Homework In The Curricular Area Of Mathematics In Primary Education

Abstract

The present study aims to identify the perspectives of pupils and their parents/guardians related to homework in the curricular area of mathematics and how they are implemented. A study was developed using a descriptive research, resorting to various techniques of data collection: a questionnaire for the pupils, an interview to the parents/guardians and documentary research of teachers' homework records. The study involved fifty students of two 4th grade classes of a Portuguese primary school, aged from 9 to 11 years old of both sexes, four parents/guardians of these students and two teachers. Homework is a widespread practice in both classes under study, being part of the daily life of pupils and their families. The type of homework most often requested in the area of Mathematics consists of worksheets that involve algorithmic calculation and some problem solving. Parents are actively involved in supporting their children’s homework, despite the difficulties they experience in such support. Homework represents a pedagogical strategy that is quite common, but seldom a target of reflection. It is important for teachers to reflect on the usefulness, type and extent of homework requested, as well as on student queries and parents’ difficulties in supporting its fulfilment, so that it can be a true complement to classroom learning for all pupils.

Keywords: Homeworkprimary educationMathematics

Introduction

Homework is one of the most popular educational strategies, but also one of the most controversial, used in virtually all levels of education (Cooper, Robinson, & Patall, 2006; Fan, Xu, Cai, He, & Fan, 2017; Menezes, Viseu, & Conceição, 2016).

Homework can be defined as any academic work assigned at school by the teacher, but that is carried out by students during nonschool hours, usually at home and, therefore, without the teacher’s direct guidance and monitoring (s)he usually gives students while they are performing the assigned tasks (Cooper, 2001; Cooper et al., 2006; Núñez, Suárez, Rosário, Vallejo, Valle, & Epstein, 2015).

Homework is therefore a set of tasks intended for students to have additional learning opportunities outside the school (Silva, 2009). In the same sense, Marques (2001) argues that homework is an instrument that helps to strengthen and deepen student’ learning. Some authors also consider that completing their homework can be a good way for students to learn how to manage time, to strengthen their sense of responsibility, and also to value effort and perseverance as a means of achieving their objectives (Epstein & Van Voorhis, 2001). These authors also hold that the completion of homework can lead students to develop their autonomy in the use of didactic resources and help them acknowledge when the time is right to ask for help in view of difficulties they cannot overcome by themselves.

On the other hand, several authors are quite skeptical or critical of the effectiveness of homework (Fan et al., 2017; Perrenoud, 2010). These authors argue that homework represents a work overload for students, that most of those tasks are useless and have no significant learning gains (Perrenoud, 2010). In addition, homework can force parents to become tutors and make them feel incompetent because they cannot or are not able to help (Menezes et al., 2016; Perrenoud, 2010). Although some authors point out that homework is a means to improve the learning of students who have greater learning difficulties, by promoting compensation activities outside their school, Rønning (2011) reveals that, for the elementary education students he was given the opportunity to observe, homework contributed to the increase of social inequalities since children who came from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds were hampered by the lack of school support provided by their parents.

Over the last few years, meta-analyses of research on the educational value of homework have been carried out. Works like "Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research, 1987 – 2003" (Cooper et al., 2006) and "Homework and students’ achievement in math and science: A 30-year meta-analysis" (Fan et al., 2017) are good examples of that concern. The first study focuses on homework in general and the second focuses on homework in mathematics and science. The study of Cooper et al. (2006) reveals a consistent evidence for a positive influence of homework on student achievement. The work of Fan et al. (2017) was conducted to understand the homework-achievement relationship in mathematics/science, and to find out other factors that could influence this relationship. This study reveals "that there was an overall small and positive relationship between homework and academic achievement in math/science (...). The homework-achievement relationship in math/science was stronger for elementary and high school students than for middle school students" (p. 35).

The involvement of parents/tutors in their children’s education is essential so that students can achieve educational success. Although parents and teachers play different roles, they are complementary (Sheldon & Epstein, 2005). Parents usually take an active part in their children’s study by motivating their work and encouraging them to study, by organizing a timetable and creating conditions that will favour their work (Hagger, Sultan, Hardcastle, & Chatzisarantis, 2015; Menezes et al., 2016).

When they were asked to give their opinion about mathematics homework, the parents’ reactions were quite different. Many adults, for whom mathematics classes were a painful experience, have no positive recollections of the kind of tasks they were assigned (Aharoni, 2008; Menezes et al., 2016). Thus, a student who struggles with his math learning and who shows difficulties to apprehend what the teacher is trying to teach him will need his parents’ support and encouragement to feel motivated to keep on working to overcome his difficulties. Therefore, it is essential for parents to be informed about how students are currently taught and how they can support their carrying out this work (Aharoni, 2008; Jay, Rose, & Simmons, 2018; Menezes et al., 2016).

In the research conducted with the parents of 4th grade students, Menezes et al. (2016) point out that, when they help their children with their mathematics homework, parents’ weakest performances are related to problem solving and tasks that involve mental calculus. They blame the new methodological approaches that are quite different from those they remember from the time when they were students. These difficulties felt by parents when they try to help their children with their mathematics homework are also pointed out in other studies (Jay et al., 2018).

In another study, Núñez et al. (2015) aim to understand the relationship that exists between parental involvement in students’ homework, student homework behavioural patterns and student academic achievement. During his research work conducted with students from different school levels, the authors say "that students’ homework behavioural patterns, perceived parental involvement in students’ homework, and academic achievement are significantly related" (p. 375).

As far as homework is concerned, students, parents and teachers will build multiple interactions, clearly supported by their, sometimes divergent, visions that will influence their practices. This study will analyse this confluence of perceptions/visions and actions about the role played by homework in primary math education and about how that role is perceived by teachers, students and parents.

Problem Statement

This research aims to knowthe perspectives of pupils, of their parents/guardians and of teachers, regarding homework in the curricular area of mathematics and how they are implemented.

Research Questions

How is homework in the mathematics curricular area perceived by 4th year pupils, their parents/guardians and teachers, and how is this homework put into practice?

Purpose of the Study

In Portugal, as in many other countries of the world. homework is usually present in primary schools, namely in the area of mathematics. However, there is a lack of consensus regarding its educational value and it is relevant to know the perspective of its protagonists with concern to the contributions and difficulties of this pedagogical strategy.

Research Methods

This research aims to identify the perspectives and practices of pupils and parents on the importance of the homework which is assigned by math teachers. Bearing in mind the purpose of the study, a mixed methods research was chosen because of the descriptive character it offers to the quantitative component and the interpretative character that can be useful to analyse the qualitative component.

For that purpose, multiple data collection techniques have been used to achieve greater data variety and breadth. In general terms, the study adopts an interpretative approach in order to understand how the object of the study is perceived by each participant involved.

Findings

In this section, we present and analyze the data obtained, according to three points: i) the scope and completion of homework by the students; ii) parent perspectives on homework; iii) homework requested by teachers.

Conclusion

The results of this study suggest that homework is a teaching strategy that still plays a relevant role in the practices of Portuguese Primary School teachers (1st cycle of Basic education) and has therefore an important impact on the daily life of students and families.

Homework is almost a daily routine, a fact that is clearly expressed in the monthly records kept by the two teachers. This result is in line with other studies that have been conducted (Cooper et al., 2006; Fan et al., 2017; Menezes et al., 2016).

The curriculum areas in which teachers request more homework are mathematics and Portuguese. However, Social and Environmental Education/Science is the subject which accounts for student preferences in both classes in terms of homework.

By opposition, the least preferred areas are mathematics and Portuguese. These results are in accordance with those presented by Costa, Cardoso, Lacerda, Lopes, & Gomes (2016) in a study conducted with 4th graders from a group of schools located in the central region of Portugal.

The type of homework that is requested more often by math teachers is a kind of exercise in which students will have to apply mathematical procedures to help them consolidate the knowledge they have acquired. Carrying out exercises is the second type of activity that teachers request from their students. According to Menezes et al. (2016), most of these homework assignments are taken from the students’ school book. However, students reveal that they would like to carry out another type of homework that would require doing research on the internet, applying surveys to their family and working in group. Those suggestions show a willingness to escape from routine situations and from a type of work process that is based purely on individual performance.

The study also allows us to infer that the students we interviewed consider that homework is important for their learning and will help improve their school results. They claim to spend, on average, up to 30 minutes a day doing the tasks required by their teachers. This perspective is in accordance with the results of the meta-analyses carried out by Cooper et al. (2006) and Fan et al. (2017) that show that the completion of homework can have a positive impact on the students ' school performance.

Most of the parents we interviewed also attach great importance to homework and to the role it plays in their children’s learning process, in the consolidation of the knowledge acquired at school and in the development of individual working habits. These results are consistent with the studies conducted by Núñez et al. (2015) and Menezes et al. (2016). In these authors’ perspective, parents’ involvement in their children’s education plays an important role and has a strong impact, in their opinion, both on the cognitive development of the child and on his school performance and achievement. Consequently, the majority of parents do their best to be involved and to help their children with the tasks they were assigned by their math teachers, even though, as stated by Menezes et al. (2016) and Jay et al. (2018), they sometimes find it difficult to keep that commitment because of the new contents that are being taught and of the methodologies that are currently being used and that are unlike everything they experienced when they were students.

In short, this study shows that homework is a reality for the students we have interviewed. It is clear that homework assignments are frequently requested by mathematics teachers. The use of homework, perhaps because it is an important part of school culture, is not called into question by parents and pupils, or by the teachers who assign them. Every teacher who requests his students to carry out a certain task, the students who complete those tasks and those who support the students’ work at home believe that it deserves some credit and should be a complement to the work done at school.

Acknowledgments

This work is financed by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnología, I.P., under the project UID/Multi/04016/2016. Furthermore, we would like to thank the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu and CI&DETS for their support.

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