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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

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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.

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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 .

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The Cult of Homework

America’s devotion to the practice stems in part from the fact that it’s what today’s parents and teachers grew up with themselves.

America has long had a fickle relationship with homework. A century or so ago, progressive reformers argued that it made kids unduly stressed , which later led in some cases to district-level bans on it for all grades under seventh. This anti-homework sentiment faded, though, amid mid-century fears that the U.S. was falling behind the Soviet Union (which led to more homework), only to resurface in the 1960s and ’70s, when a more open culture came to see homework as stifling play and creativity (which led to less). But this didn’t last either: In the ’80s, government researchers blamed America’s schools for its economic troubles and recommended ramping homework up once more.

The 21st century has so far been a homework-heavy era, with American teenagers now averaging about twice as much time spent on homework each day as their predecessors did in the 1990s . Even little kids are asked to bring school home with them. A 2015 study , for instance, found that kindergarteners, who researchers tend to agree shouldn’t have any take-home work, were spending about 25 minutes a night on it.

But not without pushback. As many children, not to mention their parents and teachers, are drained by their daily workload, some schools and districts are rethinking how homework should work—and some teachers are doing away with it entirely. They’re reviewing the research on homework (which, it should be noted, is contested) and concluding that it’s time to revisit the subject.

Read: My daughter’s homework is killing me

Hillsborough, California, an affluent suburb of San Francisco, is one district that has changed its ways. The district, which includes three elementary schools and a middle school, worked with teachers and convened panels of parents in order to come up with a homework policy that would allow students more unscheduled time to spend with their families or to play. In August 2017, it rolled out an updated policy, which emphasized that homework should be “meaningful” and banned due dates that fell on the day after a weekend or a break.

“The first year was a bit bumpy,” says Louann Carlomagno, the district’s superintendent. She says the adjustment was at times hard for the teachers, some of whom had been doing their job in a similar fashion for a quarter of a century. Parents’ expectations were also an issue. Carlomagno says they took some time to “realize that it was okay not to have an hour of homework for a second grader—that was new.”

Most of the way through year two, though, the policy appears to be working more smoothly. “The students do seem to be less stressed based on conversations I’ve had with parents,” Carlomagno says. It also helps that the students performed just as well on the state standardized test last year as they have in the past.

Earlier this year, the district of Somerville, Massachusetts, also rewrote its homework policy, reducing the amount of homework its elementary and middle schoolers may receive. In grades six through eight, for example, homework is capped at an hour a night and can only be assigned two to three nights a week.

Jack Schneider, an education professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell whose daughter attends school in Somerville, is generally pleased with the new policy. But, he says, it’s part of a bigger, worrisome pattern. “The origin for this was general parental dissatisfaction, which not surprisingly was coming from a particular demographic,” Schneider says. “Middle-class white parents tend to be more vocal about concerns about homework … They feel entitled enough to voice their opinions.”

Schneider is all for revisiting taken-for-granted practices like homework, but thinks districts need to take care to be inclusive in that process. “I hear approximately zero middle-class white parents talking about how homework done best in grades K through two actually strengthens the connection between home and school for young people and their families,” he says. Because many of these parents already feel connected to their school community, this benefit of homework can seem redundant. “They don’t need it,” Schneider says, “so they’re not advocating for it.”

That doesn’t mean, necessarily, that homework is more vital in low-income districts. In fact, there are different, but just as compelling, reasons it can be burdensome in these communities as well. Allison Wienhold, who teaches high-school Spanish in the small town of Dunkerton, Iowa, has phased out homework assignments over the past three years. Her thinking: Some of her students, she says, have little time for homework because they’re working 30 hours a week or responsible for looking after younger siblings.

As educators reduce or eliminate the homework they assign, it’s worth asking what amount and what kind of homework is best for students. It turns out that there’s some disagreement about this among researchers, who tend to fall in one of two camps.

In the first camp is Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. Cooper conducted a review of the existing research on homework in the mid-2000s , and found that, up to a point, the amount of homework students reported doing correlates with their performance on in-class tests. This correlation, the review found, was stronger for older students than for younger ones.

This conclusion is generally accepted among educators, in part because it’s compatible with “the 10-minute rule,” a rule of thumb popular among teachers suggesting that the proper amount of homework is approximately 10 minutes per night, per grade level—that is, 10 minutes a night for first graders, 20 minutes a night for second graders, and so on, up to two hours a night for high schoolers.

In Cooper’s eyes, homework isn’t overly burdensome for the typical American kid. He points to a 2014 Brookings Institution report that found “little evidence that the homework load has increased for the average student”; onerous amounts of homework, it determined, are indeed out there, but relatively rare. Moreover, the report noted that most parents think their children get the right amount of homework, and that parents who are worried about under-assigning outnumber those who are worried about over-assigning. Cooper says that those latter worries tend to come from a small number of communities with “concerns about being competitive for the most selective colleges and universities.”

According to Alfie Kohn, squarely in camp two, most of the conclusions listed in the previous three paragraphs are questionable. Kohn, the author of The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing , considers homework to be a “reliable extinguisher of curiosity,” and has several complaints with the evidence that Cooper and others cite in favor of it. Kohn notes, among other things, that Cooper’s 2006 meta-analysis doesn’t establish causation, and that its central correlation is based on children’s (potentially unreliable) self-reporting of how much time they spend doing homework. (Kohn’s prolific writing on the subject alleges numerous other methodological faults.)

In fact, other correlations make a compelling case that homework doesn’t help. Some countries whose students regularly outperform American kids on standardized tests, such as Japan and Denmark, send their kids home with less schoolwork , while students from some countries with higher homework loads than the U.S., such as Thailand and Greece, fare worse on tests. (Of course, international comparisons can be fraught because so many factors, in education systems and in societies at large, might shape students’ success.)

Kohn also takes issue with the way achievement is commonly assessed. “If all you want is to cram kids’ heads with facts for tomorrow’s tests that they’re going to forget by next week, yeah, if you give them more time and make them do the cramming at night, that could raise the scores,” he says. “But if you’re interested in kids who know how to think or enjoy learning, then homework isn’t merely ineffective, but counterproductive.”

His concern is, in a way, a philosophical one. “The practice of homework assumes that only academic growth matters, to the point that having kids work on that most of the school day isn’t enough,” Kohn says. What about homework’s effect on quality time spent with family? On long-term information retention? On critical-thinking skills? On social development? On success later in life? On happiness? The research is quiet on these questions.

Another problem is that research tends to focus on homework’s quantity rather than its quality, because the former is much easier to measure than the latter. While experts generally agree that the substance of an assignment matters greatly (and that a lot of homework is uninspiring busywork), there isn’t a catchall rule for what’s best—the answer is often specific to a certain curriculum or even an individual student.

Given that homework’s benefits are so narrowly defined (and even then, contested), it’s a bit surprising that assigning so much of it is often a classroom default, and that more isn’t done to make the homework that is assigned more enriching. A number of things are preserving this state of affairs—things that have little to do with whether homework helps students learn.

Jack Schneider, the Massachusetts parent and professor, thinks it’s important to consider the generational inertia of the practice. “The vast majority of parents of public-school students themselves are graduates of the public education system,” he says. “Therefore, their views of what is legitimate have been shaped already by the system that they would ostensibly be critiquing.” In other words, many parents’ own history with homework might lead them to expect the same for their children, and anything less is often taken as an indicator that a school or a teacher isn’t rigorous enough. (This dovetails with—and complicates—the finding that most parents think their children have the right amount of homework.)

Barbara Stengel, an education professor at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, brought up two developments in the educational system that might be keeping homework rote and unexciting. The first is the importance placed in the past few decades on standardized testing, which looms over many public-school classroom decisions and frequently discourages teachers from trying out more creative homework assignments. “They could do it, but they’re afraid to do it, because they’re getting pressure every day about test scores,” Stengel says.

Second, she notes that the profession of teaching, with its relatively low wages and lack of autonomy, struggles to attract and support some of the people who might reimagine homework, as well as other aspects of education. “Part of why we get less interesting homework is because some of the people who would really have pushed the limits of that are no longer in teaching,” she says.

“In general, we have no imagination when it comes to homework,” Stengel says. She wishes teachers had the time and resources to remake homework into something that actually engages students. “If we had kids reading—anything, the sports page, anything that they’re able to read—that’s the best single thing. If we had kids going to the zoo, if we had kids going to parks after school, if we had them doing all of those things, their test scores would improve. But they’re not. They’re going home and doing homework that is not expanding what they think about.”

“Exploratory” is one word Mike Simpson used when describing the types of homework he’d like his students to undertake. Simpson is the head of the Stone Independent School, a tiny private high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that opened in 2017. “We were lucky to start a school a year and a half ago,” Simpson says, “so it’s been easy to say we aren’t going to assign worksheets, we aren’t going assign regurgitative problem sets.” For instance, a half-dozen students recently built a 25-foot trebuchet on campus.

Simpson says he thinks it’s a shame that the things students have to do at home are often the least fulfilling parts of schooling: “When our students can’t make the connection between the work they’re doing at 11 o’clock at night on a Tuesday to the way they want their lives to be, I think we begin to lose the plot.”

When I talked with other teachers who did homework makeovers in their classrooms, I heard few regrets. Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher in Joshua, Texas, stopped assigning take-home packets of worksheets three years ago, and instead started asking her students to do 20 minutes of pleasure reading a night. She says she’s pleased with the results, but she’s noticed something funny. “Some kids,” she says, “really do like homework.” She’s started putting out a bucket of it for students to draw from voluntarily—whether because they want an additional challenge or something to pass the time at home.

Chris Bronke, a high-school English teacher in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove, told me something similar. This school year, he eliminated homework for his class of freshmen, and now mostly lets students study on their own or in small groups during class time. It’s usually up to them what they work on each day, and Bronke has been impressed by how they’ve managed their time.

In fact, some of them willingly spend time on assignments at home, whether because they’re particularly engaged, because they prefer to do some deeper thinking outside school, or because they needed to spend time in class that day preparing for, say, a biology test the following period. “They’re making meaningful decisions about their time that I don’t think education really ever gives students the experience, nor the practice, of doing,” Bronke said.

The typical prescription offered by those overwhelmed with homework is to assign less of it—to subtract. But perhaps a more useful approach, for many classrooms, would be to create homework only when teachers and students believe it’s actually needed to further the learning that takes place in class—to start with nothing, and add as necessary.

Homework: How to Effectively Build the Learning Bridge

How has the global health crisis impacted the place that homework has in student learning and the school-home connection? Homework holds its place as a school tradition, expected by students and their parents as part of the experience of growing and learning. While there is ongoing debate about homework’s effectiveness, it is traditionally seen as a tool that strengthens academics by providing learning practice at home. John Hattie’s meta-analysis of relevant research on educational practices found that the overall effects of homework on learning are positive, and that the positive effect is highest for junior high and high school students but generally neutral for elementary students. In addition, there is variability depending on the type of homework as well as student demographics (Hattie, 2008).

Schools implementing the Responsive Classroom approach, whether in person or virtually, use homework to effectively build a learning bridge between home and school. When homework is used as a tool to build social, emotional, and academic learning beyond the school day, it takes on a different look and purpose than just more work to do at home. The goal of Responsive Classroom schools is to design homework that meets the basic needs of significance and belonging for every student by strengthening relationships, differentiating what success looks like for each child, and supporting students’ social, emotional, and academic learning.

Focus on Relationships

Homework that impedes relationships— either teacher-to-student, teacher-toparent, or student-to-parent—can potentially damage the home-school partnership. When educators examine the amount, type, and expectations of homework, they often start with the impact of homework on academic achievement. But when schools look beyond academic achievement and also include relationships, they will often rethink the look and purpose of homework.

Effectively building this school-to-home connection starts by replacing homework that impedes relationships with homework that will enhance them. Examples for building these connections include ways for students to share about family traditions, cultural practices, and/or family adventures. Lauren Komanitsky, a special education teacher at Christa McAuliffe Middle School in Jackson, New Jersey, observes:

I’ve seen tremendous enthusiasm for homework and projects that involve family members and their family history. [Students] love to learn about ancestors, interesting facts and stories, and simply getting a deeper understanding of their background. It inspires pride in them and that’s important for their identity. Students also love to do surveys and interviews of their family members. I think anything designed to create good, meaningful conversation between students and their families is time well spent. Lauren Komanitsky (personal communication, February 7, 2021)

Schools that use homework to strengthen home-school relationships embed opportunities for students to develop belonging and significance. As students share the home connections with their classmates and teachers, the classroom community will develop a larger sense of belonging because students see connections among common experiences.

Build Success for Every Student

Classrooms are diverse communities. While teachers intentionally differentiate learning during the school day, providing homework that meets the individual and cultural needs of each student requires additional attention.

One strategy for success for every student is to provide choice. Komanitsky has seen this strategy work when she has had students reflect on what they need and then select homework to meet that need:

Having kids select specific problems from a group, select what part of an overall project they are choosing to focus on, etc. . . . helps with creating a sense of autonomy. When we can give kids a choice in their learning based on their own self-reflection, they learn what it feels like to be in control of the process and this leads to more success. Lauren Komanitsky (personal communication, February 7, 2021)

When homework is designed for success for each student, the bridge between home and school supports a higher level of success and engagement.

Include Practice of Social and Emotional Learning Skills

The first guiding principle of the Responsive Classroom approach states, “Teaching social and emotional skills is as important as teaching academic content.” Social and emotional learning (SEL) is embedded in academic learning throughout the school day. Teachers can create a bridge between home and school by suggesting opportunities for students to practice SEL skills at home and in their community. For example, parents can have their children practice speaking with confidence by having them “make a request, place an order, or thank customer service workers” (Wilson, 2014, p. 67).

In addition, homework may involve students having conversations with family members about their learning histories—the successes, struggles, and strategies t hey encountered when they were students at different levels. When family members share their learning histories, students discover the application of the SEL and academic competencies of perseverance, cooperation, and responsibility. As Komanitsky points out:

When we share how we overcame struggles in certain academic subjects, it encourages perseverance and resilience in our students. Having parents and kids discuss their personal strengths and weaknesses and how they compensate when necessary is also a really good conversation. Lauren Komanitsky (personal communication, February 7, 2021)

Homework that focuses on SEL competencies provides for the transfer of these vital skills to a variety of real-life situations, both at home and in the community.

When schools approach homework as an extension of the learning day and see it as a way to strengthen relationships—between teachers and parents, students and parents, and students and teachers—homework becomes a valuable part of the school experience for every child. Students’ needs for belonging and significance are met and strengthened when homework provides for individual success. And when educators view homework as a tool to strengthen academic, social, and emotional learning, it becomes a valuable piece of the learning puzzle for every student.

• Hattie, J. (2008). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.
• Wilson, M. B. (2014). The language of learning: Teaching students core thinking, listening, and speaking skills. Center for Responsive Schools, Inc

The relationship between teachers' homework feedback, students' homework emotions, and academic self-esteem: A multi-group analysis of gender differences

• Published: 09 March 2024

Cite this article

• Rui Gou   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0003-0573-6877 1 ,
• Xin Yang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5835-810X 2 ,
• Xiaohui Chen 1 ,
• Chun Cao 2 &
• Ning Chen 3  

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Students’ homework emotions greatly influence the quality of homework, learning activities, and even academic achievement and burden. Therefore, encouraging students’ positive homework emotions is essential for their development. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between three types of teachers’ homework feedback (checking homework on the board, grading homework, and constructive comments), students’ positive and negative homework emotions in Chinese subjects while taking into account the mediating effect of academic self-esteem and gender differences in these underlying relationships. 928 elementary school students of 4–6th grade participated in this survey and completed scales. Results showed that (1) checking homework on the board and constructive comments positively impacted students' positive emotions, while checking homework on the board negatively influenced students’ negative emotions. In contrast, constructive comments did not impact students’ negative emotions. Furthermore, grading homework had no significant effect on students’ emotions; (2) academic self-esteem mediated the relationship between teachers' homework feedback and students’ homework emotions, and (3) gender moderated some underlying relationships between teachers’ homework feedback, students’ homework emotions, and academic self-esteem. This study has implications for teachers in designing and choosing high-quality homework feedback, encouraging students’ positive homework emotions, and reducing students’ negative homework emotions.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participating students, teachers, and schools for their time and support.

This work was supported by The National Social Science Found of China “14th Five-Year Plan” 2022 Youth Project in Education: Research on the formation mechanism of schoolwork burden of primary and secondary school students and the accurate reduction mechanism of big data [grant numbers CHA220299].

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Gou, R., Yang, X., Chen, X. et al. The relationship between teachers' homework feedback, students' homework emotions, and academic self-esteem: A multi-group analysis of gender differences. Soc Psychol Educ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-024-09897-0

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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.

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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

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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?

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

Pedro rosário.

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

José C. Núñez

2 Departamento de Psicologia, Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

Guillermo Vallejo

Jennifer cunha, tânia nunes, natalia suárez, sonia fuentes.

3 Vicerrectoría Académica, Universidad Central de Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile

4 Facultad de Educación, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile

Tânia Moreira

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:

• The types of homework feedback analyzed are differentially associated with student academic performance (increasing from types 1–5);
• 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 ​ Table1 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 ​ Table2 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).

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

N, total number of subjects; Min, minimum value; Max, maximum value; SD, standard deviation; M, mean; homework follow-up _1, checking homework completion; homework follow-up _2, answering questions about homework; homework follow-up _3, checking homework orally; homework follow-up _4, checking homework on the board; homework follow-up _5, collecting and grading homework; Pretest, performance before homework follow-up; posttest, performance after homework follow-up .

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 ​ Table3 3 addresses this question and shows two model effects: the principal effect (A) and secondary effects ( A × X 1 and A × X 2 ).

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

[A = 1,…,5], homework follow-up practices .

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 ​ Table4 4 are particularly interesting.

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

A, homework follow-up type; X 1 , previous grade; X 2 , number of homework follow-up sessions; UN (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), variance of each homework follow-up type; T/A, teachers nested within the homework follow-up type variable; DF Num , degrees of freedom numerator; DF Den , degrees of freedom denominator .

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 ​ Table4 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 ​ Figure1. 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 ​ Figure1 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].

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 ​ Table5 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 ​ Table5, 5 , the procedure detected statistically significant differences ( p < 0.05) in five of the six contrasts analyzed (see Figure ​ Figure2 2 as well).

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

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 ​ Table4) 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 ​ Table4, 4 , the data indicate that students' performance improved from homework follow-up types 1–5 (see also Figure ​ Figure2), 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 ​ Table5, 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 ​ Table4). 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 ​ Table1). 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.

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• Our Mission

What’s the Right Amount of Homework?

Decades of research show that homework has some benefits, especially for students in middle and high school—but there are risks to assigning too much.

Many teachers and parents believe that homework helps students build study skills and review concepts learned in class. Others see homework as disruptive and unnecessary, leading to burnout and turning kids off to school. Decades of research show that the issue is more nuanced and complex than most people think: Homework is beneficial, but only to a degree. Students in high school gain the most, while younger kids benefit much less.

The National PTA and the National Education Association support the “ 10-minute homework guideline ”—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students’ needs, not the amount of time spent on it.

The guideline doesn’t account for students who may need to spend more—or less—time on assignments. In class, teachers can make adjustments to support struggling students, but at home, an assignment that takes one student 30 minutes to complete may take another twice as much time—often for reasons beyond their control. And homework can widen the achievement gap, putting students from low-income households and students with learning disabilities at a disadvantage.

However, the 10-minute guideline is useful in setting a limit: When kids spend too much time on homework, there are real consequences to consider.

Small Benefits for Elementary Students

As young children begin school, the focus should be on cultivating a love of learning, and assigning too much homework can undermine that goal. And young students often don’t have the study skills to benefit fully from homework, so it may be a poor use of time (Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). A more effective activity may be nightly reading, especially if parents are involved. The benefits of reading are clear: If students aren’t proficient readers by the end of third grade, they’re less likely to succeed academically and graduate from high school (Fiester, 2013 ).

For second-grade teacher Jacqueline Fiorentino, the minor benefits of homework did not outweigh the potential drawback of turning young children against school at an early age, so she experimented with dropping mandatory homework. “Something surprising happened: They started doing more work at home,” Fiorentino writes . “This inspiring group of 8-year-olds used their newfound free time to explore subjects and topics of interest to them.” She encouraged her students to read at home and offered optional homework to extend classroom lessons and help them review material.

Moderate Benefits for Middle School Students

As students mature and develop the study skills necessary to delve deeply into a topic—and to retain what they learn—they also benefit more from homework. Nightly assignments can help prepare them for scholarly work, and research shows that homework can have moderate benefits for middle school students (Cooper et al., 2006 ). Recent research also shows that online math homework, which can be designed to adapt to students’ levels of understanding, can significantly boost test scores (Roschelle et al., 2016 ).

There are risks to assigning too much, however: A 2015 study found that when middle school students were assigned more than 90 to 100 minutes of daily homework, their math and science test scores began to decline (Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muñiz, 2015 ). Crossing that upper limit can drain student motivation and focus. The researchers recommend that “homework should present a certain level of challenge or difficulty, without being so challenging that it discourages effort.” Teachers should avoid low-effort, repetitive assignments, and assign homework “with the aim of instilling work habits and promoting autonomous, self-directed learning.”

In other words, it’s the quality of homework that matters, not the quantity. Brian Sztabnik, a veteran middle and high school English teacher, suggests that teachers take a step back and ask themselves these five questions :

• How long will it take to complete?
• Have all learners been considered?
• Will an assignment encourage future success?
• Will an assignment place material in a context the classroom cannot?
• Does an assignment offer support when a teacher is not there?

More Benefits for High School Students, but Risks as Well

By the time they reach high school, students should be well on their way to becoming independent learners, so homework does provide a boost to learning at this age, as long as it isn’t overwhelming (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). When students spend too much time on homework—more than two hours each night—it takes up valuable time to rest and spend time with family and friends. A 2013 study found that high school students can experience serious mental and physical health problems, from higher stress levels to sleep deprivation, when assigned too much homework (Galloway, Conner, & Pope, 2013 ).

Homework in high school should always relate to the lesson and be doable without any assistance, and feedback should be clear and explicit.

Teachers should also keep in mind that not all students have equal opportunities to finish their homework at home, so incomplete homework may not be a true reflection of their learning—it may be more a result of issues they face outside of school. They may be hindered by issues such as lack of a quiet space at home, resources such as a computer or broadband connectivity, or parental support (OECD, 2014 ). In such cases, giving low homework scores may be unfair.

Since the quantities of time discussed here are totals, teachers in middle and high school should be aware of how much homework other teachers are assigning. It may seem reasonable to assign 30 minutes of daily homework, but across six subjects, that’s three hours—far above a reasonable amount even for a high school senior. Psychologist Maurice Elias sees this as a common mistake: Individual teachers create homework policies that in aggregate can overwhelm students. He suggests that teachers work together to develop a school-wide homework policy and make it a key topic of back-to-school night and the first parent-teacher conferences of the school year.

Parents Play a Key Role

Homework can be a powerful tool to help parents become more involved in their child’s learning (Walker et al., 2004 ). It can provide insights into a child’s strengths and interests, and can also encourage conversations about a child’s life at school. If a parent has positive attitudes toward homework, their children are more likely to share those same values, promoting academic success.

But it’s also possible for parents to be overbearing, putting too much emphasis on test scores or grades, which can be disruptive for children (Madjar, Shklar, & Moshe, 2015 ). Parents should avoid being overly intrusive or controlling—students report feeling less motivated to learn when they don’t have enough space and autonomy to do their homework (Orkin, May, & Wolf, 2017 ; Patall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008 ; Silinskas & Kikas, 2017 ). So while homework can encourage parents to be more involved with their kids, it’s important to not make it a source of conflict.

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• Volume 20 (2018-2019) Issue 2
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Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo [Japan] Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [Japan]

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2019 Volume 20 Issue 2 Pages 27-39

• Published: 2019 Received: - Available on J-STAGE: May 08, 2021 Accepted: - Advance online publication: - Revised: -

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Homework can have both positive and negative effects on student learning. To overcome the negative effects and facilitate the positive ones, it is important for teachers to understand the underlying mechanisms of homework and how it relates to learning so that they can use the most effective methods of instruction and guidance. To provide a useful guide, this paper reviewed previous research studies and considered the roles of homework and effective instructional strategies from three psychological perspectives: behavioral, information-processing, and social constructivism. From a behavioral perspective, homework can be viewed as increasing opportunities for the repeated practice of knowledge and skills, whereas the information processing perspective places greater importance on the capacity of homework to promote deeper understanding and metacognition. Viewed from a social constructivist perspective, homework can promote the establishment of connections in the learning that occurs in school, at home, and in the wider community. Studies have shown that each of these roles of homework can contribute to the facilitation of meaningful learning and the support of students toward becoming self-initiated learners. However, there are some crucial challenges that remain in applying this knowledge to the actual school setting. This paper’s conclusion discusses possible directions for much-needed future research and suggests potential solutions.

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Watch CBS News

How teachers may be failing students with excessive homework

By Rebecca Lee

August 24, 2016 / 12:41 PM EDT / CBS News

After a long day of school and work, children and parents alike are unlikely to want to come home to a pile of homework. But America’s homework load is higher than ever. 

According to the American Journal of Family Therapy, the amount of homework for some young elementary school students is almost three times the recommended levels. For kids between kindergarten and second grade, the American Institutes for Research says most educators agree no more than 10 to 20 minutes of homework each day is appropriate.

While homework can help establish a daily routine and sense of responsibility, psychologist Lisa Damour said more work does not necessarily mean more achievement. In fact, up until the seventh grade, there is no correlation between homework and academic achievement. For grades seven to 12, it can help with performance, but only to a certain degree – anything more than 90 minutes for middle school students, and between one and a half to two hours for high schoolers, could diminish the positive effects of homework. 

So why do teachers assign so much work? Damour attributes this to the increased pressures on teachers as a result of “high-stake testing.” 

“Teachers are under pressure, which means students will be under pressure,” Damour told “CBS This Morning” Wednesday. 

But one second-grade teacher in Godley, Texas, is not giving in to the pressure. Brandy Young decided to scrap homework altogether. 

“There will be no formally assigned homework this year. Spend your evenings doing things that are proven to correlate with student success,” Brandy Young wrote in a letter to parents, posted by a mother on Facebook that’s now gone viral.

Young said she made the bold decision after realizing that the extra work “wasn’t right anymore” for her students. 

“If something’s not working as an educator, you need to change it. You’re here to help these kids,” Young said. “Young elementary students don’t need pencil and paperwork after they leave the classroom.”

Instead, Young advised parents to spend the time doing things that are proven to be beneficial to children’s development, including family dinners, playtime and earlier bedtimes. Meanwhile, excessive homework can have detrimental effects, creating tensions at home and conflicts between school and home. 

For families that do have to deal with homework, Damour advised parents to reach out to teachers for help if their children appear overwhelmed by the work load. 

“I think if things are not going well at home, families should reach out to the teacher,” Damour said. “If you and your children every night approach like this terrible battle that is about to unfold, it’s time to call the teacher and it’s time to ask for help.”

More from CBS News

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.

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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.

Is Homework Good for Kids? Here’s What the Research Says

A s kids return to school, debate is heating up once again over how they should spend their time after they leave the classroom for the day.

The no-homework policy of a second-grade teacher in Texas went viral last week , earning praise from parents across the country who lament the heavy workload often assigned to young students. Brandy Young told parents she would not formally assign any homework this year, asking students instead to eat dinner with their families, play outside and go to bed early.

But the question of how much work children should be doing outside of school remains controversial, and plenty of parents take issue with no-homework policies, worried their kids are losing a potential academic advantage. Here’s what you need to know:

For decades, the homework standard has been a “10-minute rule,” which recommends a daily maximum of 10 minutes of homework per grade level. Second graders, for example, should do about 20 minutes of homework each night. High school seniors should complete about two hours of homework each night. The National PTA and the National Education Association both support that guideline.

But some schools have begun to give their youngest students a break. A Massachusetts elementary school has announced a no-homework pilot program for the coming school year, lengthening the school day by two hours to provide more in-class instruction. “We really want kids to go home at 4 o’clock, tired. We want their brain to be tired,” Kelly Elementary School Principal Jackie Glasheen said in an interview with a local TV station . “We want them to enjoy their families. We want them to go to soccer practice or football practice, and we want them to go to bed. And that’s it.”

A New York City public elementary school implemented a similar policy last year, eliminating traditional homework assignments in favor of family time. The change was quickly met with outrage from some parents, though it earned support from other education leaders.

New solutions and approaches to homework differ by community, and these local debates are complicated by the fact that even education experts disagree about what’s best for kids.

The research

The most comprehensive research on homework to date comes from a 2006 meta-analysis by Duke University psychology professor Harris Cooper, who found evidence of a positive correlation between homework and student achievement, meaning students who did homework performed better in school. The correlation was stronger for older students—in seventh through 12th grade—than for those in younger grades, for whom there was a weak relationship between homework and performance.

Cooper’s analysis focused on how homework impacts academic achievement—test scores, for example. His report noted that homework is also thought to improve study habits, attitudes toward school, self-discipline, inquisitiveness and independent problem solving skills. On the other hand, some studies he examined showed that homework can cause physical and emotional fatigue, fuel negative attitudes about learning and limit leisure time for children. At the end of his analysis, Cooper recommended further study of such potential effects of homework.

Despite the weak correlation between homework and performance for young children, Cooper argues that a small amount of homework is useful for all students. Second-graders should not be doing two hours of homework each night, he said, but they also shouldn’t be doing no homework.

Not all education experts agree entirely with Cooper’s assessment.

Cathy Vatterott, an education professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, supports the “10-minute rule” as a maximum, but she thinks there is not sufficient proof that homework is helpful for students in elementary school.

“Correlation is not causation,” she said. “Does homework cause achievement, or do high achievers do more homework?”

Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs , thinks there should be more emphasis on improving the quality of homework tasks, and she supports efforts to eliminate homework for younger kids.

“I have no concerns about students not starting homework until fourth grade or fifth grade,” she said, noting that while the debate over homework will undoubtedly continue, she has noticed a trend toward limiting, if not eliminating, homework in elementary school.

The issue has been debated for decades. A TIME cover in 1999 read: “Too much homework! How it’s hurting our kids, and what parents should do about it.” The accompanying story noted that the launch of Sputnik in 1957 led to a push for better math and science education in the U.S. The ensuing pressure to be competitive on a global scale, plus the increasingly demanding college admissions process, fueled the practice of assigning homework.

“The complaints are cyclical, and we’re in the part of the cycle now where the concern is for too much,” Cooper said. “You can go back to the 1970s, when you’ll find there were concerns that there was too little, when we were concerned about our global competitiveness.”

Cooper acknowledged that some students really are bringing home too much homework, and their parents are right to be concerned.

“A good way to think about homework is the way you think about medications or dietary supplements,” he said. “If you take too little, they’ll have no effect. If you take too much, they can kill you. If you take the right amount, you’ll get better.”

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​Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’ Almost Everywhere

The pandemic changed families’ lives and the culture of education: “Our relationship with school became optional.”

By Sarah Mervosh and Francesca Paris

Sarah Mervosh reports on K-12 education, and Francesca Paris is a data reporter.

In Anchorage, affluent families set off on ski trips and other lengthy vacations, with the assumption that their children can keep up with schoolwork online.

In a working-class pocket of Michigan, school administrators have tried almost everything, including pajama day, to boost student attendance.

And across the country, students with heightened anxiety are opting to stay home rather than face the classroom.

In the four years since the pandemic closed schools, U.S. education has struggled to recover on a number of fronts, from learning loss , to enrollment , to student behavior .

But perhaps no issue has been as stubborn and pervasive as a sharp increase in student absenteeism, a problem that cuts across demographics and has continued long after schools reopened.

Nationally, an estimated 26 percent of public school students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15 percent before the pandemic, according to the most recent data, from 40 states and Washington, D.C., compiled by the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute . Chronic absence is typically defined as missing at least 10 percent of the school year, or about 18 days, for any reason.

Source: Upshot analysis of data from Nat Malkus, American Enterprise Institute. Districts are grouped into highest, middle and lowest third.

The increases have occurred in districts big and small, and across income and race. For districts in wealthier areas, chronic absenteeism rates have about doubled, to 19 percent in the 2022-23 school year from 10 percent before the pandemic, a New York Times analysis of the data found.

Poor communities, which started with elevated rates of student absenteeism, are facing an even bigger crisis: Around 32 percent of students in the poorest districts were chronically absent in the 2022-23 school year, up from 19 percent before the pandemic.

Even districts that reopened quickly during the pandemic, in fall 2020, have seen vast increases.

“The problem got worse for everybody in the same proportional way,” said Nat Malkus, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who collected and studied the data.

Victoria, Texas reopened schools in August 2020, earlier than many other districts. Even so, student absenteeism in the district has doubled.

Kaylee Greenlee for The New York Times

The trends suggest that something fundamental has shifted in American childhood and the culture of school, in ways that may be long lasting. What was once a deeply ingrained habit — wake up, catch the bus, report to class — is now something far more tenuous.

“Our relationship with school became optional,” said Katie Rosanbalm, a psychologist and associate research professor with the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University.

The habit of daily attendance — and many families’ trust — was severed when schools shuttered in spring 2020. Even after schools reopened, things hardly snapped back to normal. Districts offered remote options, required Covid-19 quarantines and relaxed policies around attendance and grading .

Source: Nat Malkus, American Enterprise Institute . Includes districts with at least 1,500 students in 2019. Numbers are rounded. U.S. average is estimated.

Today, student absenteeism is a leading factor hindering the nation’s recovery from pandemic learning losses , educational experts say. Students can’t learn if they aren’t in school. And a rotating cast of absent classmates can negatively affect the achievement of even students who do show up, because teachers must slow down and adjust their approach to keep everyone on track.

“If we don’t address the absenteeism, then all is naught,” said Adam Clark, the superintendent of Mt. Diablo Unified, a socioeconomically and racially diverse district of 29,000 students in Northern California, where he said absenteeism has “exploded” to about 25 percent of students. That’s up from 12 percent before the pandemic.

U.S. students, overall, are not caught up from their pandemic losses. Absenteeism is one key reason.

Why Students Are Missing School

Schools everywhere are scrambling to improve attendance, but the new calculus among families is complex and multifaceted.

At South Anchorage High School in Anchorage, where students are largely white and middle-to-upper income, some families now go on ski trips during the school year, or take advantage of off-peak travel deals to vacation for two weeks in Hawaii, said Sara Miller, a counselor at the school.

For a smaller number of students at the school who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, the reasons are different, and more intractable. They often have to stay home to care for younger siblings, Ms. Miller said. On days they miss the bus, their parents are busy working or do not have a car to take them to school.

And because teachers are still expected to post class work online, often nothing more than a skeleton version of an assignment, families incorrectly think students are keeping up, Ms. Miller said.

Sara Miller, a counselor at South Anchorage High School for 20 years, now sees more absences from students across the socioeconomic spectrum.

Ash Adams for The New York Times

Across the country, students are staying home when sick , not only with Covid-19, but also with more routine colds and viruses.

And more students are struggling with their mental health, one reason for increased absenteeism in Mason, Ohio, an affluent suburb of Cincinnati, said Tracey Carson, a district spokeswoman. Because many parents can work remotely, their children can also stay home.

For Ashley Cooper, 31, of San Marcos, Texas, the pandemic fractured her trust in an education system that she said left her daughter to learn online, with little support, and then expected her to perform on grade level upon her return. Her daughter, who fell behind in math, has struggled with anxiety ever since, she said.

“There have been days where she’s been absolutely in tears — ‘Can’t do it. Mom, I don’t want to go,’” said Ms. Cooper, who has worked with the nonprofit Communities in Schools to improve her children’s school attendance. But she added, “as a mom, I feel like it’s OK to have a mental health day, to say, ‘I hear you and I listen. You are important.’”

Experts say missing school is both a symptom of pandemic-related challenges, and also a cause. Students who are behind academically may not want to attend, but being absent sets them further back. Anxious students may avoid school, but hiding out can fuel their anxiety.

And schools have also seen a rise in discipline problems since the pandemic, an issue intertwined with absenteeism.

Dr. Rosanbalm, the Duke psychologist, said both absenteeism and behavioral outbursts are examples of the human stress response, now playing out en masse in schools: fight (verbal or physical aggression) or flight (absenteeism).

“If kids are not here, they are not forming relationships,” said Quintin Shepherd, the superintendent in Victoria, Texas.

Quintin Shepherd, the superintendent in Victoria, Texas, first put his focus on student behavior, which he described as a “fire in the kitchen” after schools reopened in August 2020.

The district, which serves a mostly low-income and Hispanic student body of around 13,000, found success with a one-on-one coaching program that teaches coping strategies to the most disruptive students. In some cases, students went from having 20 classroom outbursts per year to fewer than five, Dr. Shepherd said.

But chronic absenteeism is yet to be conquered. About 30 percent of students are chronically absent this year, roughly double the rate before the pandemic.

Dr. Shepherd, who originally hoped student absenteeism would improve naturally with time, has begun to think that it is, in fact, at the root of many issues.

“If kids are not here, they are not forming relationships,” he said. “If they are not forming relationships, we should expect there will be behavior and discipline issues. If they are not here, they will not be academically learning and they will struggle. If they struggle with their coursework, you can expect violent behaviors.”

Teacher absences have also increased since the pandemic, and student absences mean less certainty about which friends and classmates will be there. That can lead to more absenteeism, said Michael A. Gottfried, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. His research has found that when 10 percent of a student’s classmates are absent on a given day, that student is more likely to be absent the following day.

Absent classmates can have a negative impact on the achievement and attendance of even the students who do show up.

Is This the New Normal?

In many ways, the challenge facing schools is one felt more broadly in American society: Have the cultural shifts from the pandemic become permanent?

In the work force, U.S. employees are still working from home at a rate that has remained largely unchanged since late 2022 . Companies have managed to “put the genie back in the bottle” to some extent by requiring a return to office a few days a week, said Nicholas Bloom, an economist at Stanford University who studies remote work. But hybrid office culture, he said, appears here to stay.

Some wonder whether it is time for schools to be more pragmatic.

Lakisha Young, the chief executive of the Oakland REACH, a parent advocacy group that works with low-income families in California, suggested a rigorous online option that students could use in emergencies, such as when a student misses the bus or has to care for a family member. “The goal should be, how do I ensure this kid is educated?” she said.

Relationships with adults at school and other classmates are crucial for attendance.

In the corporate world, companies have found some success appealing to a sense of social responsibility, where colleagues rely on each other to show up on the agreed-upon days.

A similar dynamic may be at play in schools, where experts say strong relationships are critical for attendance.

There is a sense of: “If I don’t show up, would people even miss the fact that I’m not there?” said Charlene M. Russell-Tucker, the commissioner of education in Connecticut.

In her state, a home visit program has yielded positive results , in part by working with families to address the specific reasons a student is missing school, but also by establishing a relationship with a caring adult. Other efforts — such as sending text messages or postcards to parents informing them of the number of accumulated absences — can also be effective.

Regina Murff has worked to re-establish the daily habit of school attendance for her sons, who are 6 and 12.

Sylvia Jarrus for The New York Times

In Ypsilanti, Mich., outside of Ann Arbor, a home visit helped Regina Murff, 44, feel less alone when she was struggling to get her children to school each morning.

After working at a nursing home during the pandemic, and later losing her sister to Covid-19, she said, there were days she found it difficult to get out of bed. Ms. Murff was also more willing to keep her children home when they were sick, for fear of accidentally spreading the virus.

But after a visit from her school district, and starting therapy herself, she has settled into a new routine. She helps her sons, 6 and 12, set out their outfits at night and she wakes up at 6 a.m. to ensure they get on the bus. If they are sick, she said, she knows to call the absence into school. “I’ve done a huge turnaround in my life,” she said.

But bringing about meaningful change for large numbers of students remains slow, difficult work .

Nationally, about 26 percent of students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15 percent before the pandemic.

The Ypsilanti school district has tried a bit of everything, said the superintendent, Alena Zachery-Ross. In addition to door knocks, officials are looking for ways to make school more appealing for the district’s 3,800 students, including more than 80 percent who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. They held themed dress-up days — ’70s day, pajama day — and gave away warm clothes after noticing a dip in attendance during winter months.

“We wondered, is it because you don’t have a coat, you don’t have boots?” said Dr. Zachery-Ross.

Still, absenteeism overall remains higher than it was before the pandemic. “We haven’t seen an answer,” she said.

Data provided by Nat Malkus, with the American Enterprise Institute. The data was originally published on the Return to Learn tracker and used for the report “ Long COVID for Public Schools: Chronic Absenteeism Before and After the Pandemic .”

The analysis for each year includes all districts with available data for that year, weighted by district size. Data are sourced from states, where available, and the U.S. Department of Education and NCES Common Core of Data.

For the 2018-19 school year, data was available for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. For 2022-23, it was available for 40 states and D.C., due to delays in state reporting.

Closure length status is based on the most in-person learning option available. Poverty is measured using the Census Bureau’s Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates. School size and minority population estimates are from NCES CCD.

How absenteeism is measured can vary state by state, which means comparisons across state lines may not be reliable.

An earlier version of this article misnamed a research center at Duke University. It is the Center for Child and Family Policy, not the Center of Child and Family Policy.

Mental Health at Iowa

Release the Hamster: 8 tips for Embracing the Simplicity of Self-Care

     Today I sat in the waiting room with my tween daughter, hurrying from home to be on time. Normally, I pull out my phone and read endless work emails or scroll through another high-drama news story. 

Sound familiar? I feel like I am a hamster on a wheel, worried if I slow down, I may not be as put together as I hope to be.

I stepped off the “wheel” and looked at her ever growing, sweet face. I listened to her tell stories about her friends, teacher, and the next social dilemma she was pondering. Fifteen wonderful minutes without chores, homework, or email. We laughed and shared stories. When her name was called, she  held my hand,  and she wasn’t embarrassed as she walked toward the nurse. Smiling the whole way. My heart soared. 

“Self-care” sometimes feels like something I need to plan or clearly identify as time for myself. But it can be so simple. There are many precious moments when you can pause to fill your bucket or at least jump off the wheel.

• Give yourself  grace . We don’t have to do it all.
• Take a mental health day, don’t wait for the next holiday break or summer. You don’t need physical symptoms to justify taking care of yourself. A mental health day isn’t weakness or being “unwell.” It is a position of health and self-care.  Embrace it.
• Practice mindfulness:  Be present . Multi-tasking only allows us to be partially involved in several things.  
• Adjust  your expectations. Maybe for today, maybe for the next year. 
• Practice  self-care with someone  else. Step outside for a quick walk, shut off the computer, or walk to a colleague’s office or classroom to just say hello .
• Validate.  We don’t always need to teach or fix. Sometimes we just  need to listen .  This is my favorite teaching video . 
• Find your happy. Know  what brings you joy  and do more of it. What did you enjoy 10 years ago? 5 years ago? What have you always wanted to try? Do it. 
• Time is precious, take advantage of telehealth therapy and doctor’s appointments. Better yet, take the time away from the screen to see someone in person.  Connect .

The Employee Assistance Program is dedicated to supporting the well-being of our faculty, staff, postdocs, and medical residents with confidential, short-term counseling; consultation for supervisors; and referral to community resources. For more information, resources, or to schedule an appointment, visit the UI EAP web page .

Cover image by Oleg Illarionov.

‘It was the most unfair thing’: Disobedience, school discipline and racial disparity

Misbehaviors tagged as disobedience affect black students disproportionately and are the justification in a third of all suspension and expulsions..

TOLEDO, Ohio – The sound of his teacher smacking his desk jolted Marquan into consciousness, and his head jerked up. “Wake up,” his teacher said.

Marquan hadn’t slept much the night before, and the words came out before he was fully coherent. “Watch out before you make me mad,” he said. 

His teacher turned and asked if that was a threat. The 16-year-old said no, he was just startled, but it was too late – he was sent out of the classroom and given a two-day suspension. 

What the teacher heard as a threat was, for Marquan, an instinctive reaction, and he had failed to code-switch in that groggy moment.

“I wasn’t threatening him; it was just loud and all of a sudden,” said Marquan, now 17 and a sophomore at Jesup W. Scott High School in Toledo, Ohio. (His last name is being withheld to protect his privacy.) “That was the most unfair thing.” 

In Ohio, Black students like Marquan are suspended for incidents like this far more frequently than their white peers. In the past six years, Ohio has issued close to 885,000 suspensions and expulsions for comments and misbehaviors tagged as disobedience or disruption. Nearly half of those dismissals have been for Black students, even though they make up only 17% of the public school population. Black students in Ohio are, on average, kicked out of classes for these offenses at four and half times the rate of white students.

A Hechinger Report analysis across 20 states found that in many of them, including Indiana, Maryland and Rhode Island, Black students are suspended more often for infractions that can include dress code violations, talking back to teachers and being too noisy in class.

Subjective terms lead to selective punishment

States use different terms to describe the offenses – disrespect, insubordination, defiance – depending on their discipline code. But what they all have in common is the subjective nature of an educator’s decision; experts say that’s what leads to racial disparities. What seems disrespectful and threatening in one classroom can be entirely acceptable in another, depending on who’s listening and who’s speaking. That’s when racial and cultural differences between educators and students can come into play. Bias also plays a role.

Researchers say that racial disparities inside schools tend to reflect what’s happening in society as a whole and that income level does not explain the discrepancies.

“Teachers are no more biased than other people, but also no less biased,” said Russell Skiba, a professor in the school psychology program at Indiana University and director of its Equity Project. “Race is the much more important predictor of whether a kid gets suspended rather than poverty.”

The Indiana Department of Education said that school discipline policies were set at the local level. Rhode Island said that it helps school districts in setting discipline policies that "are conducive to a safe and nurturing environment that promotes academic success." Maryland’s state education agency said only that it makes annual data available for school districts to analyze.

In Ohio, a spokesperson from the Department of Education and Workforce, Lacey Snoke, didn’t respond directly to questions about the state’s racial disparities. Snoke, the chief communications officer, said the department “supports schools and districts as they address non-academic barriers to learning.”

Snoke also noted that the state requires schools to use a student support system known as Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, or PBIS. “When implementing PBIS with fidelity, schools and districts see a reduction in out-of-school suspension and exclusionary discipline,” she said.

Like many of America’s school districts, Toledo’s public schools have struggled with keeping discipline racially equitable for years. In 2020, following a federal civil rights investigation, the district agreed to a settlement with the federal Department of Justice “to address and prevent discriminatory discipline of students based on race or disability.” Last spring, the government extended its monitoring for an additional year after finding that the district was not in full compliance with the settlement terms. 

Root cause for disparities unclear

Part of the problem in Toledo, the fifth-largest school district in Ohio with more than 21,000 students, is that teachers and administrators haven’t figured out what’s at the root of the disparity, according to a federal monitoring report sent to the district last May and obtained by The Hechinger Report as part of its investigation into the widespread use of suspension for things like defiance and disruption around the country.

“Speculative answers about the reasons for why disciplinary referrals would be greater for Black students when compared to white students ranged from blaming the students’ underperformance in math and English language arts to blaming ‘parents who don’t take pride’ or are otherwise uninvolved in their children’s lives,” according to the report. “Educators at one school opined that they are not using strategies that engage kids of color; those at another school said they needed to develop activities for students to feel more of a sense of belonging.”    

Last year, there were more than 12,000 suspensions in Toledo public schools for defiance or disruption and more than 7,700 were given to Black students, up from 7,000 the year before. Black students received 65% of defiance and disruption suspensions last year, even though they make up about 46% of the student population in Toledo.

The reason for the high numbers is multifaceted, and the solutions need to be as well, said Amerah Archer, acting executive director for the Department of Equity Diversity and Inclusion in the Toledo Public Schools.

“We understand there's sometimes a cultural mismatch between teachers and students and their backgrounds,” Archer said. “So we offer culturally responsive training, to help our teachers understand how to build relationships and students across cultures.”

The district has also brought in outside mental health providers and – in all 57 of its schools – it has set up social-emotional wellness teams to examine discipline data and look for trends, including racial disparities within schools and classrooms. Educators receive training on how to respond to students who have endured trauma and may be acting out as a result, with responses that can lead to alternatives to suspensions.

‘He just scares me’

Sheena Barnes, president of the school board until January this year, points to a culture that views some children as more dangerous than others. She’s also concerned about educators who have trouble appropriately interpreting a child’s behavior.

Barnes, who is Black, got a call last year to come to her child’s school immediately. Her son, who is on the autism spectrum and was in third grade at the time, had been trying to mix paints to make a specific color. The teacher accidentally took one of the colors away, frustrating the boy, who threw his paintbrush and splattered some paint. After Barnes arrived and helped de-escalate the situation, she said the teacher asked her if they could talk. 

“'He just scares me,” she said the teacher confessed to her. 

“So I asked her, ‘What did he do? Did he bite you, kick you, did he throw something at you, cuss at you? I’m going through all the list of things that could make you scared of a 9-year old, my baby.’ And she says, ‘It’s the way he looks at me.’

“And I just crumble,” Barnes recalled. “If you're scared of him in third grade, what the hell are you gonna do to him in ninth grade?”

Moments like these – when adults see children as threatening – can influence decisions made in a heated classroom situation. The Department of Justice report on Toledo schools last spring concluded that “subjective infractions that are prone to bias, such as ‘Disruptive Behavior’ and ‘Failure to Follow Directions’” play a role in racial discrepancies when it comes to discipline.

Toledo school officials noted that the report said that the district had “made significant progress” in some areas and that the COVID-19 pandemic had “hampered and delayed the District’s ability to execute certain provisions in a timely manner.”

Barnes, who remains on the school board, said she welcomed the continued monitoring by the government, because, she said, “we still have work to do.”

“There’s not a bad child – there’s a child reacting to a bad situation,” she said, sitting in a cafe in downtown Toledo, and noting the many serious issues faced by young people, such as gun violence and food insecurity.

“Maybe I can't read. So, I'm gonna disrupt the class, because I don't want to get embarrassed,” said Barnes. “Or if you ask me where my homework is, I'm gonna make some silly jokes and get kicked out, because I don't want people to know that I didn't have a home to sleep in last night, or I couldn't do my homework, because we didn't have power.”

Teacher experience, training key to prevention 

Sometimes disruptive behavior starts with a small incident – like a student calling out in class. If a teacher has trouble redirecting the child, it can escalate, and the classroom can become chaotic. Teachers sometimes conclude that removing the child who is being loud is in the best interest of the whole class.

Experience and training can provide teachers with tools to address student conduct without suspensions.

One study in California published last year found that it was often the least-experienced teachers who relied on removing disruptive students from the classroom, and that even three years of teaching experience led to a substantial drop in the number of students referred for discipline.

The same study found that, among teachers who removed students from class and sent them to the principal’s office for disciplinary action, the top 5% did this so often that they accounted for most of the racial gaps in these referrals – effectively doubling those gaps.

Those gaps are largely driven by incidents that require a more subjective call, such as for “defiance,” rather than more objective categories like drug use or skipping class, according to Jing Liu, an assistant professor of education at the University of Maryland and one of the study’s authors. 

Other researchers argue that stressful environments can bolster racial inequities.

“When people are stressed out, when they are under pressure, when they don’t have the time to think through a response, they are more likely to rely on racial biases,” said Juan Del Toro, a professor in the psychology department at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, who has studied the impact of discipline policies on Black students. 

Del Toro argues that more support for teachers could bring down the number of suspensions for low-level offenses, which in turn could help more students perform well academically. His research showed that when students committed minor infractions, those who were suspended experienced significant negative academic consequences, compared with students who were just written up for the same kind of offense. 

In Toledo, Jamarion, a 10th grader at E. L. Bowsher High School, was serving an in-school suspension last December for getting in an argument with another student when he was assigned an additional three days for talking in the suspension room.

“We were just talking about the way we were feeling, bored and all that. You’re just sitting there all day staring at the wall or doing your homework,” said Jamarion, who is 15. (His last name is being withheld to protect his privacy.) “You should at least get a warning or something.”

“It’s not fair,” he said. “I was mad, upset.” And he said he was concerned about missing more math classes and falling behind.

Educators say banning suspensions isn’t the solution

Educators and administrators emphasize that simply banning suspensions for low-level offenses would not change school culture or help educators find alternatives. “It could fix the data,” said Myree, the former Cincinnati principal, “but it might not fix what’s going on in the building.”

Some districts in Ohio, such as Cleveland Municipal, reduced the number of disobedience suspensions of Black children over the past year, but the number in Ohio overall climbed to more than 78,400 in 2022-23, up 16% from the previous year.

Izetta Thomas spent 18 years as an educator in Columbus public schools in Ohio and is now the education justice organizer for the Columbus Education Association, the union that represents Columbus educators. 

She believes individual teachers have a responsibility for their actions, but that teacher-prep programs and the school system itself could do more to curb the overuse of suspensions. 

“It’s hard for educators because a lot of us might feel like this [discipline decisions] is not what I signed up to do, this is not what I learned in my college classroom,” said Thomas. “But why isn’t it a part of teacher training in colleges? Why isn’t understanding of our own biases and lenses and those that are different from ours, why aren’t we taught early on what that is?”

“Everybody needs Band-Aids, she added, “but Band-Aids only last so long.”

CONTRIBUTING: Fazil Khan, The Hechinger Report

Note: The Hechinger Report's Fazil Khan had nearly completed the data analysis and reporting for this project when he died in a fire in his apartment building. USA TODAY Senior Data Editor Doug Caruso completed data visualizations for this project based on Khan’s work.

This story about racial disparities in school discipline was produced by USA TODAY publishing partner The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

Andrew Tate's ideology driving sexual harassment, sexism and misogyny in Australian classrooms

For Grace*, 2023 should have been the pinnacle of her teaching career.

Five years after graduating university, she was settling into a full-term contract at her "dream job" on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, teaching at the high school she had attended growing up.

"I'd travelled around, I'd come back, and I'd settled in a nice spot. So I thought it was going to be a really good thing for me," the 30-year-old told 7.30 .

But by the middle of the year, Grace's teaching career was over.

During her time as a relief teacher in 2022, she noticed more boys talking about Andrew Tate in class.

It was much more prevalent when she started teaching media studies to 15 and 16-year-olds last year.

"One of them was speaking about how much they love Andrew Tate. And I had just said, 'Look, I don't want to hear that name in this classroom.' I could see some of the girls rolling their eyes and sighing," she said.

The British-American former kickboxer has accumulated millions of followers on social media for preaching a message of ultra-masculinity, and in the past he has described himself as a sexist and a misogynist.

Mr Tate's money-making subscription channels have been pulled from YouTube and other platforms, with TikTok classifying his ideology as "hateful".

Both he and his brother Tristan are currently barred from leaving Romania, where they're set to stand trial on human trafficking charges . They also face extradition to the UK to face charges of sexual aggression .

Still, he has accumulated many fans.

Grace says only three to four boys formed a small group of fans in her classroom but it was enough to set a disturbing tone.

"Most of what was happening in my experience was of a sexual nature," she said.

"Students making moaning noises in my classes, asking me inappropriate questions, asking personal questions about my age or my appearance."

Grace says she was told to use teaching techniques to handle the problem but the behaviour didn't stop, and at the end of her first term under contract, she quit.

"It's very disappointing that I don't really feel safe in a classroom anymore," she said.

"Even though I want to be there to stand up for the young girls … my mental health was suffering.

"I just couldn't be in those classrooms anymore and I couldn't take it."

'Tate showing up in classrooms'

Grace is not alone. Researchers from Monash University interviewed female teachers about the impact of Andrew Tate in Australian classrooms. Their study was published earlier this year in the journal Gender and Education.

"The consistency is one of the most extraordinary things about what we found in this study," said one of the report's authors, Stephanie Wescott.

"We're talking teachers from rural towns in regional Australia to metropolitan schools.

"What they were telling us is that Andrew Tate was showing up in their classroom in a range of ways."

The sample size was limited, with 30 female teachers interviewed for between 30 and 75 minutes.

The study found "widespread experience of sexual harassment, sexism, and misogyny perpetrated by boys towards women teachers, and the ominous presence of Andrew Tate shaping their behaviour".

"The women in our study are telling us that that is showing up in the way that their boys — in the way that their students are treating them," Dr Wescott said.

Why Tate appeals to these young men

Despite his legal challenges and a reduced profile online, Mr Tate remains hugely popular.

He has nearly 9 million followers on social media platform X, and was the fourth-most-searched topic in Google Australia's news category last year.

"People around my age, probably around like 16 to maybe mid-20s, a lot of people would have heard about him," 21-year-old Jaidyn Davis told 7.30 in Melbourne.

"His popularity has grown drastically because of his views on the world, the way he views things, the way he talks about men, women and all that."

Mr Davis and many other young men who follow Mr Tate online see nothing wrong with the influencer's core ideology.

"I understand what he's trying to convey over to the public," Mr Davis said.

"Men are meant to be masculine in life. They're meant to pay for things, meant to be the bigger person in a relationship. They're meant to protect the girlfriend, the partner … stuff like that.

"So he's sort of trying to convey the message, like, guys should be strong in life and they should be more masculine with what they do."

Other young men who support Mr Tate, like 25-year-old Ethan Slater, agreed part of attraction was the promotion of a version of masculinity they appreciated.

"Definitely men are getting mixed messages," he told 7.30.

"[Mr Tate] resonates with younger men because that's sort of what they aspire to be. It's big money, big goals, big dreams, and they want to achieve that themselves."

Mr Slater believes much of what's been reported about Mr Tate's views on men and women has been taken out of context.

"So, he says men are superior to women. What he means is like, you know, men should dominate the relationship and help the woman to aspire to what she wants to be," he said.

'An emotionally abusive relationship'

But in classrooms it's clear some female teachers believe Andrew Tate is harmful.

Halley Metcalfe is another one who decided the constant battle with his ideology just wasn't worth it. After a 16-year teaching career, she walked away in 2023.

"It was like being in an emotionally abusive relationship. Towards the end, I was in an emotionally abusive relationship with my job," Ms Metcalfe said.

"I would walk into a classroom that I had dreaded going in, and I would smile and everybody gets a fresh start, and I would try and talk with these students, and I would try and engage with them, but they already had my number."

Ms Metcalfe believes it's a problem schools don't take seriously enough, and without a national approach in schools to address the problem more women teachers will follow her — and quit.

"Once they get into a classroom space and this is happening, why would they stay?" she said.

"It's a female-dominated industry and we're not looking after women."

* Full name withheld to protect her identity

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