The Impact of Homework and Homework Preferences in Ninth Grade Geography.

This study measured the impact of homework and student homework preferences on the learning of 9 grade geography students of average and below average reading levels. Quiz averages were compared between two student groups that had alternating periods of exogenous manipulation, where one group was assigned homework while the alternate group was not assigned homework. Surveys determined the students’ perceived gaps between preferred homework conditions and actual homework conditions. These gaps were then compared to quiz averages and homework completion rates. Data showed that quiz averages remained similar whether students were assigned homework or not, and that gaps between actual and preferred homework conditions had minimal and inconsistent effects on quiz scores. Homework seemed to have little relationship to learning. Impact of Homework and Homework Preferences 3 The Impact of Homework and Homework Preferences in Ninth Grade Geography Academic experts and empirical researchers are divided on the issue of homework. Some believe the practice of requiring homework increases learning and should therefore be preserved and modified for improvement (Marzano & Pickering, 2007). Others believe the practice is useless, or in fact harmful to learning and emotional health, and should therefore be stopped (Kohn, 2006). Some teachers assign homework because they assume it improves learning, and they grade homework because they assume students will not be otherwise motivated to do it. As a high school social studies teacher, I struggled with the homework issue myself, especially with my ninth-grade geography classes. Many of my students who failed geography did so not due to lack of ability, but rather due to lack of homework completion. Some students who did not complete homework scored poorly on tests and quizzes, while others who did not complete homework scored satisfactorily. This situation perplexed me, and I perceived the homework issue to be among the most important challenges facing my ninth-grade students. I had ideas and biases about homework, but never really studied the issue. With so many students not doing homework, I began to question why I continued to assign it and wondered if it actually improved student learning at all. Therefore, I endeavored to conduct an action research study in my own classroom, in hopes of determining the impact of homework on my students so that I could modify it to better fit their needs. After reviewing the existing literature, I decided that the purpose of my research was to: a) measure the impact of assigning homework versus the impact of assigning no homework, and b) to measure the impact of the gap between actual homework conditions Impact of Homework and Homework Preferences 4 and preferred homework conditions on homework completion rates and quiz scores. My general intention was to obtain evidence indicating whether or not the homework I assigned improved the learning of my students. Additionally, I also hoped to see if there was a relationship between homework preferences and achievement. I hypothesized that my results would indicate that assigning homework would improve quiz scores overall, but more significantly for students whose actual homework conditions more closely matched their homework preferences. Review of Literature This review of literature uncovered a large number of studies done on homework. In general, I divided them into studies that focused on how homework directly affected achievement and studies that focused on how student perceptions factored into how homework affected achievement. More specifically, research on the following subtopics was reviewed: (a) achievement, (b) student perception, (c) ethnography, (d) homework and learning styles, and (e) homework preferences. Achievement Voices in the homework debate, whether in support of it, like Marzano and Pickering (2007), or against it like Kohn (2006), arrived at opposite conclusions while citing a lot of the same research. Kohn and Marzano and Pickering both mirrored the work of Cooper (2007) and Cooper, Robinson and Patall (2006), who offered a large synthesis of past homework research. Therefore, I decided that no literature review on homework would be complete without Cooper serving as a baseline. Cooper offered a solid foundation for the beginning action researcher by identifying, defining and Impact of Homework and Homework Preferences 5 categorizing homework, as well as outlining common research methods and summarizing research results. Cooper’s work was especially useful for an action researcher who planned to do a study on a small population. However, I also included in this baseline the commentary of Baker and LeTendre (2005), who reviewed large scale, international homework research, suited for very large populations. My hope was to gain insight of studies done both locally and internationally. Cooper (2007) defined homework as any task assigned to students that is to be done outside the hours of the school day. Cooper also classified homework based on its amount, purpose, skill area, degree of student choice, degree of individualization, whether it is short-term or long-term, and whether it is done alone or with others. Because homework is so complex, it was hard to find research that adequately addressed all the variables, including the impact of the different types of homework outlined above, as well as the impact of other social, economic, cultural and psychological factors that might have interfered with homework-achievement correlations (Cooper, Robinson, & Patall, 2006). However, despite these potential validity issues, there were reliable results indicating that homework helped student achievement (Cooper, 2007; Cooper et al., 2006). Of 20 studies reviewed, 14 revealed a positive relationship between homework and achievement (Cooper et al.), and in another six studies that compared students who had homework with students who had no homework, the average homework student did better than 73% of the no-homework students on unit tests (Cooper, 2007). However, the positive effects of homework seemed to vary by grade level. Homework seemed to have little benefit in elementary school, some benefit in middle school and the most benefit in Impact of Homework and Homework Preferences 6 high school, (Cooper et al.). The research of small, local populations, as reviewed by Cooper (2007) and Cooper et al., made me think that homework in high school was worth studying and improving, and not hastily discarding, as Kohn (2006) might suggest. Looking at global and international research reviewed by Baker and LeTendre (2005), I saw striking contradictions to negative stereotypes about American laxity in homework, yet at the same time I noticed patterns of complexity as identified by Cooper (2007) above. For example, the view of American schools was that they do not expect as much homework from their students compared to foreign schools. However, according to Baker and LeTendre, the U.S. was among the international leaders in the amount of homework assigned. In sharp contradiction to what Marzano and Pickering (2007) reported, American math teachers, on average, assigned about twice as many hours of homework as Japanese teachers. Initial inspection of national scores and the amount of homework assigned supported the criticisms offered by Kohn (2006). Countries with high national scores, such as Japan, Denmark, and the Czech Republic, did not assign as much homework as countries with lower scores, like Greece, Iran and Thailand (Baker & LeTendre, 2005). However, a closer look at all nations showed that homework and its effects were complicated, as Cooper (2007) pointed out. Not all nations fit into an inverse homeworktest score relationship. In Romania, students did more homework than any nation and had high test scores, but Korea, whose students did less math homework than American kids, scored higher on math tests (Baker & LeTendre). Baker and LeTendre reported that “there are obviously other factors at play” (p. 121). Impact of Homework and Homework Preferences 7 Cooper (2007), Cooper et al. (2006), and Baker and LeTendre (2005) offered a research baseline that supported homework as a positive factor that influenced achievement. However, this baseline also pointed out that homework had many forms, each involving different lengths, styles and skill levels. To further complicate the issue, homework was completed by students who varied in their personalities and preferences regarding homework. From the results reported above, one might agree with Marzano and Pickering (2007) that homework improved learning, at least in general. On the other hand, the complexity of both homework and the people who did it, along with striking exceptions within the above results, required that I pay close attention to the methods and criticisms of research so that my study was best suited to the unique patterns of my own students. Despite criticisms of this traditional research, I examined methods available to myself as an action researcher. Cooper, et al. (2006) identified three common styles for studying the impact of homework on learning. First, there is exogenous manipulation, where the teacher manipulates the amount of homework only for the purpose of research. This manipulation can be done randomly or non-randomly. If done non-randomly then some process should occur to make sure the homework and no-homework groups are as similar as possible (Cooper et al.). The two groups should have about the same backgrounds, traits, levels of academic achievement, and about the same number of males and females (Cooper, 2007). The researcher then compares the achievement of students who are intentionally assigned homework with the achievement of those who are intentionally not assigned any homework, while making sure the teacher takes great care Impact of Homework and Homework Preferences 8 to see that both groups are treated e