EDUC 450: Reflection – Inquiry Question and Article

Does homework, specifically within the math classroom, significantly improve student achievement?

I have found the following research brief published by the NCTM concerning homework.  I plan to use it as a starting point for my research and discussion of homework and its effectiveness.

Cooper, H., & National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2008). Homework: What

the research says. research brief.().National Council of Teachers of

Mathematics.

The article summarizes four aspects regarding approaches and limitations of studies and interpretations made:

• Studies attempt to diagnose effectiveness of homework by assigning homework to some students but not others.
• Interviews of students (or parents) to describe and report on their study habits and how much time is allocated for homework.
• Simple correlation between homework and achievement (I assumed this to be test scores or overall course grade). Differences between effectiveness at the elementary level versus the secondary level was acknowledged.
• Discussion as to which subject areas benefit the most from requiring homework practices.
• The amount of homework recommended at various grade levels as a result of developmental abilities and encouraging performance and confidence.

The general conclusion was of an affirmative stance that homework will help students to better achieve, specifically with high school math students, given consideration for special cases (IEP, quality of homework, etc.)

As I was looking for articles and browsing through different pieces written on the area of inquiry, I found that the author of this article, Harris Cooper, is traditionally accredited with as the expert in the field regarding homework. More extensive research however also reported that some believe Cooper to have a bias view on the matter of homework. (This caught my attention as in the article, Cooper references two of his published pieces.) Further exploration, reading of more studies and articles, and interviewing of working Mathematics teachers could result in an opinion far less decided then what is presented in the NCTM article.