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The Importance of Homework and the Role Teachers and Parents play in
achievement.

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 Homework is it still important and how can teachers and parents motivate children to

succeed and achieve in it

Zachary Howe

March 28,2019

Homework the school assignments that teachers assign to take home for students to com-

plete as a means of practice and study, but how can teachers and parents get their students and

Page 1 of 13
children motivated in doing homework and completing it on time and with a sense of achieve-

ment? What I plan to look at here is firstly what is homework by definition and secondly why

teachers still assign homework and finally how can teachers and parents regardless of social class

help in motivating their children in completing homework on time and with a sense of achieve-

ment. So with this, we will see why having teachers and parents can help in a child's motivation

in completing homework and making it fun and interesting for the child and help them grow as

an individual with developing knowledge and practices. With this, we will see that homework is

still an important tool in children’s development early on in school specifically elementary

school and that if teachers and parents get engaged with the content it will help in motivating

their children to succeed in doing homework. So, what is homework and why is homework still

assigned by teachers in elementary and high school?

Homework is defined as tasks assigned by a teacher that is meant to be completed and

carried out during non school hours (Ramdass and Zimmerman, 2011), and usually that is the

simple way of seeing homework where it is assigned by a teacher for students to complete at

home for practice on the subject of the work without the help of teachers to hopefully build up

understanding and knowledge of the subject. Now the looking at the definition of homework we

see that simply it just works that teachers are sending home to be completed during outside of

school ours, we also have to consider the different reasons that homework is typically assigned

for students especially looking at elementary and high school where homework quality does

change. A few studies have looked at the difference between what homework is meant to do for

students in elementary school and to high school and both suggest that teachers at these different

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levels assign homework for the use of study but to also develop time management skills among

their students (Bempechat 2010). This shows that teachers in elementary and high school do

share a common idea and goal for assigning homework and that their goals are for the students to

develop practices that will benefit them in studying and managing their time to complete school

work and study. But, there is some difference as well mainly it is that elementary school teachers

when it comes to assigning homework studies have shown in recent years suggested that elemen-

tary school teachers are primarily focusing on building strong study habits and better use of time

effectively amongst their students (Bempechat 2010). Which shows that elementary school

teachers are teaching and assisting their students from a young age in developing effective study

habits that these students can use as they move through the school system. But not just focusing

on the actual content of the work and having students applying time to work on it and learning

how to study it. Furthermore, teachers also have other reason for assigning homework which is

based on cognitive growth, motivation but also helping students form self-regulated practices.

Ulrich Trautwein is part of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and what

he has outlined with other colleagues of his is that teachers assign homework for other reason

than just assigning school work to be done at home. In his research he found that there were

three reason that teachers still assigned homework to students in schools today the first of these

reasons that Trautwein outlined was that homework helps in enhancing student achievement and

closing the achievement gap between students which some researchers as he mentions point out

that lower achieving students could benefit with additional time when working with homework

assignments and need it to reach the same level as more gifted peers(Trautwein and Schnyder,

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2009). Other research conducted by Timothy Kieth and Valerie Cool in 1992 (Trautwein and

Schnyder, 2009) supports the idea that students who devote and spend more time engaging and

doing homework and learning the content help increase their own personal achievement in com-

pleting the assignment in an efficient way. Seeing this we can say that researchers like Ulrich

Trautwein and Timothy Kieth and Valerie Cool support the idea that students who devote more

time to doing homework will better achieve within the subject and content of the class and

homework and feel a better sense of personal achievement that is important to their self-concept

and self-confidence. Now students will differ in how much time they spend doing on homework

some will be able to complete it no problem others will need the time to process and use a vari-

ety of problem-solving solutions to achieve success in the assignments. This is where both teach-

ers and parents are an important part of the process of learning, as mentioned earlier elementary

school teachers are assigning homework that better prepare and train students to study better and

make effective use of their time as they move forward within their schooling. Parents, on the

other hand, share a role in this as well as they socialize and interact with their children at home

and after school and by setting up a home that they show their child they value education and by

participating with their children in doing homework and being enthusiastic about it at the same

time.

The second reason that homework is assigned by teachers as Trautwein discusses in his

writing is that homework helps in improving student motivation and self-regulation (Trautwein

and Schnyder, 2009), Trautwein mentions that motivation and self-regulation are the primary

reason for teachers to be assigning homework to students and mentions that elementary school

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teachers use homework as a primary tool to help enhance students self-regulation and time man-

agement. Therefore showing that teachers have an impact on their students from an early age and

help in developing time management skills and self-regulated practices such as planning, inhibit-

ing distractions, persisting at difficult assignments, organizing, and reflection (Ramdass and

Zimmerman 2011). Seeing this teachers should be setting the goals and expectations of the

homework from the time it is assigned giving the student a clear understanding of what to do and

what to achieve in doing the assignment. From that student can then setup already taught prac-

tices or strategies that work for them in order to complete the assignment if not teachers should

intervene and help the students in need to avoid potential helplessness or confusion and teach

self-regulated practices such as time management and goal setting. However there can be some

difficulty in implementing these practises at the level such as elementary age, since students

might not understand or have developed self regulated practises but, as mentioned above from

researchers such as Ulrich Trautwein and Janine Bempechat that elementary school teachers are

starting to help develop and teach self-regulated for their students through the use of homework

and at the same time setting the clear expectations and goals of what is to be done for the as-

signment. The only difficulty with this is that not all teachers could be implementing these prac-

tices in class and more just giving the homework to students and making them do it, which for

future teachers we want to avoid leaving students confused or left helpless in doing homework.

An example of how the implementation of teaching self-regulation and time management skill

can be seen through studies conducted in classrooms at the elementary age.

One such study that occurred in connecting homework and self-regulation processes was

done by Heidrun Stoeger and Albert Ziegler in 2006 and was done by setting up experiential

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classrooms in which fourth grade students learned and practiced self-regulated practices such as

time management, , and self-reflection and they were being sought this by teachers four times a

day (Stoeger and Ziegler, 2006). In these experimental classroom environments, they assigned

teachers to teach and implement self-regulation interventions during homework activities

(Stoeger and Ziegler, 2006) and spent much of the experiment focusing on time management

skills, self-efficacy and self-reflection practices and it was concluded that homework activities

could be used to help develop self-regulation teachings at a young age. It was found prior to the

study was done by J.E Ormrod in 2006 in which he reported that children in the grades three

through five have shown better attention, the usage of self-evaluation and working on short as-

signments independently (Trautwein and Schnyder, 2009). Therefore what these studies have

shown is that students at the early stages of elementary school can be taught self-regulated prac-

tices such as self-efficiency, and time management through homework and it can be successful as

long as the teacher plays a role in making those practices understanding and clear from the first

day. Now the only issue that has been brought up with the study was that since the students were

being given an increased amount of attention could that have affected the results. But we see in

other research conducted that children do pay attention to their teacher regardless of the increase

in people around them and still were able to develop in self-regulated practices.

The last point that Trauwetin mentions to why teachers assign homework is to improve

the link between school and home (Trautwein and Schnyder, 2009), which homework lets par-

ents know what is going on in class and what is being taught to their child, allows for communi-

cation between parents and children about school matters and communicating the standards and

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expectations of the school and teacher. This is an important piece as homework establishes a

connection for the student between their school life and home life. But, allows for the parents to

join in in that connection and participate in their children school activities and let them know

what their children are being taught and what the teacher expects. Now, this is also important that

this is a reason for teachers assigning for school work to be taken home since opponents of

homework argue how it causes stress, negatively affects family life and negative emotions be-

tween students and parents (Trautwein and Schnyder, 2009). Now teachers, students, and parents

still see homework as an educational tool and as mentioned above homework allows for parents

to connect with the school from home and understand the expectations and goals that are being

presented in the classroom and by the teacher.

Therefore teachers still have important and key reasons to still assign homework within

the classroom as it helps with developing students own self-achievement, helping in develop mo-

tivation and self-regulated practices and finally connecting school and home and allowing par-

ents to be part of the homework process and understand what their child is learning and studying

at home. Now for teachers, it is easy to assign homework to students and have them do it at

home, but how do we motivate students to do the actual homework and do well on it?

As mentioned above one of the reasons that teachers assign homework for students is that

they are wanting to help develop motivation in students to do well on the assignments but also

build self-motivation amongst the students and self-regulation as well. To motivate students

teachers need to help support and develop positive attitudes in the classroom that allows a stu-

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dent to succeed, so an example of this is if a student gets a bad grade on an assignment, as teach-

ers or even as parents should not show negative emotions since that can hurt a students own per-

sonal beliefs and potentially cause issues in work effort and achievement belief. Janine Bem-

pechat how is a professor at Harvard University explains that motivation for achievement is not

viewed as an inner need or drive (Bemepchat, 2010), it is instead looked at as she points out a

collection of beliefs, attitudes, and emotions that influence a students performance in school

(Bemepchat, 2010). So, in short Bempechat is saying that instead of this idea of a drive that oc-

curs within a student to succeed on tasks and to do their best, the motivation to achieve and to do

homework is based around what the student believes, their attitudes and emotions which can be

important since if a student emotionally positive than there is a good chance they will have a

higher belief to achieve rather than a student who isn’t feeling so well and doesn’t believe in

themselves in which they know they won't achieve much (Trautwein, 2010). It is important to

keep student emotions on the positive end in order to have students engaged and actively partici-

pating in class and in order to succeed in the work. Again as mentioned in the why teachers as-

sign homework, teachers start at the early ages in elementary school to help develop children’s

self-motivation and self-regulation with homework tasks, to set students up for achievement and

confidence in themselves. However, teachers can only do so much when it comes to developing a

child's motivation in doing homework and succeeding but at home, the parents play a role in that

development.

Parents are an important role in the development of a child’s beliefs and cognitive devel-

opment from birth, they play an important role in developing their children’s beliefs and

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achievement in doing well in school and how much efforts to learn and apply that to themselves

(Bemepchat, 2010) and teachers supplement in the development of those beliefs in their students.

For parents when it comes to motivating their child’s efforts in completing homework comes

from their involvement in the child’s school life such as going to parent-teacher nights, school

meetings and other events at the school. How much parents care and invest in their child’s school

life, so simply asking how their day when at school went asking about class and everything and

also talking with their teacher and knowing how their child is doing. Finally, parents can also

help in providing cognitive and intellectual support (Bemepchat, 2010) for their child which is

mainly helping their child with their homework and providing positive and helpful support. So, if

parents show support for their child in school and take an interest and try to help them with their

schooling and homework it will give a student motivation to achieve and succeed since their par-

ents are interested in their studies and are supporting them in that process. This can be important

for elementary school children who are still developing much of their beliefs and motivations

and if the parents care they will have a higher achievement belief for finishing school work and

other tasks that will follow them through their education life.

Also when it comes to motivation for completing school work at home with parental sup-

port the role of social class and studies have been conducted by such researchers like Janine Be-

mpechat have researched that lower class families care deeply about their child’s cognitive de-

velopment and encourage their children in a variety of ways to care and value education (Be-

mepchat, 2010). It is also mentioned by Bempechat in her wiring that research has shown that

low-income families like that of middle-income families still provide a daily structure and clear-

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ly communicate the standards that their children are expected to follow for their academic stan-

dards and also to stay on top of homework due dates. They also help with homework even

though they may not be strong at it and visit their children school when possible. It is also men-

tioned in other studies that Bempechat mentions in her work that low-income fealties still want

their children to be challenged by homework since it will help them be prepared for the real

world. To sum it up it is shown that lower income families are not very different from middle

income or higher income families where they emphasize the importance of an education and

completing homework on time and trying their best at it, while also trying to help them along the

way to the best of their abilities even if they as a parent struggle with it. Overall we see that par-

ents have an important role to students motivation of completing homework that if they engage

and care about their children school life and homework students will gain motivation since they

see that their parents are taking an interest in their work and that they care for their success and

achievement. It is also mentioned that teachers want parents to be involved in their children

school work and again make them feel supported by their parents.

In conclusion, homework is still a commonly used practice among teachers today and we

see from what has been described above is that teachers still have good reasons to assign home-

work in today's classroom especially at the early stages of development of children in elementary

by helping foster and train self-regulation practices and build up self-motivation and self-confi-

dence amongst students to do homework and succeed in doing so. But also that teachers and par-

ents both play a role in helping motivating students for teachers they can do this through by pro-

viding positive emotions, providing clear goals and set outlines to what the assignments are

Page 10 of 13
about. Whereas parents are similar in some aspects trying to embrace positive emotions and

avoiding negative emotions, but also they have to take interest in their children’s homework and

school life and trying to help out with it when they can. Overall homework is still an important

tool in helping children develop self-regulation practices, and developing effective study meth-

ods and effective time management skills which are important for students to develop early one

in elementary school to become motivated and self-regulated along their educational journey.

Sources

Page 11 of 13
Bempechat, Janine. "The motivational benefits of homework: A social-cognitive perspec-
tive." Theory into practice 43.3 (2004): 189-196.

Ramdass, Darshanand, and Barry J. Zimmerman. "Developing self-regulation skills: The

important role of homework." Journal of advanced academics 22.2 (2011): 194-218

Stoeger, Heidrun & Ziegler, Albert. (2006). Motivational Orientations and Cognitive Abilities:
An Empirical Investigation in Primary School. Gifted Education International. 21.

Trautwein, Ulrich, et al. "Between-teacher differences in homework assignments and the

development of students' homework effort, homework emotions, and achievement."
Journal of Educational Psychology 101.1 (2009): 176.

Trautwein, Ulrich, et al. "Effort on homework in grades 5–9: Development, motivational

antecedents, and the association with effort on classwork." Child Development 77.4
(2006): 1094-1111.

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