Adolescents’ Homework Performance in Mathematics and Science: Personal Factors and Teaching Practices
Fernández-Alonso, Rubén
Adolescents’ Homework Performance in Mathematics and Science: Personal Factors and Teaching Practices created by Rubén Fernández-Alonso, Javier Suárez-Álvarez, José Muñiz - Volume , number , .
Classical educational research provides empirical evidence of the positive effect of doing homework on
academic results. Nonetheless, when this effect is analyzed in detail there are inconsistent, and in some
cases, contradictory results. The central aim of this study was to systematically investigate the effect of
homework on performance of students in mathematics and science using multilevel models. The original
sample consisted of 7,725 Spanish adolescents with a mean age of 13.78 (0.82) of which 7,451 were
evaluated after purging the sample of the students who did little to no homework. A 2-level hierarchicallinear analysis was performed, student and class, with 4 individual adjustment variables: gender,
socioeconomic and cultural level, year repetition, and school grades, which were used to reflect previous
student achievement. The individual level examined time spent, effort made, and the way homework was
done. The class level considered frequency of assignment and quantity of homework. Prior knowledge,
estimated using school grades, is shown to be the most important predictor of achievement in the study.
Its effect is greater than the combined effect of all the other variables studied. Once background factors
are controlled, the homework variables with most impact on the test are student autonomy and frequency
of homework assignment by teachers. Autonomy when doing homework was shown to be the most
important individual-level variable in both mathematics and science, and not effort and or time spent
doing homework. The optimum duration of homework was found to be 1 hr a day.
homework
mathematics
science
Adolescents’ Homework Performance in Mathematics and Science: Personal Factors and Teaching Practices created by Rubén Fernández-Alonso, Javier Suárez-Álvarez, José Muñiz - Volume , number , .
Classical educational research provides empirical evidence of the positive effect of doing homework on
academic results. Nonetheless, when this effect is analyzed in detail there are inconsistent, and in some
cases, contradictory results. The central aim of this study was to systematically investigate the effect of
homework on performance of students in mathematics and science using multilevel models. The original
sample consisted of 7,725 Spanish adolescents with a mean age of 13.78 (0.82) of which 7,451 were
evaluated after purging the sample of the students who did little to no homework. A 2-level hierarchicallinear analysis was performed, student and class, with 4 individual adjustment variables: gender,
socioeconomic and cultural level, year repetition, and school grades, which were used to reflect previous
student achievement. The individual level examined time spent, effort made, and the way homework was
done. The class level considered frequency of assignment and quantity of homework. Prior knowledge,
estimated using school grades, is shown to be the most important predictor of achievement in the study.
Its effect is greater than the combined effect of all the other variables studied. Once background factors
are controlled, the homework variables with most impact on the test are student autonomy and frequency
of homework assignment by teachers. Autonomy when doing homework was shown to be the most
important individual-level variable in both mathematics and science, and not effort and or time spent
doing homework. The optimum duration of homework was found to be 1 hr a day.
homework
mathematics
science