after-school homework assistance programs

after-school homework assistance programs

The Impact and Effectiveness of After-School Homework Assistance Programs

1. Introduction to After-School Homework Assistance Programs

The non-profit organization called Junior Achievement (JA) offers after-school assistance programs that teach children business, economics, and personal finance. This study is the first to test the relationship between JA’s after-school program and students’ academic performance. The results are positive, significant, and robust to the introduction of variables that control for other uses of time and other determinants of student performance. My findings suggest that the introduction of homework assistance programs leads to a significant increase in the local z-scores two years after the program was implemented compared to matched control groups. What does JA do? How does it work? Who is helped? How? Why? How does this program affect children? What are the disadvantages, if any?

The No Child Left Behind Act requires states to test students from grades 3-8 annually in reading and mathematics. Data show that 28% of 4th graders lack basic reading skills and 47% of 4th graders score below the basic knowledge level in mathematics. Another study conducted in 2001 found that nine million children were alone and responsible for taking care of themselves for an average of seven hours per week. These children are 3.3-5.9 times more likely to smoke, drink, use drugs, and engage in sex than children supervised by an adult. They also perform worse on tests, earn lower grades, and miss more days of school.

2. Benefits and Importance of After-School Homework Assistance Programs

Despite these cautions, longstanding observations of academic and individual behavior in the U.S. and other countries forms the basis for a general evaluation that most of the nonacademic benefits are important. During most afternoon and evenings in the school year, students may face three broad alternatives: work outside the home, school-related activities including homework, and leisure. Youth participation in afterschool programs, which is spurred by federal and state governments and many private donors, represents a complex combination of homework assistance programs support all three activities. These purposes include parents’ need for safe care for students late in the afternoon, increased academic support through homework help, and other activities, such as sports, arts, and computers, on other days. This chapter focuses on the homework assistance aspect of afterschool programs because this type of program is of recent interest and difficulty in the evaluation of nonacademic benefits posed by other programs. It is also not possible to separately identify the impacts associated with how much spare time the afterschool program would have increased.

Programs that provide after-school homework assistance or nonacademic benefits to their participant students generally complement the academic content associated with homework completion with nonacademic benefits. There is broad consensus that the two types of benefits, academic and nonacademic, are both valued benefits of homework assistance programs. The centrality of the academic benefits to cornering the policy consideration and research focus. This strong focus on academic benefits is probably a result of the greater emphasis in the economics, public policy, and education literature on academic factors in students being able to perform in education and the lack of a comprehensive set of data on the broad range of potential benefits of homework assistance programs, heaving for the academic perspective to be overemphasized. Nevertheless, researchers and educators – and maybe even students themselves – consider the other benefits associated with homework assistance programs to be important. The importance of the other benefits may also vary by student subgroups, such as age, gender, or race.

3. Key Components and Best Practices for Successful Programs

Despite our interest in identifying after-school homework assistance programs that can be considered successful or effective, the existing research draws on a variety of methods. But, despite the scattered nature of available research, there is sufficient consensus to identify five key factors associated with the effectiveness of after-school homework assistance. First, successful programs focus on providing individualized tutoring or small-group instruction. Second, successful programs not only offer individualized tutoring and learning access to their students, they also serve other important functions. According to Laura Weckert and her associates, successful programs offer students who would be unsupervised or who might even engage in behavior that their parents would find it necessary to sanction. These other activities include not only tutoring and learning but also health and nutrition education, arts, and student leadership activities. Furthermore, effective programs not only provide a wide mix of offerings, but also have schedules that ensure that a variety of different students—irrespective of some requirement like reading—are drawn into the program. In some literature, this factor linking quality programs is referred to as ensuring adequate “time-on-task.” Third, effective programs provide a variety of activities that are appealing. Programs take creativity and dedication to the activities. Fourth, effective programs regularly evaluate their activities. Proper evaluation of programs by outside, expert, and early adopter perspectives help ensure successful programs. Finally, successful programs provide a safe, cultured, and welcoming environment. Properly communicated religious values were especially associated with outsider perspectives and effective programs.

Although there is no one model that has been shown to be the most effective in promoting academic achievement, we identify five key characteristics that have been associated with well-regarded programs. First, while some variation in programming exists, successful programs all tend to offer academic assistance in one or more specific subject areas: reading, writing, and mathematics. These subject areas are taught in elementary schools, and they are sometimes taught in separate classes in middle school. Other subject areas tend to be taught in single- or mixed-aged classes. Another factor that is associated with successful programs is the provision of personalized tutoring or small-group instruction. A third factor linking quality programs is the elimination of barriers to program use, including cost, transportation, and materials. Fourth, successful programs tend to offer some form of project-based learning—an approach to learning that teaches students to learn through doing and to collaborate effectively with their peers. Finally, a fourth factor linking quality programs is the provision of positive youth development and academic and social support. Successful programs tend to infuse their academic tutoring programs with a larger focus on educating the whole student in order to promote social and emotional well-being, and to motivate students to develop a long-term commitment to learning. This final key component is often assessed by developing personal relationships and by including activities that build students’ self-esteem and social skills as part of the program.

4. Assessment and Evaluation of Program Effectiveness

Experimental designs use random assignment of participants to a treatment group (in this case, a program participation group) or to a control group that is similar to the treatment group. Measurement occurs before and after the treatment to determine its effects through a pre-test, post-test design. Quasi-experimental designs are those that do not permit random assignment of the participants to a treated or non-treated group. The timing and the type of data that are collected and the criteria for selecting participants and comparison groups are often critical for the determination of whether these variables can be used as the basis for effective impact evaluation. Descriptive studies offer information about the conditions or factors that exist at particular times or in particular situations. They entail identifying useful information and measuring it through surveys, opinion polls, focus groups, or other investigational techniques. Descriptive information-gathering is a necessary precursor to explanation, determination, analysis, and interpretation.

The ultimate test of a program’s effectiveness is how well it achieves its goals and objectives. All programs should establish mechanisms to assess and evaluate the effectiveness of the services delivered and whether the needs of the target population are being met. This “assessment and evaluation” process includes, but is not limited to, setting and measuring goals and objectives regularly and using data to determine achievement levels. In planning for program evaluation, after-school programs should consider the resources that will be required, including personnel, data information systems, and technical assistance. They will also need to decide on an approach to evaluation, such as experimental, quasi-experimental, or descriptive.

5. Conclusion and Recommendations for Future Implementation

The previous sections have reviewed the underlying theoretical and empirical foundations of homework assistance programs, found significant uncertainty and knowledge gaps, and provided an impetus for conducting the study. This study has implemented a randomized trial to examine the impact and effectiveness of two structured homework assistance programs in elementary schools. These two programs were used to address factors that earlier research and theory suggest are important for homework effectiveness and to provide guidance for future design of homework assistance programs. This research clearly shows that all homework assistance programs are not equal. While both of the programs that were offered showed improvements in math homework, only the structured math homework program that operated five days per week for 24 consecutive weeks had a significantly greater effect than the control group in that subject.