use in class.

We acknowledged the difficulty of carrying out experimental studies in authentic teaching and learning environments. Nevertheless, we decided to address the call by Trautwein et al. (2006b) , and investigate teachers' homework practices as ecologically valid as possible in the natural learning environment of teachers and students.

Future studies should find a way to combine an optimal variable control model and an authentic learning environment.

Second, a mixed type of homework follow-up practices (e.g., combining homework control and checking homework on the board) was not considered in the current study as an additional level of the independent variable. In fact, some of the excluded EFL teachers highlighted the benefits of combining various homework follow-up practices, as one EFL teacher remarked: “I was “assigned” condition 5 [collecting and grading homework], but grading and noting homework every week is too demanding, as I have five more sixth grade classes to teach. So, although I am certain that giving individualized feedback is better for my students, I couldn't do it for the six homework assignments as required. In some sessions I checked homework orally.” (M24). Thus, future studies should consider the possibility of analyzing the impact of different combinations of types of homework follow-up practices. Our research focused on sixth grade EFL teachers only. To our knowledge, there are no studies examining the impact of homework follow-up practices in different education levels, but it is plausible that the type and intensity of the homework-follow up practices used by teachers may vary from one educational level to another. Hence, it would be interesting to examine whether our findings may be replicated in other grade levels, or in different subjects. Furthermore, it would be beneficial to conduct this study in other countries in order to explore whether the follow-up practices identified by EFL Portuguese teachers match those found in other teaching and learning cultures.

Third, the fact that in our study the differences found were small suggests the importance of examining the type of homework follow-up used and students' interpretation of teachers' practice. Future studies may analyze the hypothesis that students' behavior toward teacher homework follow-up practices (e.g., how students perceive their teachers' homework follow-up practices; what students do with the homework feedback information given by teachers) mediates the effect of homework on student learning and performance. In fact, the way students benefit from their teachers' homework follow-up practice may help explain the impact of these practices on students' homework performance and academic achievement. Future studies may also consider conducting more large-scale studies (i.e., with optimal sample sizes) using multilevel designs aimed at analyzing how student variables (e.g., cognitive, motivational, and affective) mediate the relationship between teacher homework follow-up type and students' learning and academic performance.

Finally, future research could also consider conducting qualitative research to analyze teachers' conceptions of homework follow-up practices, mainly feedback ( Cunha et al., 2015 ). This information may be very useful to improving homework feedback measures in future quantitative studies. Investigating teachers' conceptions of homework follow-up practices may help identify other homework feedback practices implemented in authentic learning environments. It may also help understand the reasons why teachers use specific types of homework feedback, and explore the constraints daily faced in class when giving homework feedback. As one teacher in the focus group claimed: “Unfortunately, I don't have time to collect and grade homework, because I have too many students and the content that I have to cover each term is vast. So I just check whether all students completed their homework” (F2P1).

This research was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science through national funds and when applicable co-financed by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (UID/PSI/01662/2013), by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (Proyects: EDU2014-57571-P and PSI-2011-23395) and by Council of Economy and Employment of the Government of the Principality of Asturias, Spain (Proyect: FC-15-GRUPIN14-053).

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Bang, H. (2011). What makes it easy or hard for you to do your homework? An account of newcomer immigrant youths' afterschool academic lives. Curr. Issues Educ. 14, 1–26.

Benjamini, Y., and Hochberg, Y. (1995). Controlling the false discovery rate: a practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. J. R. Stat. Soc. Ser. B 57, 289–300.

Google Scholar

Buijs, M., and Admiraal, W. (2013). Homework assignments to enhance student engagement in secondary education. Eur. J. Psychol. Educ. 28, 767–779. doi: 10.1007/s10212-012-0139-0

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Cardelle, M., and Corno, L. (1981). Effects on second language learning of variations in written feedback on homework assignments. TESOL Q. 15, 251–261. doi: 10.2307/3586751

Cooper, H. (1989). Synthesis of research on homework. Educ. Leadersh. 47, 85–91.

Cooper, H. (2001). The Battle Over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents, 2nd Edn . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Cooper, H., Robinson, J., and Patall, E. (2006). Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research, 1987-2003. Rev. Educ. Res . 76, 1–62. doi: 10.3102/00346543076001001

Cunha, J., Rosário, P., Macedo, L., Nunes, A. R., Fuentes, S., Pinto, R., et al. (2015). Parents' conceptions of their homework involvement in elementary school. Psicothema 27, 159–165. doi: 10.7334/psicothema2014.210

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Duijnhouwer, H., Prins, F., and Stokking, K. (2012). Feedback providing improvement strategies and reflection on feedback use: effects on students' writing motivation, process, and performance. Lear. Instr. 22, 171–184. doi: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2011.10.003

Elawar, M. C., and Corno, L. (1985). A factorial experiment in teachers' written feedback on student homework: changing teacher behavior a little rather than a lot. J. Educ. Psychol. 77, 162–173. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.77.2.162

Epstein, J. L., and Van Voorhis, F. L. (2001). More than ten minutes: teachers' roles in designing homework. Educ. Psychol. 36, 181–193. doi: 10.1207/S15326985EP3603_4

Epstein, J., and Van Voorhis, F. (2012). “The changing debate: from assigning homework to designing homework,” in Contemporary Debates in Child Development and Education , eds S. Suggate and E. Reese (London: Routledge), 263–273.

Fleiss, J. L. (1981). Statistical Methods for Rates and Proportions, 2nd Edn. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Hagger, M., Sultan, S., Hardcastle, S., and Chatzisarantis, N. (2015). Perceived autonomy support and autonomous motivation toward mathematics activities in educational and out-of-school contexts is related to mathematics homework behavior and attainment. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 41, 111–123. doi: 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2014.12.002

Hattie, J., and Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Rev. Educ. Res. 77, 81–112. doi: 10.3102/003465430298487

Kaur, B. (2011). Mathematics homework: a study of three grade eight classrooms in Singapore. Inter. J. Sci. Math. Educ. 9, 187–206. doi: 10.1007/s10763-010-9237-0

Kenward, M. G., and Roger, J. H. (2009). An improved approximation to the precision of fixed effects from restricted maximum likelihood. Comput. Stat. Data Anal. 53, 2583–2595. doi: 10.1016/j.csda.2008.12.013

Kukliansky, I., Shosberger, I., and Eshach, H. (2014). Science teachers' voice on homework: beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Inter. J. Sci. Math. Educ. doi: 10.1007/s10763-014-9555-8. [Epub ahead of print].

Landis, J. R., and Koch, G. G. (1977). The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics 33, 159–174. doi: 10.2307/2529310

Murphy, J., Decker, K., Chaplin, C., Dagenais, R., Heller, J., Jones, R., et al. (1987). An exploratory analysis of the structure of homework assignments in high schools. Res. Rural Educ . 4, 61–71.

Narciss, S. (2004). The impact of informative feedback and self-efficacy on motivation and achievement in concept learning. Exp. Psychol. 51, 214–228. doi: 10.1027/1618-3169.51.3.214

Nicol, D., and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Stud. Higher Educ . 31, 199–218. doi: 10.1080/03075070600572090

Núñez, J. C., Suárez, N., Rosário, P., Vallejo, G., Cerezo, R., and Valle, A. (2014). Teachers' feedback on homework, homework-related behaviors and academic achievement. J. Educ. Res . 108, 204–216. doi: 10.1080/00220671.2013.878298

CrossRef Full Text

Núñez, J. C., Suárez, N., Rosário, P., Vallejo, G., Valle, A., and Epstein, J. L. (2015). Relationships between perceived parental involvement in homework, student homework behaviors, and academic achievement: differences among elementary, junior high, and high school students. Metacogn. Learn. doi: 10.1007/s11409-015-9135-5. [Epub ahead of print].

Pelletier, L., and Séguin-Lévesque, Legault, L. (2002). Pressure from above and pressure from below as determinants of teachers' motivation and teaching behaviors. J. Educ. Psychol. 94, 186–196. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.94.1.186

Peterson, E., and Irving, S. (2008). Secondary school students' conceptions of assessment and feedback. Learn. Instr. 18, 238–250. doi: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2007.05.001

Rosário, P., Mourão, R., Baldaque, M., Nunes, T., Núñez, J. C., González-Pienda, J. A., et al. (2009). Homework, self-regulated learning and math achievement. Revista de Psicodidática 14, 179–192.

Rosário, P., Mourão, R., Trigo, L., Suárez, N., Fernández, E., and Tuero-Herrero, E. (2011). English as a foreign language (EFL) homework diaries: evaluating gains and constraints for self-regulated learning and achievement. Psicothema 23, 681–687.

PubMed Abstract

Rosário, P., Núñez, J. C., Ferrando, P., Paiva, O., Lourenço, A., Cerezo, R., et al. (2013). The relationship between approaches to teaching and approaches to studying: a two-level structural equation model for biology achievement in high school. Metacogn. Learn. 8, 44–77. doi: 10.1007/s11409-013-9095-6

Rosário, P., Núñez, J. C., Vallejo, G., Cunha, J., Nunes, T., Mourão, R., et al. (2015). Does homework design matter? The role of homework's purpose in student mathematics achievement. Contemp. Educ. Psychol . 43, 10–24. doi: 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2015.08.001

SAS Institute Inc. (SAS). (2013). SAS/STAT® 13.1 User's Guide. Cary, NC: SAS Institute, Inc.

Shute, V. (2008). Focus on formative feedback. Rev. Educ. Res. 79, 153–189. doi: 10.3102/0034654307313795

Trautwein, U., Köller, O., Schmitz, B., and Baumert, J. (2002). Do homework assignments enhance achievement? A multilevel analysis in 7th-Grade Mathematics. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 27, 26–50. doi: 10.1006/ceps.2001.1084

Trautwein, U., Lüdtke, O., Kastens, C., and Köller, O. (2006a). Effort on homework in grades 5–9: development, motivational antecedents, and the association with effort on classwork. Child Dev. 77, 1094–1111. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00921.x

Trautwein, U., Ludtke, O., Schnyder, I., and Niggli, A. (2006b). Predicting homework effort: support for a domain-specific, multilevel homework model. J. Educ. Psychol. 98, 438–456. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.98.2.438

Trautwein, U., Niggli, A., Schnyder, I., and Lüdtke, O. (2009a). Between-teacher differences in homework assignments and the development of students' homework effort, homework emotions, and achievement. J. Educ. Psychol. 101, 176–189. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.101.1.176

Trautwein, U., Schnyder, I., Niggli, A., Neumann, M., and Lüdtke, O. (2009b). Chameleon effects in homework research: the homework-achievement association depends on the measures used and the level of analysis chosen. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 34, 77–88. doi: 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2008.09.001

Vallejo, G., and Ato, M. (2012). Robust tests for multivariate factorial designs under heteroscedasticity. Behav. Res. Methods 44, 471–489. doi: 10.3758/s13428-011-0152-2

Vallejo, G., Ato, M., and Fernández, M. P. (2010). A robust approach for analyzing unbalanced factorial designs with fixed levels. Behav. Res. Methods 42, 607–617. doi: 10.3758/BRM.42.2.607

Walberg, H. J., and Paik, S. J. (2000). Effective Educational Practices. Educational Practices Series – 3 . Brussels: International Academy of Education.

Walberg, H. J., Paschal, R. A., and Weinstein, T. (1985). Homework's powerful effects on learning. Educ. Leadersh. 42, 76–79.

Xu, J. (2008). Models of secondary school students' interest in homework: a multilevel analysis. Am. Educ. Res. J . 45, 1180–1205. doi: 10.3102/0002831208323276

Xu, J. (2010). Predicting homework distraction at the secondary school level: a multilevel analysis. Teach. Coll. Rec . 112, 1937–1970.

Xu, J. (2011). Homework completion at the secondary school level: a multilevel analysis. J. Educ. Res . 104, 171–182. doi: 10.1080/00220671003636752

Xu, J. (2012). Predicting students' homework environment management at the secondary school level. Educ. Psychol. 32, 183–200. doi: 10.1080/01443410.2011.635639

Xu, J., and Wu, H. (2013). Self-regulation of homework behavior: homework management at the secondary school level. J. Educ. Res. 106, 1–13. doi: 10.1080/00220671.2012.658457

Zhu, Y., and Leung, F. (2012). Homework and mathematics achievement in Hong Kong: evidence from the TIMSS 2003. Int. J. Sci. Math. Educ. 10, 907–925. doi: 10.1007/s10763-011-9302-3

Keywords: types of homework follow-up, academic performance, English as a Foreign Language (EFL), homework, teachers' practices

Citation: Rosário P, Núñez JC, Vallejo G, Cunha J, Nunes T, Suárez N, Fuentes S and Moreira T (2015) The effects of teachers' homework follow-up practices on students' EFL performance: a randomized-group design. Front. Psychol . 6:1528. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01528

Received: 01 August 2015; Accepted: 22 September 2015; Published: 13 October 2015.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2015 Rosário, Núñez, Vallejo, Cunha, Nunes, Suárez, Fuentes and Moreira. 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: Pedro Rosário, [email protected]

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.

• Our Mission

Homework, Sleep, and the Student Brain

At some point, every parent wishes their high school aged student would go to bed earlier as well as find time to pursue their own passions -- or maybe even choose to relax. This thought reemerged as I reread Anna Quindlen's commencement speech, A Short Guide to a Happy Life. The central message of this address, never actually stated, was: "Get a life."

But what prevents students from "getting a life," especially between September and June? One answer is homework.

Favorable Working Conditions

As a history teacher at St. Andrew's Episcopal School and director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning , I want to be clear that I both give and support the idea of homework. But homework, whether good or bad, takes time and often cuts into each student's sleep, family dinner, or freedom to follow passions outside of school. For too many students, homework is too often about compliance and "not losing points" rather than about learning.

Most schools have a philosophy about homework that is challenged by each parent's experience doing homework "back in the day." Parents' common misconception is that the teachers and schools giving more homework are more challenging and therefore better teachers and schools. This is a false assumption. The amount of homework your son or daughter does each night should not be a source of pride for the quality of a school. In fact, I would suggest a different metric when evaluating your child's homework. Are you able to stay up with your son or daughter until he or she finishes those assignments? If the answer is no, then too much homework is being assigned, and you both need more of the sleep that, according to Daniel T. Willingham , is crucial to memory consolidation.

I have often joked with my students, while teaching the Progressive Movement and rise of unions between the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, that they should consider striking because of how schools violate child labor laws. If school is each student's "job," then students are working hours usually assigned to Washington, DC lawyers (combing the hours of the school day, school-sponsored activities, and homework). This would certainly be a risky strategy for changing how schools and teachers think about homework, but it certainly would gain attention. (If any of my students are reading this, don't try it!)

So how can we change things?

The Scientific Approach

In the study "What Great Homework Looks Like" from the journal Think Differently and Deeply , which connects research in how the brain learns to the instructional practice of teachers, we see moderate advantages of no more than two hours of homework for high school students. For younger students, the correlation is even smaller. Homework does teach other important, non-cognitive skills such as time management, sustained attention, and rule following, but let us not mask that as learning the content and skills that most assignments are supposed to teach.

Homework can be a powerful learning tool -- if designed and assigned correctly. I say "learning," because good homework should be an independent moment for each student or groups of students through virtual collaboration. It should be challenging and engaging enough to allow for deliberate practice of essential content and skills, but not so hard that parents are asked to recall what they learned in high school. All that usually leads to is family stress.

But even when good homework is assigned, it is the student's approach that is critical. A scientific approach to tackling their homework can actually lead to deepened learning in less time. The biggest contributor to the length of a student's homework is task switching. Too often, students jump between their work on an assignment and the lure of social media. But I have found it hard to convince students of the cost associated with such task switching. Imagine a student writing an essay for AP English class or completing math proofs for their honors geometry class. In the middle of the work, their phone announces a new text message. This is a moment of truth for the student. Should they address that text before or after they finish their assignment?

Delayed Gratification

When a student chooses to check their text, respond and then possibly take an extended dive into social media, they lose a percentage of the learning that has already happened. As a result, when they return to the AP essay or honors geometry proof, they need to retrace their learning in order to catch up to where they were. This jump, between homework and social media, is actually extending the time a student spends on an assignment. My colleagues and I coach our students to see social media as a reward for finishing an assignment. Delaying gratification is an important non-cognitive skill and one that research has shown enhances life outcomes (see the Stanford Marshmallow Test ).

At my school, the goal is to reduce the barriers for each student to meet his or her peak potential without lowering the bar. Good, purposeful homework should be part of any student's learning journey. But it takes teachers to design better homework (which can include no homework at all on some nights), parents to not see hours of homework as a measure of school quality, and students to reflect on their current homework strategies while applying new, research-backed ones. Together, we can all get more sleep -- and that, research shows, is very good for all of our brains and for each student's learning.

share this!

August 16, 2021

Is it time to get rid of homework? Mental health experts weigh in

by Sara M Moniuszko

It's no secret that kids hate homework. And as students grapple with an ongoing pandemic that has had a wide-range of mental health impacts, is it time schools start listening to their pleas over workloads?

Some teachers are turning to social media to take a stand against homework .

Tiktok user @misguided.teacher says he doesn't assign it because the "whole premise of homework is flawed."

For starters, he says he can't grade work on "even playing fields" when students' home environments can be vastly different.

"Even students who go home to a peaceful house, do they really want to spend their time on busy work? Because typically that's what a lot of homework is, it's busy work," he says in the video that has garnered 1.6 million likes. "You only get one year to be 7, you only got one year to be 10, you only get one year to be 16, 18."

Mental health experts agree heavy work loads have the potential do more harm than good for students, especially when taking into account the impacts of the pandemic. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether.

Emmy Kang, mental health counselor at Humantold, says studies have shown heavy workloads can be "detrimental" for students and cause a "big impact on their mental, physical and emotional health."

"More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies," she says, adding that staying up late to finish assignments also leads to disrupted sleep and exhaustion.

Cynthia Catchings, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist at Talkspace, says heavy workloads can also cause serious mental health problems in the long run, like anxiety and depression.

And for all the distress homework causes, it's not as useful as many may think, says Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, a psychologist and CEO of Omega Recovery treatment center.

"The research shows that there's really limited benefit of homework for elementary age students, that really the school work should be contained in the classroom," he says.

For older students, Kang says homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night.

"Most students, especially at these high-achieving schools, they're doing a minimum of three hours, and it's taking away time from their friends from their families, their extracurricular activities. And these are all very important things for a person's mental and emotional health."

Catchings, who also taught third to 12th graders for 12 years, says she's seen the positive effects of a no homework policy while working with students abroad.

"Not having homework was something that I always admired from the French students (and) the French schools, because that was helping the students to really have the time off and really disconnect from school ," she says.

The answer may not be to eliminate homework completely, but to be more mindful of the type of work students go home with, suggests Kang, who was a high-school teacher for 10 years.

"I don't think (we) should scrap homework, I think we should scrap meaningless, purposeless busy work-type homework. That's something that needs to be scrapped entirely," she says, encouraging teachers to be thoughtful and consider the amount of time it would take for students to complete assignments.

The pandemic made the conversation around homework more crucial

Mindfulness surrounding homework is especially important in the context of the last two years. Many students will be struggling with mental health issues that were brought on or worsened by the pandemic, making heavy workloads even harder to balance.

"COVID was just a disaster in terms of the lack of structure. Everything just deteriorated," Kardaras says, pointing to an increase in cognitive issues and decrease in attention spans among students. "School acts as an anchor for a lot of children, as a stabilizing force, and that disappeared."

But even if students transition back to the structure of in-person classes, Kardaras suspects students may still struggle after two school years of shifted schedules and disrupted sleeping habits.

"We've seen adults struggling to go back to in-person work environments from remote work environments. That effect is amplified with children because children have less resources to be able to cope with those transitions than adults do," he explains.

'Get organized' ahead of back-to-school

In order to make the transition back to in-person school easier, Kang encourages students to "get good sleep, exercise regularly (and) eat a healthy diet."

To help manage workloads, she suggests students "get organized."

"There's so much mental clutter up there when you're disorganized... sitting down and planning out their study schedules can really help manage their time," she says.

Breaking assignments up can also make things easier to tackle.

"I know that heavy workloads can be stressful, but if you sit down and you break down that studying into smaller chunks, they're much more manageable."

If workloads are still too much, Kang encourages students to advocate for themselves.

"They should tell their teachers when a homework assignment just took too much time or if it was too difficult for them to do on their own," she says. "It's good to speak up and ask those questions. Respectfully, of course, because these are your teachers. But still, I think sometimes teachers themselves need this feedback from their students."

©2021 USA Today Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Explore further

Feedback to editors

New catalyst brings commercial high-efficiency zinc-air batteries closer to reality

Scientists call for conservation of Amazon's unseen water cycle

Study shows electric vehicles can have positive impact on air quality and public health in some cities, but not all

2 hours ago

Study reveals reversible assembly of platinum catalyst

Study finds industrial air pollution contributes to New Mexico's low birthweight

Shape and depth of ocean floor profoundly influence how carbon is stored there, study shows

Scientists develop new method to match genes to their molecular 'switches'

Scientists bring crystal clarity to diamond's quantum signals

3 hours ago

Neurons in the visual system of flies exhibit surprisingly heterogeneous wiring, connectome analysis finds

4 hours ago

Physicists take molecules to a new ultracold limit, creating a state of matter where quantum mechanics reigns

6 hours ago

Relevant PhysicsForums posts

Is "college algebra" really just high school "algebra ii".

May 27, 2024

UK School Physics Exam from 1967

Physics education is 60 years out of date.

May 16, 2024

Plagiarism & ChatGPT: Is Cheating with AI the New Normal?

May 13, 2024

Physics Instructor Minimum Education to Teach Community College

May 11, 2024

Studying "Useful" vs. "Useless" Stuff in School

Apr 30, 2024

More from STEM Educators and Teaching

Related Stories

Smartphones are lowering student's grades, study finds

Aug 18, 2020

Doing homework is associated with change in students' personality

Oct 6, 2017

Scholar suggests ways to craft more effective homework assignments

Oct 1, 2015

Should parents help their kids with homework?

Aug 29, 2019

How much math, science homework is too much?

Mar 23, 2015

Anxiety, depression, burnout rising as college students prepare to return to campus

Jul 26, 2021

Recommended for you

First-generation medical students face unique challenges and need more targeted support, say researchers

Investigation reveals varied impact of preschool programs on long-term school success

May 2, 2024

Training of brain processes makes reading more efficient

Apr 18, 2024

Researchers find lower grades given to students with surnames that come later in alphabetical order

Apr 17, 2024

Earth, the sun and a bike wheel: Why your high-school textbook was wrong about the shape of Earth's orbit

Apr 8, 2024

Touchibo, a robot that fosters inclusion in education through touch

Apr 5, 2024

Let us know if there is a problem with our content

Use this form if you have come across a typo, inaccuracy or would like to send an edit request for the content on this page. For general inquiries, please use our contact form . For general feedback, use the public comments section below (please adhere to guidelines ).

Please select the most appropriate category to facilitate processing of your request

Thank you for taking time to provide your feedback to the editors.

Your feedback is important to us. However, we do not guarantee individual replies due to the high volume of messages.

E-mail the story

Your email address is used only to let the recipient know who sent the email. Neither your address nor the recipient's address will be used for any other purpose. The information you enter will appear in your e-mail message and is not retained by Phys.org in any form.

Newsletter sign up

Get weekly and/or daily updates delivered to your inbox. You can unsubscribe at any time and we'll never share your details to third parties.

More information Privacy policy

Donate and enjoy an ad-free experience

We keep our content available to everyone. Consider supporting Science X's mission by getting a premium account.

E-mail newsletter

Is it time to get rid of homework? Mental health experts weigh in.

It's no secret that kids hate homework. And as students grapple with an ongoing pandemic that has had a wide range of mental health impacts, is it time schools start listening to their pleas about workloads?

Some teachers are turning to social media to take a stand against homework. 

Tiktok user @misguided.teacher says he doesn't assign it because the "whole premise of homework is flawed."

For starters, he says, he can't grade work on "even playing fields" when students' home environments can be vastly different.

"Even students who go home to a peaceful house, do they really want to spend their time on busy work? Because typically that's what a lot of homework is, it's busy work," he says in the video that has garnered 1.6 million likes. "You only get one year to be 7, you only got one year to be 10, you only get one year to be 16, 18."

Mental health experts agree heavy workloads have the potential do more harm than good for students, especially when taking into account the impacts of the pandemic. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether.

Emmy Kang, mental health counselor at Humantold , says studies have shown heavy workloads can be "detrimental" for students and cause a "big impact on their mental, physical and emotional health."

"More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies," she says, adding that staying up late to finish assignments also leads to disrupted sleep and exhaustion.

Cynthia Catchings, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist at Talkspace , says heavy workloads can also cause serious mental health problems in the long run, like anxiety and depression. 

And for all the distress homework  can cause, it's not as useful as many may think, says Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, a psychologist and CEO of Omega Recovery treatment center.

"The research shows that there's really limited benefit of homework for elementary age students, that really the school work should be contained in the classroom," he says.

For older students, Kang says, homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night. 

"Most students, especially at these high achieving schools, they're doing a minimum of three hours, and it's taking away time from their friends, from their families, their extracurricular activities. And these are all very important things for a person's mental and emotional health."

Catchings, who also taught third to 12th graders for 12 years, says she's seen the positive effects of a no-homework policy while working with students abroad.

"Not having homework was something that I always admired from the French students (and) the French schools, because that was helping the students to really have the time off and really disconnect from school," she says.

The answer may not be to eliminate homework completely but to be more mindful of the type of work students take home, suggests Kang, who was a high school teacher for 10 years.

"I don't think (we) should scrap homework; I think we should scrap meaningless, purposeless busy work-type homework. That's something that needs to be scrapped entirely," she says, encouraging teachers to be thoughtful and consider the amount of time it would take for students to complete assignments.

The pandemic made the conversation around homework more crucial 

Mindfulness surrounding homework is especially important in the context of the past two years. Many students will be struggling with mental health issues that were brought on or worsened by the pandemic , making heavy workloads even harder to balance.

"COVID was just a disaster in terms of the lack of structure. Everything just deteriorated," Kardaras says, pointing to an increase in cognitive issues and decrease in attention spans among students. "School acts as an anchor for a lot of children, as a stabilizing force, and that disappeared."

But even if students transition back to the structure of in-person classes, Kardaras suspects students may still struggle after two school years of shifted schedules and disrupted sleeping habits.

"We've seen adults struggling to go back to in-person work environments from remote work environments. That effect is amplified with children because children have less resources to be able to cope with those transitions than adults do," he explains.

'Get organized' ahead of back-to-school

In order to make the transition back to in-person school easier, Kang encourages students to "get good sleep, exercise regularly (and) eat a healthy diet."

To help manage workloads, she suggests students "get organized."

"There's so much mental clutter up there when you're disorganized. ... Sitting down and planning out their study schedules can really help manage their time," she says.

Breaking up assignments can also make things easier to tackle.

"I know that heavy workloads can be stressful, but if you sit down and you break down that studying into smaller chunks, they're much more manageable."

If workloads are still too much, Kang encourages students to advocate for themselves.

"They should tell their teachers when a homework assignment just took too much time or if it was too difficult for them to do on their own," she says. "It's good to speak up and ask those questions. Respectfully, of course, because these are your teachers. But still, I think sometimes teachers themselves need this feedback from their students."

More: Some teachers let their students sleep in class. Here's what mental health experts say.

More: Some parents are slipping young kids in for the COVID-19 vaccine, but doctors discourage the move as 'risky'

The effects of teachers' homework follow-up practices on students' EFL performance: a randomized-group design

Affiliations.

• 1 Departamento de Psicologia Aplicada, Escola de Psicologia, Universidade do Minho Braga, Portugal.
• 2 Departamento de Psicologia, Universidad de Oviedo Oviedo, Spain.
• 3 Vicerrectoría Académica, Universidad Central de Chile Santiago de Chile, Chile ; Facultad de Educación, Universidad Autónoma de Chile Santiago de Chile, Chile.
• PMID: 26528204
• PMCID: PMC4603246
• DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01528

This study analyzed the effects of five types of homework follow-up practices (i.e., checking homework completion; answering questions about homework; checking homework orally; checking homework on the board; and collecting and grading homework) used in class by 26 teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) using a randomized-group design. Once a week, for 6 weeks, the EFL teachers used a particular type of homework follow-up practice they had previously been assigned to. At the end of the 6 weeks students completed an EFL exam as an outcome measure. The results showed that three types of homework follow-up practices (i.e., checking homework orally; checking homework on the board; and collecting and grading homework) had a positive impact on students' performance, thus highlighting the role of EFL teachers in the homework process. The effect of EFL teachers' homework follow-up practices on students' performance was affected by students' prior knowledge, but not by the number of homework follow-up sessions.

Keywords: English as a Foreign Language (EFL); academic performance; homework; teachers' practices; types of homework follow-up.

How Teachers Change Lives

Many of us are who we are because of an educator..

Posted May 22, 2024 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

• Why Education Is Important
• Find a Child Therapist
• Teachers can have a deep, positve impact on the life of a young person.
• People tend to undervalue the role that teachers play in shaping students' minds.
• People's personalities as adults can have much to do with the direction a teacher provided.

Teachers are a central figure in our lives, if only because almost all of us have had direct experience with quite a number of them. Americans are a highly diverse group of people, but our memories of teachers serve as something that we have in common, an all too rare and good thing these divisive days. While most of the teachers we’ve had were forgettable, there are those who, decades later, still pop up in our dreams , and not in a good way. (I really did lose my homework on the way to school, Mrs. Pallidino.)

But then there were likely one or two, maybe three if you were really lucky, who had a deep and positive impact on your life at the time. Events in one’s youth can have a profound effect on who one becomes as an adult, many agree, making the potential influence of teachers critical in the trajectory of life. We tend to underestimate this phenomenon, focusing instead on our relationships with parents and siblings when looking back on our personal and psychological evolution, which is just one reason why teachers have not been given the credit that is due to them.

There is much anecdotal evidence suggesting that teachers not only help students prepare for their careers but can make a lasting imprint on their minds and personalities. As I show in my book The American Teacher: A History , stories abound about how teachers have shaped a young person’s life at an emotional and almost spiritual level. Wilbur Gordy of Hartford, Connecticut, told his story in the Journal of Education in 1923 in a piece he called “One of My Real Teachers.” Gordy, who had been a school principal and was then a school superintendent, knew a “real” teacher when he saw one, understanding full well that they were not a common breed.

Gordy had had three such “real” teachers over the course of his own education, he explained, the most memorable one being in a one-room schoolhouse in the Maryland countryside. “His evident desire to be helpful to me in my hopes and my eager aspirations soon gripped my whole being,” Gordy wrote, recalling that the man “fed my hungry soul and taught me not so much facts from books as truths about life.” With that teacher’s ability to “open my eyes to new beauties and undreamed-of possibilities in life,” Gordy could now see that the man had “a divine gift.”

The lasting legacy of a good teacher

Flash forward 60 years to 1982, when two friends of a teacher who had died in old age went to the man’s funeral. They had just read a newspaper obituary of the deceased, which closed with the sentence, “He left no survivors.” While at the funeral, however, the pair chatted with a number of the teacher’s ex-students whose stories made the friends question the accuracy of that rather sad sentence. “He made me a lover of the written word,” a successful executive recalled, with another previous student saying, “He was the chief influence in my going to college.”

There was no shortage of praise for this man, it seemed. “I wanted to be like him,” a mourner commented, adding that “he was both my textbook and my model.” In addition to being an apparently wonderful teacher, he and his wife had held holiday season reunions in their home, one more reason why so many fondly remembered him.

Did this teacher leave no survivors? The two friends in the anecdote, Thomas E. Robinson and Walter A. Brower, certainly didn’t think so. “The influence of a good teacher never ends,” Robinson, president emeritus of Glassboro State College in New Jersey, and Brower, dean of the School of Education at Rider College in that same state, beautifully wrote, thinking “it flows onward forward, like an evolutionary stream, through generations.” This particular teacher had no immediate family but had left many survivors, they held. “Doesn’t every successful teacher build a kind of immortality through the lives and activities of his or her students?” Robinson and Brower asked, answering that question by responding, “No good teacher ever dies.”

Jump ahead another 40 years, and little has changed. There are currently more than 3 million teachers in America, but one might not know that, judging by their relatively low public profile and less than impressive social status. From a macro view, public school teachers can be said to be pawns in the game of education, with most pedagogical decisions made by Washington lawmakers, state departments of education, and local school boards.

Still, each and every teacher holds great sway in her or his own classroom, thus having a direct effect on the lives of students. In his book There Are No Shortcuts , Rafe Esquith, who taught students of low-income families at Hobart Elementary School in Los Angeles, described teaching as “a holy mission” that required tremendous effort but offered the great reward of changing people for the better. Many of us are the people we are because of a teacher or two, something we should acknowledge and appreciate.

Samuel, Lawrence R. (2024). The American Teacher: A History. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Rafe Esquith . (2003). There are No Shortcuts. New York: Pantheon.

Lawrence R. Samuel, Ph.D. , is an American cultural historian who holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and was a Smithsonian Institution Fellow.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• International
• New Zealand
• South Africa
• Switzerland
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that threatens to derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face our triggers with less reactivity so that we can get on with our lives.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

What All Teachers Should Know About WIDA’s Test for English Learners

• Share article

Schools are required to test the progress of their English learners each year to determine whether they still need language instruction services or can exit out of such programs. In close to 40 states, that test is known as the WIDA ACCESS test .

What is the WIDA ACCESS test used for?

Offered both online and in a paper format, ACCESS tests students’ proficiency in four domains: speaking, reading, listening, and writing in English. The questions are modeled along academic content they would see in regular classes. For instance, reading questions might be about a science topic. The test is checking for language use in academic contexts, not content knowledge nor social language.

Teachers who specialize in English-language instruction say their general education peers play a key role in prepping students to succeed on the ACCESS test. And researchers who study English-language acquisition agree.

This collaboration between general and specialized teachers is even more critical now, researchers say, because new analyses of national ACCESS scores show that average scores continue to trend down since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For general education teachers to better support language acquisition for the English learners in their classrooms, it starts with familiarizing themselves with the test itself and what scores can tell them about their students’ language needs.

“There is a gap between what general education teachers likely know about the WIDA test because they are unable to see it administered,” said Missy Testerman, the 2024 National Teacher of the Year and a K-8 English-as-a-second-language teacher in Rogersville, Tenn. “I feel like it’s a lot more rigorous than most people are aware of in terms of what our English-language learners are asked to do.”

The WIDA ACCESS test covers language use in an academic context

The ACCESS test takes up to four hours to complete, though timing can vary, and is typically split across multiple days in one week.

The 36 states (as well as additional territories and federal agencies) that use the test are part of what’s known as the WIDA consortium—which provides common standards as the measure of English language proficiency. The test builds from those standards in terms of levels of difficulty by grade level. It’s also an adaptive test—in particular, the online test increases or decreases levels of difficulty (known as tiers) as the student progresses, said Mark Chapman, senior innovation researcher at WIDA. For the paper test, administrators set the difficulty level for each student.

States then individually set the scores students need to get across the four domains to demonstrate proficiency in English. Their scores determine if they remain in an English-learner program or if they can exit.

ACCESS is not a test students can study for. However, students who consistently use and are exposed to language in an academic context throughout the school day are better prepared for the test.

“It’s really important to disentangle that everyday social language, that we know many students who were born in the United States and grew up in the United States … tend to be highly proficient in,” Chapman said. (Many English learners were born or grew up in the United States.)

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean you can understand the language needed to describe a science experiment, or you have the language to talk through the solution to a math problem. Those are different types of language development, which we’re trying to assess.”

What is taking WIDA ACCESS like for students?

Both online and paper versions of the test incorporate several visuals that help keep students engaged throughout and serve as additional support for younger English learners and newcomer students still very new to the English language, said Fabiana MacMillan, WIDA’s director of test development.

Students select answers from multiple-choice options, write or type out sentences and paragraphs, click and drag images, and even record themselves responding to prompts.

To loop general education colleagues into her work with English learners, Testerman in past years has taken sample questions and practice tests that are freely available on the WIDA website to general classrooms and led activities with the whole class.

“It’s really very interesting because sometimes the general education teachers are shocked at how many of their [non-English-learner] students in the general education classroom have trouble with those tasks, particularly around the writing piece,” Testerman said.

“I feel like in some cases, it’s given my [English-learner] students more respect, because their teachers and their classmates see the types of things that they’re having to do on the WIDA test,” she added.

What can the results on WIDA ACCESS tests tell teachers about students?

At Volusia County public schools in Florida, Betsy Sotomayor, an English-for-speakers-of-other-languages resource teacher for the district, regularly meets with general education teachers to review ACCESS sample questions and students’ scores and what they mean for their general classroom work.

For instance, a student may score low in the speaking portion of ACCESS but high in reading. The teacher can ask: Is that student getting enough time to practice speaking in academic contexts in the classroom?

Teachers then have a better sense of what language practice is needed in general classrooms, Sotomayor said.

“It’s just the fear of the unknown. But then once [teachers] understand how valuable this assessment is, they’re all in, they’re really all in, and they really appreciate it,” she said.

General education teachers can improve academic language use for all students

For all educators to better support English learners’ language development, they first need the right mindset.

Just because an English learner’s vocabulary may not be as expansive as others, or they write in phrases rather than sentences, doesn’t mean they’re not connecting with academic content, said Leslie Grimm, assistant director of educator learning, research, and practice at WIDA. They may just not be able to express their content knowledge in full in English yet.

“If you go into these contexts thinking 100 percent that you recognize, you affirm, and you respect where they are in their learning trajectory, and what they know and what they can do, I think that you’ll set up a more rigorous classroom environment,” Grimm said. “Because the reality is classroom environments have to be rigorous to meet any standards, whether it’s English-language development standards or content standards.”

Whether it’s preparing English learners for state standardized tests or the ACCESS test, Grimm has one big piece of advice for all teachers: maximize the opportunities for students to engage across language modalities. (Speaking, writing, etc.)

English learners need opportunities to practice talking and writing in class. Grimm suggests setting up group activities that involve turn and talk where, given a topic, a student may say something and then another says something different, but they’re building on that previous idea and expanding on it.

Students should also be given clear directions on what they are doing across modalities. For instance, if a student is asked to describe something that they’re noticing in a science experiment and must write that down, what kind of language would they use? They may name what they are studying but then may use a pronoun to describe it later, rather than restate the name.

If at the end of a social studies unit students must engage in classroom debate, there are specific language features used when speaking in a debate that students should practice using throughout the unit.

Testerman said that promoting formal, language use in general classrooms is something that benefits all students, especially since language learning never stops as language itself evolves. For instance, the word zoom used to mean moving at a fast pace but is now more often used to refer to the virtual meeting platform and the verb of using said platform, she said.

But Testerman also recognizes how busy teachers are. It’s why she advocates for district leaders to facilitate time for general classroom teachers to plan with English-as-a-second-language teachers so they can review language objectives and learning standards together and come up with a plan on how to best promote language development across the school day.

Sign Up for EdWeek Update

Edweek top school jobs.

Sign Up & Sign In

Teachers, librarians caught giving 'obscene' materials to kids could be charged with felony under new Ohio bill

Leader of one ohio teachers' union claimed bill 'would have a chilling effect on our classrooms.'.

A Republican state representative in Ohio has proposed a bill which, if passed, would bar teachers and librarians from exposing schoolchildren to obscene material.

Last month, state Rep. Adam Mathews (R-Lebanon) introduced H.B. 556 which would "create criminal liability for certain teachers and librarians for the offense of pandering obscenity." Under H.B. 556, educators could not create, publish, or perform anything that features "obscene material." They would similarly be prohibited from promoting public events containing obscene material.

'A 2nd grader does not need to dodge obscenity in the school library, no matter who the subjects of the obscenity are.'

Should the bill become law, any such teacher or librarian caught sharing or promoting such material could be charged with a Class 5 felony, which carries a sentence of between six and 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine, WLWT reported. The bill permits certain exceptions for biology and health teachers as well as material with "a bona fide medical, scientific, religious, governmental, judicial, or other proper purpose."

"The purpose of House Bill 556 is to ensure the standard obscenity rules that operate in day-to-day life, from Barnes & Noble to our television sets, are upheld in our K-12 educational spaces," Rep. Mathews said in a statement. "We want to protect the trust and relationship between parents, teachers, and students during the school day."

Critics, however, countered that the bill never defines obscenity and would therefore be abused to go after teachers. Melissa Cropper , president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, claimed the "vagueness of the bill" would give "bad faith actors" the opportunity to attack public educators under the guise of "protecting children."

Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro went a step farther, claiming he was "appalled" by the bill and suggesting that it attempted "to silence or punish educators for doing their jobs."

"HB 556 would have a chilling effect on our classrooms," he continued, "by making trained, experienced professionals unsure whether the necessary, legitimate education materials they have been using with their students would be safe under this dangerous law."

Several also mentioned that Ohio law already forbids pandering obscene material .

Mathews acknowledged that an anti-obscenity law already exists but added that his bill would ensure such laws would be enforced in Ohio schools and school libraries. He also indicated that teachers can easily cover sensitive topics with their students without using obscene material.

"Simply put, a 2nd grader does not need to dodge obscenity in the school library, no matter who the subjects of the obscenity are," he said. "... Further, newspapers and history books can inform without delving into obscenity, and I have full confidence teachers can handle tough topics like human trafficking similarly."

H.B. 556 has since been passed along to the Ohio House Criminal Justice Committee. However, the committee has yet to schedule a date to consider it.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here !

Want to leave a tip?

Cortney Weil

Sr. Editor, News

more stories

Sign up for the blaze newsletter, get the stories that matter most delivered directly to your inbox..

• Investigates
• Houston Life
• Newsletters

WEATHER ALERT

4 warnings and 3 advisories in effect for 16 regions in the area

Lamar cisd launches investigation into former elementary school teacher’s alleged videos on school property.

Brittany Taylor , Senior Digital Content Producer

HOUSTON – A former elementary school teacher at Lamar Consolidated Independent School District is under investigation after videos she reportedly recorded on school property were sent to the district.

On Thursday afternoon, the district stated that it has received copies of two videos recorded of the former employee on property.

Recommended Videos

An investigation has been launched but the district said it does not believe that students were not present during the filming of the videos. However, the investigation will verify the timestamp and circumstances surrounding the recordings.

If criminal behavior or conduct violating the Texas Administrative Code Educator’s Code of Ethics are found, the district report to the appropriate agencies.

Upon the district learning this information, it was learned that the employee resigned in February and it was accepted and effective for the end of the school year. The elementary school reportedly had no knowledge of the alleged videos or the reason for her resignation.

According to the district, this was the teacher’s first year in Lamar CISD.

Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston - All rights reserved.

About the Author

Brittany taylor.

Award-winning journalist, mother, YouTuber, social media guru, millennial, mentor, storyteller, University of Houston alumna and Houston-native.

• KSAT Insider
• KSAT Connect
• Entertainment

WEATHER ALERT

3 advisories in effect for 26 regions in the area

Sapd says driver dies after crashing into traffic attenuator at high speed, sunday marked the second deadly crash in the area over the last two weekends.

KSAT Digital Staff

SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Police Department said a driver traveling at a high rate of speed died after they crashed along U.S. Highway 90.

The crash happened just after 1:30 a.m. Sunday on U.S. Highway 90 near South General McMullen Drive.

Officers said the driver of a white Toyota Camry was traveling eastbound on U.S. Highway 90 when the driver crashed into the traffic attenuator that separates the highway’s main lanes from the exit ramp.

Emergency responders pronounced the unidentified male driver dead at the scene.

Sunday marked the second deadly crash in the area over the last two weekends.

Last Sunday, a woman crashed into the same traffic attenuator on U.S. Highway 90 eastbound at the South General McMullen Drive exit. She was also pronounced dead at the scene.

The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office later identified the woman as 30-year-old Kimberly Pena.

Officials said Pena died from blunt force injuries sustained in the crash.

More related coverage on KSAT:

• ME identifies woman killed in single-vehicle crash along U.S. Highway 90

Copyright 2024 by KSAT - All rights reserved.

Recommended Videos