the english homework help canada

the english homework help canada

The Impact of Homework on Student Performance in Canadian Schools

1. Introduction to Homework in the Canadian Education System

The initial item on which we focused was homework because it was mentioned frequently as a topic of contention in our discussions with people in the field from around the country. There is currently no federal policy in Canada pertaining to the amount and type of homework expected of students. Although teachers are responsible for assigning homework in, outside, or in conjunction with certain guidelines, there are no federal guidelines. In many residences around the world, homework is a hot topic of debate. In the minds of many, it remains a feature of any discussion on education, though not everyone considers it a good thing. Half of the students say they live in a home where homework and lots of after-school activities are emphasized. Home life can reflect a great variety of attitudes toward working hard and studying, from an atmosphere of homework help to hostility directed at teachers and their assignments. Frequently discussed, but seldom researched, are these potential effects.

Given the relatively high prevalence of homework among Canadian schools, various Canadian provinces mandating specific amounts or durations of daily homework, and the belief that the quality and quantity of homework influences student performance, investigating the impact of homework in Canada is important. If homework has a positive impact on student achievement, we expect that it would have an even stronger positive impact in Canada than elsewhere because of the increased prevalence of homework in Canadian schools compared to that in schools in many other countries. Moreover, we expect weaker differences in provinces that mandate specific amounts of homework because all students in these provinces, regardless of their socio-demographic background, receive a similar amount of homework. The availability of the OECD data set provided us with the time series information we needed to closely investigate the impact of homework on student performance at OECD levels.

Introduction

2. Benefits and Drawbacks of Homework in Canada

Australian researchers O. L. Tatz and J. G. Krueger found that the lowest-achieving Canadians aged 13 and 30 minutes, nearly four hours less than the lowest-achieving Japanese. The authors hypothesized that Canadian students, who likely have worse test scores than students from other countries, may spend less time doing homework. In fact, Dr. Warburton, the authors found that the Canadian student reported spending one hour and 17 minutes. First, she replied to our survey request by indicating that she must spend some time on her homework but did not offer an estimate of how much time she usually spent on homework. The authors hypothesized that the lack of correlation between student test scores and homework in Canada may be a consequence of the fact that Canadian children spend less time on homework to attain the same level of academic success as students from high-homework countries. The authors argue that homework is providing no real benefit, due to the numerous background differences—country education system, school quality, teacher quality, home environment, etc.—between the Canadian children and the children from other countries.

The benefits of homework are often summarized as academic benefits, cognitive benefits, and non-cognitive benefits. Academic benefits may include short-term test score gains, while cognitive benefits may include developing good study habits and increasing parent involvement in schooling. Non-cognitive benefits, such as developing self-discipline, time management, and goal setting, are also frequently mentioned in the literature on the merits of homework. As with homework’s influence on student performance, no consensus has been reached on homework’s potential drawbacks. More is known, however, about what causes homework to become a burden rather than a benefit for students. Many have suggested that excessive homework has eroded students’ respect for knowledge and reduced their motivation for long-term learning. Moreover, some researchers have raised concerns that assigning a small amount of homework has no impact on performance, whereas assigning a lot of homework may have a negative impact on students’ test scores.

3. Effective Homework Strategies for Canadian Students

Homework will be done more effectively when the following strategies are used: (a) Teach and support students in time management; (b) Have students set goals for homework completion and review them periodically; (c) Teach students to use their homework resources, such as small group notes, math notes, webs, and texts; (d) Incorporate study skills instruction when appropriate. These practices may aid all students. Reviewing long additions of information from homework from previous levels of schooling is beyond the scope of this project. Future research should examine practices that facilitate assignment and home completion with an eye to achieving effectiveness for the individual child, including those with special needs.

Given the well-recognized benefits of additional learning time in the form of homework, several strategies can be pursued to increase its effectiveness while limiting the drawbacks. Homework should be a mix of skills practice and practice of new information. Homework assignments can be tiered within the class to allow students additional information or prompts to help get them started. Graphic organizers, templates for responses, oral rehearsal and practice, previewing important vocabulary, concept mapping and discussion of salient elements of homework assignments have all been shown to be effective practices for students with disabilities. English language learners have different needs and will benefit from techniques that are distinct from students with disabilities. Some effective strategies for homework completion with English language learners include ensuring that vocabulary is accessible to students, providing sufficient time for completion and explicit instruction on how to complete assignments. Additionally, support at home can vary depending on language dominance. Students may be more proficient in putting together ideas about science in their home language, but may be more specifically conversational in English.

4. The Role of Parents and Teachers in Supporting Homework

Teachers provide important feedback for students. Can they also help students to use such feedback? Most researchers stress that feedback is important in assuring the link between learning and feedback. Bread and butter items in the homework success lists stress feedback about the completion, not the quality, of homework. Examples include acknowledging that a student has worked independently, simply checking to be sure that homework has been done, and praising students for taking the initiative to do homework. In some cases, the feedback suggested is informational, such as a log that keeps parents informed about the number of assignments completed requiring parental signature.

Parents are often cited as being a reason for the use of homework programs, but this is not always explained. How can parents help with homework? Do they always support homework or do they refuse to comply? Researchers and educators appear to have different expectations about the role of parents. Researchers acknowledge that parents may help with homework. In an article about parental support for homework, researchers assert that “children are more likely to be successful in completing homework when a parent can monitor work habits. Similarly, student failure to do homework is related to the level of a parent’s educational attainment.” The assumption in this comment is that homework is a force for good in its own right; all students need is parents who will prod them into doing it. Research demonstrates, however, that parents’ views of homework are not always so clear-cut. The impact of negative attitudes is such that Brown reported that neutral or negative attitudes can reduce homework time by 60 minutes per week.

5. Conclusion and Recommendations for Future Research

Additionally, a focus on alternative homework sub-variable examination of countries with different educational structures could also provide practical implications. While homework must be complete, and its prime determinant, examination of educational effects in a non-home-work-visible society is warranted. Future research could focus on these alternatives and provide fruitful implications. Furthermore, analysis of only those in one income group (e.g. compensation of family incomes between $30,000-50,000) or who live in certain socio-economic neighborhoods may also be of interest. Identifying the impact of a subset of the population would be insightful for policy formation concerning special interest groups, stationary policies, or the potential dynamic of wealth redistribution. Finally, the statistical underrepresentation of parents or native language speakers in the home could provide bias, particularly in the case of “rich” homework effects of schooling. Analysis should focus on the sub-set of the population. Conclusively, the area presents many potential research opportunities. Community supports for certain areas of future research such as educational and social policy and identified microeconomic and socioeconomic bias are presented. The impact of parental involvement could also lead to richer contributions to society as well.

The Multilevel Nature of Schools: Many factors (and unobserved characteristics) are found at various levels of interest. Multiple entreats of past educational research have shown the explicit understanding of associations between many factor and student performance. Moreover, significant variation also exists. A multi-level model (which was ultimately disregarded based on chi-square estimates) would allow for a larger understanding of what makes students (at the micro level) and schools (at the macro level) perform better, and allow for clearer understanding of the performance of economics in assessing impact on their desired variable. Moreover, despite certain controls, unobserved school or educational system level characteristics may be apply. For example, previous studies have shown significant improvements in educational effects in various jurisdictions following the implementation of year-round schooling. The particular dynamics of schools and other omitted time varying factors would be failing to address complications, which could bias estimates if not proportionately distributed.

Despite the robustness of the findings, several future research directions could refine this analysis. Correlation does not equal causation. While a large array of techniques has been conducted, including conditional difference-in-differences, sibling pair analysis, multilevel models, and unique survey characteristics provide solid identification, experimentation would provide clearer identification. One area for future research is evaluation of the effect of completion of homework on student test performance causally. This could be done through randomization of the assignment of homework. However, the use of an experimental approach to the primary question presented in this paper would be challenging, if not infeasible. Therefore, future research could focus on the limiting factors of this analysis.

Recommendations for Future Research

The impact of homework on student achievement is an important policy question. This empirical analysis explores the impact of homework on student performance in Canadian schools using a World Values Survey dataset. A series of applied techniques to control for omitted variable bias and endogeneity inherent within homework behavior is conducted. Results show that homework completion has a statistically and economically significant impact on student performance.

Conclusion