our homework helper

our homework helper

The Impact of Homework Help Programs on Academic Success

1. Introduction to Homework Help Programs

The practice of education often evolves as different approaches to teaching and learning are studied and better understood. One step in the evolution of the educational process is the Homework Help (HH) program. The evidence indicating how HH is meeting children’s educational needs or failing to do so validates every concern the educational community has held regarding the use of this technique and requires immediate intervention. To better understand how HH programs can be used to augment rather than replace fundamentally important, naturally occurring human interactions between children, their parents and families, and other significant adults, considerations regarding the ethical and social significance of Homework Help are critical.

HH programs can be crucial to the support students receive to help them achieve academic success. To make HH instruction successful, several specific steps need to be taken: By the time they enter the classroom, students must be familiar with the material so they are ready to come across the fine points and push the main concepts further on their own. Class preparation per se (led by the teacher or by students leading each other with the teacher) is very important and consists of proofs, explanations, and any other form of active learning on the material that enables every student, including those who have typically not been among the classroom. Because the process that accompanies learning new material is unique to each student, class preparation reflects the variety of student potential concerns and individualized creativity, including the possibilities and limitations on the material that act as the feedback for what is not yet fully understood.

2. Benefits of Homework Help Programs

Academic success is important for children and can determine their future. Getting good grades is often tied to having positive feelings of self-worth. In today’s competitive world, where everyone needs to attain a level of proficiency in education, good grades are essential. It is no surprise that homework help programs for kids are considered the most effective means of addressing academic problems. Participating in homework help programs can strengthen one’s academic skills and knowledge. Through practicing a skill, students get better at it and this often helps develop an interest in the subject. This way, children get a better foundation to build upon.

Getting help in homework for any child is important as it helps them to break the assignment problem-solving cycle and can allow them to work more efficiently in other parts of life. Plenty of free help from the internet, books, and from the classroom can be of great help. Practice really makes perfect. Homework programs allow students to work on additional exercises and to further work on skills they already have. If a particular concept is hard, students can spend some extra time on it with additional exercises and by doing so, they may receive a better understanding of the concept.

3. Challenges and Limitations

Methodological challenges: We faced a number of methodological challenges in our implementation of the long-term evaluation of CHW in companion with its actual operation. The most important of these challenges stemmed from the fact that some of the variables we wanted to measure (both achievement and non-achievement test scores, exam results, and qualifications completed) were influenced by the program itself. An issue that needs to be dealt with in estimating the impact of taking the CHW program is endogeneity. In our particular context, not all students take the CHW program, and their decision to do so is likely to be based on the gap they perceive between their own abilities and the requirements for completion of the senior secondary program (which type of diploma they are aiming at).

Conclusion: Data from bivariate and multivariate regression models show that participation in CHW, a program that targets students placed at the low end of the ability distribution, has a positive impact on academic achievement (tested in English, Dutch, History, and Mathematics). These impacts are consistent with the fact that underrepresentation of low-achieving groups is related to inequality in educational achievement. We, therefore, consider the improved results of participation to be evidence that our homework program decreases academic inequalities. From these positive results, we would like to argue to allocate part of the resources currently spent on high-ability students to underachieving students. Further research is needed, however, to answer the question of how one can improve the success of homework help programs as a policy to contribute to reducing educational inequalities.

4. Best Practices and Strategies for Effective Homework Help Programs

The purpose of this section is to provide detailed, practical information and advice for developing and supporting programs designed to help children succeed in school. The strategies and high-quality techniques are particularly focused on programs aimed at increasing learning for low-income and at-risk elementary and secondary students after school. Our approach is to articulate practical strategies for educators and coordinators that are consistent with, and build on, what is known from research. To do this, we briefly summarize the research on homework help, particularly the research that suggests highly effective practices as well as the research that informs coordinators of the potential problems with any instructional approach. We also identify practical and cost-effective opportunities for quality improvement, drawing on both the literature and our active, twenty-year experience in program development and research.

We have included program models based on our experiences with successful homework helpers that can be readily implemented by community organizations or can serve as a guide for others working in the area of extended education. The models and techniques that we include in this section are based on our experience with Great START, a university-school-community partnership that has been very active in the area of after school activities since 1991. In particular, the first 15 pages of this section is a supplement to After-School Programs for Low-Income Children: Promise and Challenges. We concluded this guide with our best advice to others wanting to help improve program quality as well as a number of appendices that will help support the application of our strategies.

5. Conclusion and Future Directions

Students who took part in the after-school homework help intervention were paired with trained adult tutors. These tutors worked with the students to complete their homework assignments while using research-based strategies to enhance learning. Although the students experienced a small and statistically significant increase in their homework completion time, this result was overshadowed by the intervention’s non-significant impact on student academic outcomes. Further exploratory analyses even found that the intervention might have had negative impacts on academic-related behaviors, directly conflicting with the program logic.

It is important to note that while the current study was not able to provide a clear explanation for why the after-school homework help intervention produced these results, it did make contributions to the literature in other areas. Specifically, the high volunteerism of tutors for the intervention, strong implementation fidelity, and positive perception of the intervention by school stakeholders were noteworthy findings. Each of these study findings can serve as a guide for identifying specific factors that organizations and educational institutions should consider when planning and managing their own after-school homework programs.

The current study was conducted at a publicly funded charter middle school, with participants randomized into treatment and control groups. Resistance to further research on the topic by education practitioners is unlikely, given the high need for independent practicability evidence that is directly applicable to their programs and implementation. Future research studies should provide flexibility for practitioner recommendations, including those related to participant demographic characteristics, organizational structures, and program features. The results of the current study complement and build upon the existing evidence base. The research findings are able to conclude that the analyzed program was an after-school homework program and estimate the effects of participating in such a program for academically struggling kids.