ONLINE HOMEWORK HELPER

Doing homework requires continued effort. The surroundings under which the homework is done influences the degree to which the learner sustains the effort required to successfully complete the homework tasks. In school, the learner has little choice about the surroundings in which learning takes place. At home, the learner has more choice about the general surroundings in which to do homework and can often adjust sound, light, temperature, and/or design to his or her liking. Preferences for homework surroundings also vary greatly among individuals. Some prefer a setting that is as quiet as possible, whereas others find background sound relaxing and helpful (homework hotline). Very bright versus dim lighting and warm versus cool temperature are additional surrounding characteristics that make a lot of difference to some learners when doing their homework. The design of the room in which homework is being done can also make a difference. Some learners like formal furniture, a desk and straight chair, whereas others prefer an easy chair or even a thick rug on which they can relax and work. For practical reasons, it is unlikely that individual preferences of sound, light, temperature, and design will be matched by the circumstances of any school classroom, and much more so in the crowded classrooms in most schools today. It is much more possible for parents to adjust the surroundings in which their children do homework, if they are aware of their children’s preferences and able and willing to match them (homework hotline).

 It is a difficult but worthwhile challenge for creative teachers to individualize homework in terms of the perceptual-physical preferences of the learners. It is less difficult but equally valuable for parents to make arrangements for doing homework that meet the student’s physical needs (homework hotline).

(1) Auditory. Some children prefer homework assignments that require them to listen to tapes or CDs that contain material to be used in doing the homework, and also prefer to hear homework instructions (homework hotline).

(2) Visual. Other learners prefer assignments that involve reading or watching films, and prefer to see written homework instructions (homework hotline).

(3) Tactile. Some children prefer the “hands-on” type of homework. They enjoy preparing exhibits to display for their classmates, building things and similar homework activities that require them to actually touch and manipulate materials (homework hotline).

(4) Kinesthetic. Some learners like homework that involves firsthand experience and active participation in events or activities that lead to the accumulation of knowledge: observing a phenomenon, interviewing an interesting person, or conducting an experiment. A learner, for example, could be assigned to use a computer to go on a virtual trip to a certain country studied in school, and the homework could be to report on a specific aspect of life there (homework hotline).

Homework helpers:  Homework is a powerful tool that can contribute to the advancement of children’s education and knowledge or it can do more damage than good to these enterprises. The difference between the two outcomes depends on the quality of the decisions as to how homework is implemented.  Homework, if properly used, may be the most effective and cost-efficient way to solve some of the most difficult educational problems. Proper use of homework can lead to significant improvement in academic achievement. Homework is an ongoing enterprise in all academic settings, it is there to be used and does not have to be discovered or invented. However, in its current form it is often part of the problem and not part of the solution. In order for homework to become a positive and powerful force in education, change will have to take place about how homework is understood, how it is used in schools, and how it is done at home (homework helpers).

Homework helpers:  In this opening blog, we have focused on understanding homework and suggested a conceptual model to explain the phenomenon. We developed the theory of homework performance in order to provide a rationale, general principles, general concepts and their respective components and to improve homework as an educational tool. In order to succeed in improving homework, the close cooperation of three distinct groups is required: the teachers who give the homework and afterwards grade it; the students who do the homework, derive benefits from doing it and from the feedback about their homework performance from their teachers; and the parents who largely control the physical and psychological surroundings in which their children do their homework and enjoy a more serene and conflict-free home environment if their children do their homework in an efficient and personally gratifying (homework helpers) .

Homework helpers:  The role of homework helpers in homework is not to be underestimated. Teachers have a major role to play in improving homework because teacher instructions determine its content, scope, and specific requirements. It has been clearly established that higher academic achievement and improved attitudes result from tailoring the learning experiences to the cognitive and personal–social characteristics of the learner. Individualizing learning at school and at home is a difficult but not impossible challenge. In suggesting intervention strategies in the coming chapters, we discuss how teachers’ practice in the classroom affects homework (homework helpers).

Math homework helper:  Moreover, studies of the effect of homework on academic achievement yield inconsistent findings. For example, a significant, positive effect of homework on student achievement was reported at the high school and college levels. However, at the elementary school level, findings are inconsistent: Some studies report a positive effect of homework on academic achievement, whereas others find no difference in student achievement as a function of time spent on homework. Some investigators even found a negative relationship between amount of homework and student attitudes toward homework.

Math homework helper:  A recent study found that it was not the amount of homework assigned but rather the amount of homework completed that is associated with student achievement, especially at the upper grades. They also reported that about one third of the students do not finish their homework. These findings serve as a warning sign that an important influence on the homework –achievement relationship has been ignored and merits systematic investigations.

Math homework helper:  If degree of compliance is a major determinant of the efficacy of homework in enhancing achievement, questions of what increases the degree of compliance merit high priority in future research. Considerable evidence indicates that allowing children to learn in school under conditions that match their individual preferences yield higher achievement and improved attitudes toward school. Unfortunately, there have been no studies about whether matching individual out-of-school learning preferences with the conditions under which homework is done increases compliance with these assignments, raises homework achievement, or both. One of the major reasons why this question has not been investigated is the lack of a theoretical framework that provides a heuristic conceptual model to stimulate research on homework, in general, and the lack of a reliable instrument to assess individual homework behavior, in particular.

Math homework helper:  Research studies on the intrapersonal and interpersonal characteristics of the person doing the homework (e.g., source and level of motivation, individual preferences of time, place, conditions, etc.) have been conducted even less frequently than research on homework assignment characteristics and their effects on academic achievement. School administrators, teachers, parents, and researchers in the field are acutely aware of individual personality characteristics of children in the school learning process. They recognize that it is not enough to be able to learn, that is, to have the intellectual ability to master the material, but that a person must want to learn and be able to persevere until an academic assignment is completed or an academic goal is achieved. This understanding has led to continuing efforts to understand motivation, in general, and to investigate the personal–social characteristics that affect learning in school, in particular. The time has come to expand this understanding to out-of-school learning. This book is a first step in that direction.

The purpose of Study 3 was to further examine the factor structure and internal consistency of the HPQ using another sample. The same grade level (seventh) from another country was used for this purpose. The five items that neither met the psychometric criteria nor had the content consistency of the items within the respective component were deleted for this analyses. However, several questionable items that did not meet some of the retention criteria still remained for further exploratory analyses with the current sample (English homework help).

Method

The participants were 220 Korean seventh graders (114 males and 106 females). These participants were from six randomly chosen classes from two public junior high schools in the capital of Korea. All students who were present on the day the investigation was conducted participated. The revised HPQ (HPQ-2) was the 83-item questionnaire, which was group administered to students in their classrooms (English homework help).

Results

We examined the factor structure with the criteria of 15 factors derived from Study 2 first, with the intention of continuing the analyses in the event that the finding was not deemed appropriate. The 15-factor solution accounted for 51% of the variance. In general, the current findings were consistent with those of Study 2; thus, no further EFA was conducted. The findings are summarized to compare with those of Study 2. The eigen-values of the 15 factors ranged from 1.66 to 5.00 (English homework help).

Internal Consistency and Item Selection

The item retention criteria were the same as those used in Study 2. The coefficient alpha and recommendations for the questionnaire revision are as follows (English homework help):

a.  Environmental: sound .82, light .88, temperature .90, design .81, place .72. Factor loadings were all greater than .35 and each item loaded on only one factor. All original items were to be retained.
b.  Organizational: structure .65, order .76. With one item eliminated from each component, the internal consistency estimates were improved. Although some of the structure items had relatively small loading sizes, the content of items were consistent. Thus, we retained these items for further examination.
c.  Motivational: self-motivated .66, parent-motivated .69, teacher-motivated .78, persistence .58, responsibility .56. The internal consistency estimate of the persistence component in the Korean sample were lower than those of the U.S. sample (English homework help). However, because of the inconsistency in alpha across the two samples, and the relevance and quality of item composition were reasonable, we decided to retain the four items for further examination.

Chemistry homework help:  My conceptual model of homework Performance is presented in Figure 1.1. The conceptual components of homework performance may be divided into two categories, motivation and preference. The first category, motivation, postulates the source and strength of the motives that explain the initial activation of the process of doing the required homework assignments. This category offers possible answers to the most basic questions: Why do learners comply at all with the teacher’s request that they do their homework and with the instructions about how to do them? What influences whether or not a learner will start and willingly perform homework? The second category, preference, influences the degree to which the learner will proceed and continue homework efforts until finished. What are the intrapersonal and interpersonal preferences of the individual about how, where, when, and with whom to do homework? The match of the demand characteristics of the homework assignments themselves, as determined by the teacher, with the level of motivation and the pattern of interpersonal and intrapersonal preferences of the learner doing the homework determines whether the goals of homework will be accomplished.

Chemistry homework help:  The category of motivation in the homework Performance model may be further divided into two subcategories, sources and strength. Three sources of motivation to perform homework are formulated. A learner may be self-motivated, parent-motivated, and/or teacher-motivated. These three components are not mutually exclusive. A learner’s motivation to perform homework may be influenced by one, two, or three sources in degrees.
1) Self-motivated refers to an individual’s personal and intrinsic willingness to learn at home.
(2) Parent-motivated refers to the efforts of learners to do their homework in order to satisfy their parents.

Chemistry homework help:  The degree to which parents motivate their children to do homework is frequently a consequence of parental intervention and involvement. Parents who demonstrate interest in homework, offer reasonable help as required, and provide appropriate rewards and reinforcement for consistent and successful homework performance, can increase motivation to do homework. Conversely, parents who give no attention to homework performance and give the impression that they do not consider it important can lower homework motivation. Finally, parents who are over-involved with their children’s homework may produce a conflict situation that negatively affects the parent–child relationship as well as the child’s homework motivation (Chemistry homework help).

(3) Teacher-motivated refers to students devoting time and effort to the homework tasks in order to satisfy their teachers. High motivation to perform homework may reflect the overall teacher–pupil relationship. If the relationship is highly positive in a variety of ways, doing the homework that that teacher assigns is one way to express regard and respect for the teacher and to earn the respect of the teacher. Conversely, teachers may be responsible for low motivation to perform homework (Chemistry homework help).