Homework assignments to enhance student engagement in secondary education

Recent thinking on teaching and learning has been influenced by several theories of learning, including behavioral learning theory, cognitive learning theory, and social learning theory, rooted in the works of Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky. Jonassen et al. (1999), in their constructivist approach to learning with technology, described instructional principles or characteristics of learning environments which are based on a synthesis of several theories of learning. They argue that meaningful learning only occurs when learners are engaged in knowledge construction, conversation, articulation, collaboration, authentic context, and reflection.

Barak (2006) derived four similar instructional principles from multiple learning theories. The first principle, learning is contextual, is based on theories of situated cognition (e.g., Brown et al. 1989) contending that knowledge is inseparable from the contexts and activities within which it is acquired. Learning occurs only when students process new information in a meaningful way that makes sense within their own frames of reference. The second principle is learning is an active process. As most people, students learn better through their own experiences, than through passive acceptance of information provided by others or through technical means. Students actively construct knowledge by integrating new information and experiences into what they have previously come to understand, revising, and reinterpreting old knowledge in order to reconcile it with the new. Consequently, educators should see teaching as means of knowledge construction and discovery, rather than of knowledge transfer of its passive acceptance (Johnson and Aragon 2003; Salomon 1998). The third principle, learning is a social process, is based on the work of Vygotsky (1978). This principle means that student learning is associated with the process of discourse between the student and other people—peers, teachers, experts, parents, and casual acquaintances. Lave and Wenger (2002) combine the first and third principle as they claim social learning to be a function of the activity, context, and culture in which it occurs (i.e., it is situated). Social interaction is a critical component of situated learning—learners become involved in a community of practice which embodies certain beliefs and behaviors to be acquired. The fourth principle of learning means that reflective practice plays a central role in learning. In his landmark work on reflection, Schön described the concept of reflection-in-action as consisting of “on-the-spot surfacing, criticizing, restructuring and testing of intuitive understanding of experienced phenomena which often takes the form of a reflective conversation with the situation” (Schön 1983, pp. 241–242).

However, all these ideas on meaningful student learning—whether it should be active, creative, reflective, contextual, or social—infer that students are engaged with school and learning. Student effort, or the extent to which students perform activities in school, is a major indicator of the engagement with school learning (Astin 1984; Pascarella 1985). Kuh et al. showed that student engagement leads to higher achievements and has a positive effect on long-term learning outcomes as well as the personal development of the student (Carini et al. 2006; Kuh 2009). Stoeber et al. (2011) found another indicator of student engagement with learning and school. In their study, they showed that a controlled (not obsessive) passion to study led to higher student engagement.

Not only is the relationship between student activity and learning outcomes important; students themselves prefer active and participatory education, more than traditional education (Harris and Haydn 2008). Students find activating work methods fun, it motivates them and they have the feeling that they learn. Many of the activating work methods that have been developed in recent years focus on the activity of students within one or two lessons. The extent to which activating work methods in class actually lead to activities of students is often impeded by a lack of class preparation of the students. Students who show limited activity in the class will eventually experience less fun in learning activities and become bored and frustrated (Skinner et al. 2008).

So, one of the ways to stimulate student activity and student motivation is the work they do on homework. Homework can be defined as any task assigned by schoolteachers intended for students to carry out during nonschool hours (cf., Cooper 1989). Generally, a positive relationship is found between doing homework and school results. In their review of research on effects of homework, Cooper et al. (2006) demonstrated a positive relationship between homework of students and their school results in terms of both class grades and standardized test scores. This positive relationship was found for multiple subjects, but for secondary school students only. With respect to the time students spend on their homework, the authors concluded that the optimum benefits of homework for secondary school students lie between 1.5 and 2.5 h. Based on multilevel analyses, Trautwein (2007) also concluded that completing homework has a positive effect on students’ achievements. The author only found a positive effect of the frequency of working on homework assignments, not of the average amount of time students spent on their homework. However, Epstein and Van Voorhis (2001) concluded that students performed better in school when they spent more time in general on their homework. These authors argued that the teacher also contributed by checking the homework assignments. Finally, Paschal et al. (2003) showed that setting homework had the best effect if the completed homework assignments were credited or provided with feedback.

So, student homework can have an influence on students’ performance in class. Despite the growing knowledge based on the relationships between homework and achievements, four problems came up with drawing conclusions about the value of homework assignments in secondary education (cf., Cooper et al. 2006; Corno 1996). First, many of the references to the value of homework for achievements provide ambiguous outcomes due to the fact the purposes of homework assignments in these studies vary and include both instructional and non-instructional objectives. Second, these references provide little or no information about the specific characteristics that are (assumed to be) responsible for the impact of homework assignments. Third, as Cooper et al. (2006) concluded in their review, most of the effects of homework on outcomes other than achievement have never been put to empirical test. Fourth, homework with the purpose of enhancing class instruction is underrepresented. Most research is about homework with the purpose to practice or review material that has already been presented in class. Mulhenbruck et al. (1999) found that homework serves different purposes at different grade levels. Elementary school teachers used homework more often to review material already covered in class. Secondary school teachers were more likely to use homework to prepare students for work yet to come and to enrich classroom activities. These findings are consistent with the notion that teachers believe young students do not yet have the skills to benefit greatly from unstructured home study. Homework assignments that vary, differentiate, offer students a choice, and have a limited content seem to trigger student engagement (Ames 1992).