ONLINE HOMEWORK HELPER

Algebra homework helper:  It is important to distinguish between cognitive style, school learning style, and home learning style. Unfortunately, these concepts have been confounded both theoretically and empirically. With the development of cognitive psychology and its emphasis on the cognitive processes of perceiving, remembering, and problem solving, a number of investigators conceptualized different aspects of individual cognitive style in information processing and learning. Examples of this approach may be found in the Study Process Questionnaire, Learning Style Inventory, Inventory of Learning Process and in Field Dependence–Independence measures. Investigators of cognitive style did not clearly distinguish between cognitive style and learning style. Moreover, they did not investigate cognitive style as a function of the setting in which learning takes place, in or out of school. It is reasonable to assume that cognitive style characteristics would not differ as a function of setting, but this assumption remains to be empirically demonstrated. Indepth investigations of individual differences in cognitive processing are indeed warranted, but these topics fall beyond the limits of the subject matter in this volume.

Algebra homework helper:  There is a major difference in research on learning style as compared to cognitive style. Research on cognitive style has not focused on the effect of individual interpersonal and intrapersonal characteristics on learning. By contrast, research on learning style has focused on the profile of children’s personal–social and situational preferences for learning in the formal school setting. The Learning Style Inventory (LSI) that operationally defines and assesses 23 of the conceptualized components of learning style. According to this approach, each person’s learning style consists of a unique combination of strengths and weaknesses on elements that reflect various aspects of the environmental, emotional, sociological, and physical conditions under which a person acquires new knowledge and skills. The Dunn and Dunn learning style model and the LSI are described in detail elsewhere, but a few examples of the approach are in order.

Algebra homework helper:  The environmental elements include high versus low preference for sound or light while learning; the emotional elements, extent of motivation and persistence; the sociological elements, the preference to learn alone or with others; the physical elements, the time of day when one likes to learn and one’s preferred perceptual channel, such as auditory or visual. Dunn summarized the findings of a large number of research studies that demonstrated that when children were allowed to learn in school under conditions that matched their learning style preferences, their academic achievement and their attitudes toward school improved.

Strength, the second subcategory of science homework Performance Motivation, has two components, promptness and persistence. These relatively stable personality characteristics reflect the strength of the learner’s motivation to perform science homework. They influence when the effort is initiated and to what degree it is maintained.

(1) Promptness refers to the tendency of a learner to do science homework immediately when assigned and procrastination to the inclination to delay starting the process. The time that elapses between receiving assignments and starting to do them is viewed as an indicator of strength of motivation. Strong science homework performance motivation is evidenced by immediate attention to the assignments. Weak motivation is reflected in procrastination, that is, in delays that vary from starting the assignment late in the time available to complete it to doing it at the last minute or not at all. Research on promptness versus procrastination has focused on the causes of the phenomenon and to a lesser extent on its relationship to school achievement, with little attention to science homework achievement.

 (2) Persistence refers to the degree of sustained effort maintained in the process of doing science homework. Learners differ as to the amount of continuous time that they spend on science homework. Some begin and proceed with the science homework, without interruption, until they finish. Others cannot tolerate concentrated effort and are inclined to do their science homework in a large number of short time periods. Such sporadic starts and stops are likely to be less efficient.

Homework helper:  However, the major difference between learning at school and at home is that the learner has choices not only about whether to do the homework at all, but also about the circumstances and surroundings in which to do it. As is seen here, there are important individual differences between learners both in motivation to do homework in general, and in specific preferences about when, where, how, and with whom they prefer to do it.

Homework helper:  To the best of our knowledge, this blog is the first to report on a new direction in research on homework, one that distinguishes between learning at school and at home, and focuses not on the homework itself but on the child doing the homework. This topic has received very little attention in the educational research literature so far. This chapter presents a conceptualization of the complex pattern of motivational, perceptual, and personal–social characteristics, associated with homework behavior and explains the need for an instrument to assess these characteristics. The chapter is divided into four sections:
The first section summarizes previous empirical research on homework, most of which focuses on the homework –academic achievement relationship, and explains the need for a new approach to the topic.

Homework helper: The second section presents the conceptual framework for our approach to the study of homework. It provides the background for understanding the chapters that follow in which we present the research studies we conducted that led to the crystallization of the current conceptualization of homework.

Homework helper: The third section deals with the operational definition and assessment of the motives and the preferences that activate and direct homework behavior. When these motives and preferences are recognized and respected, they increase the probability that an individual will continue to work on and finish homework.

Homework helper: The fourth section presents the implications of the conceptualization and assessment of homework motivation and preferences for students, parents, teachers, and counselors.

Online homework helper:  Homework is assigned, often on a daily basis, to students of all ages all over the world. Planning and assigning homework are a major responsibility and challenge to teachers at all grade levels. Cooper defined homework as tasks assigned to learners by their teachers, that are to be done outside of school time and without concomitant teacher direction. Homework is most frequently done at home and alone, but it may be done in other places such as the library, in study periods during or after school, or with other people such as parents or fellow students. There are different kinds of homework. Some homework is designed to assure that students review, practice, and drill material that has been learned at school. Other homework assignments are intended to provide students with the opportunity to amplify, elaborate, and enrich previously learned information. Homework is also sometimes used to prepare, in advance, material to be learned in the following classes.

Online homework helper:  The scope and depth of the literature on the topic of homework may be described in terms that Mark Twain used to describe the Mississippi River. It is “a mile wide and an inch deep.” There is a large popular literature consisting of books and articles advising parents and teachers on how to help children with homework, but only a sparse empirical research literature on the topic. Negative articles about homework are ubiquitous in popular periodicals with wide audiences. An article in the January 25, 1999 issue of Time magazine entitled “The homework Ate My Family” and subtitled “Kids are Dazed, Parents are Stressed,” is an excellent example of this literature.

Online homework helper:  Strong opinions on the topic of the efficacy of homework as a teaching strategy appear in the professional literature as well. The views range from strong criticism of the use of homework to claims that the proper use of homework can yield a significant increase in the level of academic achievement. By contrast, there have been relatively few empirical studies on the effects of homework. A number of authorities on the topic examined these studies and concluded that (a) only a small number of studies have been conducted, (b) many of them were poorly designed, and (c) they focused almost exclusively on the characteristics of the homework itself (e.g., types, quality, amount, grading system, feedback) or on the effect of homework on achievement.

The purpose of Study 4 was to examine the factor structure of the HPQ with the samples of students younger (Grade 5) and older (Grades 9 and 10) than those used in the foregoing studies. With the Grade 5 sample, we implemented the change and eliminated the time-element items. With the Grades 9 and 10 samples, we included the two experimental items for the responsibility component. However, the new set-time/variable-time items were not added at this stage. The empirical factor structures from the current and previous studies were compared with the hypothesized five-factor structures to re-examine the appropriateness of structural components in each category of homework motivation and preference (physics homework help).

Method

The participants were 201 fifth graders (104 males, 96 females, and 1 unspecified) from three public elementary school in a large western metropolitan area in the United States. Sixty-three ninth (n = 24) and tenth (n = 39) graders were used for the analyses of the older student group (24 males and 39 females), who were from three multi-age classes taught by a geometry teacher. These students were from a public school in a western suburban area. Due to the small sample size and to the fact that the students of both grades were taught in a same class, the combination of the two grades was considered acceptable. With the removal of the 8 time-related items, the revised HPQ used with the fifth graders was a 75-item questionnaire (HPQ-3a). The 77-item HPQ-3b was used with the Grades 9 and 10 sample due to the new two additional responsibility items (physics homework help).

Results

A 13-factor solution, accounting for 46% of the variance, was more consistent with the findings from Study 2 and 3 than the 14- or 15-factor solutions. Other solutions with a criterion of a larger or smaller number of factors did not result in structures that better describe the hypothesized categories and components. The factor structures were similar to those found in the previous studies just reported, with a slightly better defined structural pattern. Internal consistency estimates ranged from .60 to .84 with an exception of .59 in the structure component. With the time-related items eliminated in this study, most items loaded on a factor with a loading greater than .30. The main differences between this and the previous two factor studies are that the order and structure factors were extracted as two separate factors, whereas Intake–Design was extracted as one. The small loadings in the second motivational factor indicate that problems exist in the responsibility and persistence items, but the findings of the specific items with low loadings were inconsistent across the sample (physics homework help).