Sánchez 1

Alejandra Sánchez

Dr. William Nolen

English 1302-224

22 February 2022

Homework and Its Contributors for Success

When thinking back of doing homework from elementary to high school, the core

memory comes to mind of trying to focus on the dinner table, the television blasting the

afternoon news, and parents talking or cooking dinner. Going into college, senior year teachers

always advised to talk and meet new people in classes to start study groups. However, most of

the time this ends up in friends gossiping at the library and not much studying happening.

Through the first semester in college, working alone anywhere on campus was most convenient,

personally, to study, read, or complete assignments. Working in a school setting allowed for

focus and kept the motivation to complete tasks to finally go home and relax. With this, this

habit will be tested to really find out if the environment and surroundings one chooses to do

homework is really a factor in how long it takes and the amount of homework one can complete.

The main purpose of this experiment and research is to find out what environment promotes the

ability to focus and allows to actually complete tasks. College students who need to study, read,

and complete assignments may plan out a weekly schedule to meet deadlines. However, real life

factors and procrastination can sometimes get in the way and alters that schedule, ending up in

having a heavy load of tasks to accomplish a certain day or days. By having a set routine or “go

to” places that one knows will be able to complete homework and stay on track, one can meet
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deadlines and have productive work sessions. The results of a week-long experiment of doing

homework in different locations found that school settings or campus locations are the best to do

homework as the amount of time is relatively cut in half when compared to doing homework at

home.

Before starting the experiment, research was done by reading up on some articles

concerning attention and motivation when it comes to homework. In “Homework Motivation and

Preference: A Learner-Centered Homework Approach,” Eunsook Hong, Roberta M. Milgram,

and Lonnie L. Rowell introduce the Homework Motivation and Preference model. This model is

“designed to explain and provide the basis for the improvement of the homework process” (Hong

et al. 198). They explain how this model includes two categories: motivation and preference.

Through the preference category, it is revealed that “surroundings influence the degree to which

the learner sustains the effort to successfully complete the homework task” (199). Additionally,

Hong et al. defined six components, auditory, visual, tactile, kinesthetic, intake, and mobility that

define a learner’s perceptual preferences. The article explains how through the Homework

Motivation and Preference Questionnaire the authors were able to compare and make

connections of learner preferences and academic performance. For example, a student who

prefers bright light and background noise while doing work will score high while if the opposite

conditions are present, the student will score low. They concluded that “accommodating

students’ learning preferences increases the likelihood that their learning potential will be

actualized” (203). Similarly, in a cross-sectional study titled “Students’ Needs, Teachers’

Support, and Motivation for Doing Homework,” by Idit Katz, Avi Kaplan, and Gila Gueta, they

used seventy-one fourth-grade students and 108 eight grade students and applied the Self-

Determination Perspective theory (SDT). The SDT is the “theory of human motivation
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concerned with the development and functioning of personality within social contexts” (Katz et

al. 248). The authors explain how this theory has three basic psychological needs: autonomy,

relatedness and competence. Depending on the satisfaction of these needs, motivation varies. In

order for these psychological needs to be met depends on the environment.

For this experiment, two general locations were used: a school campus and home. In each

setting, how much time it took to complete homework, how many assignments, or how many

pages of a chapter were read was recorded. Additionally, environmental factors that would

disturb concentration were jotted down. The results of this procedure intend to reveal what

environment and surrounding promote work efficiency and concentration.

Revealed by the chart above, most tasks were completed faster and in half of the time in a

school setting compared to the home setting. It was found that going through the school day and
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starting on homework after a small break for lunch was best since it would keep that school

rhythm going.

When on campus, either the library, a school building, or the on-campus coffee shop was

chosen to do homework. The library served best for studying, though the graph shows that there

is little to no difference to studying in either location, studying would vary on the subject and

how many times it was chosen to review. During the experimental period two tests were studied

for: one for music and one for psychology. The music exam was studied for on campus and

resulted in score of 101. On the contrary, the psychology exam was studied for at home and

resulted in a score of 98 and the subject did not feel as prepared and confident. In regards to the

environment, the library was quiet, which enabled concentration when reading, there was little to

no distractions, and the scenery was delightful for when taking a small break. When an

assignment needed to be completed, which most of the time requires typing, the library was

avoided since typing was a bit loud and instead a campus building or the coffee shop was

resorted to. Before this experiment, the researcher’s preferred building to do homework at was

the campus’s Academic Innovation Building (AIC). This building has a lot of windows that

provided a scenery of the outside and adequate lighting preferred by the subject. While there may

be people lingering who are in between classes, the background noise of people wasn’t a major

distraction, and as per Hong et al., this is actually a preference of high scoring students (200).

The assignments worked on at the AIC were mainly discussions which all received a score of

100. The AIC met the subject’s preferences and therefore enabled the motivation to complete

homework by establishing a school environment where it felt they could work in and that

resembled the classroom. When working at the coffee shop, while the coffee aroma was
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pleasing, it was rather hot and very noisy. On the contrary, the coffee shop did not meet the

subject’s preferences and therefore lowered motivation to stay on task.

On the other hand, when going through the school day and going straight home, the

subject would have a long lunch as a result of conversation with parents, watching television, or

being on the phone. By going home, the subject was more prone to distractions and

procrastination. When homework was eventually started, several distractions such as parents,

television, or my phone were present. The researcher found it very difficult to read, and when

taking notes on chapters, it was difficult to actually process and understand the information. For

assignments, if they required reading, which most did, the subject found themselves having to go

back and rereading the text in order for them to correctly respond questions from the assignment.

An assignment completed at home received a score of 65, so evidently, the constant

conversations, dim lighting, and very cold temperature of the home did not meet the

psychological needs as explained by SDT.

Looking over the experiment results and what was learned from reading “Homework

Motivation and Preference: A Learner-Centered Homework Approach” and “Students’ Needs,

Teachers’ Support, and Motivation for Doing Homework: A Cross-Sectional Study,” it was

discovered that the findings and learning were congruent. Like previously mentioned, before this

experiment the preferred environment to do homework for the researcher was the AIC. Through

the Homework Motivation and Preference model and the Self-Determination Perspective theory,

this gave about why that was. The bright, natural lighting, subtle background noise, and

limitations to distractions met the preferences and psychological needs of the subject. The dim

lighting, parents’ conversation and movements, and unpleasant temperature all create an

unpleasing environment where the subject could not concentrate or work efficiently.
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Works Cited

Hong, Eunsook, et al. “Homework Motivation and Preference: A Learner-Centered Homework

Approach.” Theory Into Practice, vol. 43, no. 3, 2004, pp. 197–204.,

https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4303_5.

Katz, Idit, et al. “Students’ Needs, Teachers’ Support, and Motivation for Doing Homework: A

Cross-Sectional Study.” The Journal of Experimental Education, vol. 78, no. 2, 2009, pp.

246–267., https://doi.org/10.1080/00220970903292868.