Journal #5

Question: Is math homework beneficial to students' academic achievement in the secondary level?

Ulrich Trautwein, Olaf Köller, Bernhard Schmitz, Jürgen Baumert, Do Homework Assignments Enhance Achievement? A Multilevel Analysis in 7th-Grade Mathematics, Contemporary Educational Psychology, Volume 27, Issue 1, January 2002, Pages 26-50, ISSN 0361-476X. Web. 12 Oct 2014.

This article begins with by stating that many recent studies have proved that academic achievement in classes is high in classes with homework assigned compared to classes without assigned homework. This study begins by using 7th graders in mathematics class. The variables used were: time spend on homework per week, time spent on each assignment, and the frequency of homework assignments per week (pg. 6). The data concluded that overall homework does help academic achievement in mathematics. It was concluded that frequent homework assignments (daily vs. weekly) resulted in higher achievement. It is also proved that longer homework assignments had no positive effect on achievement, and the overall achievement of a class was lower with a higher homework load. It was also concluded that lower achieving students benefited from homework, while higher achieving students did not (pg. 20). 

This article agrees with my other articles in the sense that math homework is a beneficial thing. This article and my fourth article both agreed that an abundance of math homework is a negative thing on students. My first article and second article both state that the more homework assigned, the better the achievement. This article disagrees with that, and says that shorter assignments are better for students. 

This article has answered many questions I had based on this topic. Like I said in my last post, I am currently at the conclusion that homework is beneficial. This article has data that supports that the more homework assigned, the lower the achievement level. Many will say that students need constant "refreshers" of what they learned, and that more homework needs to be assigned. It seems that the more homework that is assigned, the less motivated and more stressed the student becomes, and that effects the students' learning outcome. It was also shown that homework strongly benefits lower achieving students, but not higher achieving students. So now, I wonder if homework is really necessary for the higher achieving students. People will fight this too, saying that if the higher achieving students were not assigned homework, then they will easily forget what they learned, and then their achievement will become lower. This could be possible. The study says that homework does not necessarily help higher achieving students, but could it also affect them negatively if they were not assigned homework?

This article answered many questions I had prior to this. It is now concluded that more homework is worse than less homework, and homework helps lower achieving students more than higher achieving students. My newest question is: if it's shown that higher achieving students do not benefit from homework, then how would they be affected if they were not assigned homework? Would they start achieving lower grades if they were not assigned homework? Who would the "high achieving" students be, those with A's in the class? To answer these questions I am going to try to find research done of affects of homework on "higher achieving" students in math classes. The "higher achieving" students could be those with high grades in the class, those in honors math classes, or those in higher level math courses.