Editorial
The landscape of education and…
by Tan Si Hao Brian
Homework has been an integral part of every student’s daily routine because it generally has a role to play in academic achievement. As a result, it has become the object in a constant source of debate for all stakeholders in education, from students to teachers and parents who argue over the positive effects of homework and thus desiring more, to the negative effects and seeking to reduce homework quantity.
Defining homework
Cooper (2015) gives a basic definition of homework as “tasks assigned to students by school teachers that are intended to be carried out during non-school hours”. This sets the boundaries for homework as being separate from in-class work. Alanne and Macgregor (2007) suggest a more universal definition of homework as “time that students spend outside the classroom in activities allocated for the training, enhancement, and implementation of knowledge, as well as learning new capabilities involved in independent research.” Utilizing this definition gives insight to what type of tasks are given or ought to be considered as homework. It suggests that there is clarity of intent in the task design, whether they are suited for the purposes of consolidation of learning, building on existing learning, or fixing of learning gaps.
The issue(s) with homework
- For students
Teng (2014) comments in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) study that students in Singapore are among the world’s most hard-working at home, clocking the third-longest time (9.4 hours a week) spent on homework, behind Shanghai (13.8 hours a week) and Russia (9.7 hours a week), way above the global average of 5 hours. The study also reported that students who did more homework scored higher in Pisa. For instance, Shanghai and Singapore, where students spent much of their time on homework, came in first and second respectively in the Pisa mathematics test in 2012. Singaporean students generally continue to perform well in reading, mathematics, and science in 2018, coming in 2nd place, just behind China (OECD, 2019). Across the countries and regions surveyed, students who came from socio-economically advantaged backgrounds tended to devote more hours to homework. As such, opportunities to devote hours to homework for less advantaged students can be reduced, and it has a knock-on effect in terms of performance, not just in school, but also evident in Pisa.
A typical Singaporean child tends to only start doing his homework after all his school commitments, and maybe even tuition and other enrichments, and it can start at night and stretch till midnight as commented by Teng (2014). Motivation to complete homework can either be intrinsic or extrinsic. Students can be driven by a desire to complete homework because they obtain satisfaction from the task or learning itself. They could also be driven by parental pressure, or desire to gain affirmation among peers or avoid punishment from parents or their teachers. It is also easy to understand why homework has a bad rap. Homework is being completed alone is the most common student experience and is viewed significantly more negatively than homework completed in more social settings (Warton, 2001). To avoid this in the digital age, students engage in video calls with their friends to “see” each other while accomplishing this mundane task. Furthermore, the sheer quantity of homework across multiple subjects despite quantity per subject can be daunting, and students may then be forced to prioritize subjects that they, their parents, or demanding teachers deem “important”. With the need to split themselves in different directions, it is not easy to desire learning as an outcome from the homework as opposed to wanting to complete the homework quickly and efficiently, and sometimes students compromise on quality for speed. Affective attitude toward homework plays a dominant role in homework interest. Corno (2000) once commented: “If students could be helped to view even some homework as closing critical gaps in their academic experience, they stand to see the value of injecting meaning into daily work”. Additionally, they are more likely to engage in the homework process and persist in the face of difficulties and distractions. It is understood that homework tends to be repetitive in nature, as repetition enhances memory retrieval and encoding, for retention of knowledge, and practice of skills and concepts necessary to meet the requirements of the high-stakes examination at the end of every school year. However, this can cause the perception that homework is routine and mundane.
2. For parents
Parents who observe their children doing homework often become curious or even disgruntled at the time spent in this activity or approach taken by their children. While they understand the need for homework, some parents who bear in mind the mental and physical well-being of their children question whether the quantity of work given is necessary and beneficial for their children’s learning. To manage parental expectations, schools tend to have established homework policies that manage the quantity of work given, considering worsening mental health trends such as potentially increased risk of depression due to reduced opportunity to sleep when students spend a long amount of time on homework or studying (Yeo et al., 2020).
3. For teachers
Teachers generally view homework as an extension of classroom instruction that is essential for their students’ learning. Most importantly, the teachers used homework to provide feedback to students and back to themselves regarding student knowledge, retaining knowledge, and mastery of skills and concepts (Saam & Jeong, 2013). On the non-academic aspect of education, teachers give homework to provide opportunities for students to acquire certain habits, mindsets, and values, such as good study habits, a sense of responsibility, a growth mindset, and self-efficacy. High achieving students are hypothesized to form higher self-efficacy beliefs about capacity for self-learning and to be more responsible for their academic success. Warton (1997) comments that homework is an activity which can promote self-regulated learning. When tasks are completed independently but also that the tasks are initiated by the learner, without constant reminders or supervision, it can be suggested that the learner has acquired a sense of responsibility. Another issue that arises is homework being a key performance indicator, or as a “department need” where teachers are being mandated to set a certain quota of work with a certain frequency. With time being a factor, design of appropriate homework tasks may be sacrificed for efficiency.
Understanding tudent voice in improving homework design
To understand how students perceive homework, and for homework to lead to more meaningful outcome, we could understand student voice better by modifying the Receptivity to Instructional Feedback scale (Lipnevich & Lopera-Oquendo, 2022) to discover their receptivity to homework in the domains of experiential attitudes, instrumental attitudes, cognitive engagement, and behavioural engagement. With these findings, we can pave the way forward for teachers to ensure that homework is enjoyed, valued, and not seen as a disliked, solitary activity. They can consider the distinctions of (a) amount, (b) purpose, (c) skill area, (d) choice for the student, (e) completion deadline, (f) degree of individualization, and (g) social context when designing homework tasks (Cooper, 2015). To elaborate, amount refers to how often homework is given, and how much time is required for completion. Difficulty level can also vary, from easily mastered material to challenging assignments, and not necessarily presented separately. The instructional purposes of homework can also be made clear to students as either to reinforce existing learning, to master specific skills, or to transfer previously learned knowledge or skills to novel situations. Furthermore, since social goals are not necessarily in conflict with academic goals, degree of individualization can differ by being geared towards either individual students or groups of students as a breather from monotony, and to create social responsibility. To encourage student voice, choice and autonomy can be encouraged by utilizing a mixture of compulsory and optional questions.
Homework is unlikely to fulfill its role in contributing to the development of generic skills such as time management and learning autonomy unless it is viewed in a relatively favorable light by students. The challenge for the education profession is to move from viewing homework policies in terms of time spent by students and tasks to be completed to developing a view of homework as an opportunity to truly encourage seamless learning across home and school contexts (Warton, 2001).
Homework by itself is part of the teacher’s arsenal and does not exist in silo. Another pertinent factor for students to engage in homework, is the follow up with meaningful feedback. The “more a teacher was involved, invested, and reflective in homework practices, the teacher was more likely to provide meticulous feedback, individualized explanation as to how to improve students’ homework performance, and even meaningful alternatives to the routine homework assignments” (Saam & Jeong, 2013).
Defining feedback
The next pointed issue is a lack of improvement despite the repetitive practice and feedback provided from the teacher in homework. In my context, these possible issues have arisen; feedback is uni-directional from the teacher to student, the student is unable to utilise the feedback, the student decidedly does not utilise the provided feedback.
If feedback is defined as information given by an agent regarding aspects of one’s performance or understanding (Hattie & Timperley, 2007), it becomes tiresome for the agent, usually the teacher especially when there is no reciprocation. For feedback to be sustainable and more effective, there needs to be a shift from a transmission-focused model from an agent to a learning-focused model of feedback in which students engage with the feedback. For the learning-focused model of feedback, the definition of feedback is “a process in which students make use of performance – relevant information to promote their learning” (Winstone & Carless, 2021, p.262). This suggests that feedback can come from any source and students take action to process the information given or provided to improve their learning. In other words, feedback for a learner provides validation of effort and guidance for future development, giving information about how grading decisions are reached and can identify errors in their skills or understanding. (Winstone and Carless, 2021)
I shall use Table 1 to suggest a mapping of concepts from different authors.
Issues and interventions
The three issues mentioned regarding feedback being interwoven but I shall attempt to look at each issue individually where possible.
To tackle the issue of unidirectional feedback, considerations can be made to shift “balance of responsibility from a passive and powerless role to one which they could take some responsibility for their interaction with the marker.” (Bloxham & Campbell, 2010). To make this visible, the use of an interactive cover sheet provides an opportunity to document the reflective process and capture the students’ thinking. Suitable question prompts or scaffolds can be provided from the marker to encourage student thinking about errors made and how to mitigate them in the form of a guided reflection. This would help students acquire understanding of what teachers expect of them and provide structure to help students identify the nature of the gaps in their work, be it a lack of understanding of question demand, or lack of comprehensive answering technique.
Some students may lack the skill to understand feedback given so questions such as “Do I understand the feedback?” help the learner with generating self-feedback as a response to external feedback in terms of cognitive processing (Lipnevich & Smith, 2022). After receiving verbal feedback, or after reading through the comments indicated by the teacher, students should reflect on current progress. They can be more empowered to use their past work as a feedback instrument, which informs them on the feed forward process to know how to close the gap to fulfill good performance, or the necessary success criteria. This past homework now forms part of a repository for future revision and retrieval, and any further questions can always be brought to the teacher for further discussion.
I believe the last issue of students not utilising feedback runs parallel to the issue of not utilizing homework for learning. In a simplistic manner, having students comment about “How do I feel about the homework?” and “What am I doing with the homework?” after work completion serves as feedback to the teacher about issues such as task difficulty and engagement, which informs future homework design. Upon receiving marked work with feedback, answering the questions “How do I feel about the feedback?” and “What am I doing with the feedback?” enable students to reflect on their affective processing and behavioural processing (Lipnevich & Smith, 2022). The perception of the importance of feedback can differ from student to student depending on their goal orientation and desires, and it will translate into action of different types. Joughin et al. (2020) suggest that individuals with a “learning goal orientation” will seek diagnostic feedback that will help them change, while a person with a “performance goal orientation” will be more concerned with how they are seen by others and how they see themselves. Individual differences also play a part in the feelings generated by feedback. If the recipient interprets feedback as threatening to their sense of self, it can lead to defensive behaviour (Fulham et al., 2022). Conversely, in well intentioned and sensitively developed feedback messages, the more the student understands what the teacher is saying, the more likely the student is to have a positive response to the feedback (Lipnevich & Smith, 2022). For the behavioural processing, students need to share the same vision that their teachers transmit about positive attitudes toward learning being beneficial in the future, and that feedback can go beyond academic applications. Essentially, the use of an interactive cover sheet serves as a medium for conversation between teacher and student on a more regular basis.
Implications for feedback
Teachers adopt roles as designers of learning environments in which there are opportunities and incentives for students to act on feedback information (Carless, 2023). Identifying, differentiating, and responding to varying student needs provide opportunities for student engagement. It goes against a ‘one size fits all’ feedback which is easy to provide. Prior experience has a strong influence on practice, so natural transmission-focused approaches to feedback tend to sustain themselves. Thus, while feedback isn’t wholly the responsibility of the teacher, teacher beliefs, motivation and differences play a huge role in the type of feedback given to students, and whether they decide to engage students through feedback.
Relationally, the teacher needs to create a safe environment by building strong positive relationships with the class. When students perceive that they are cared for, and they know there is tolerance for mistakes, and there is no judgement and bias, they feel safe. In this environment, students are empowered, enabled and it will be easier to promote positive student affective behaviour for students to receive feedback, as they are being seen as a credible other to give feedback, and being fair.
Integrating homework in Assessment for Learning (AfL)
Newby and Winterbottom (2011) assert there is little evidence to suggest that AfL techniques have been widely embraced by teachers as part of homework, given that teachers find it challenging to incorporate AfL into their teaching. Key principles for effective AfL include “(i) effective questioning, (ii) sharing learning objectives and assessment criteria, (iii) providing effective feedback about how to improve, and (iv) self- and peer-assessment” (Newby & Winterbottom, 2011).
I believe that homework and feedback form a tight knit for the purpose of AfL. Questions can be asked in person and in class for AfL or can take the form of a designed homework task meeting the necessary purposes of either consolidation of learning, building on existing learning, or fixing of learning gaps, or even the transfer of learning. For homework to take on greater meaning, homework can take the form of research projects that encourage greater student autonomy, which provides opportunities for improvement. Having and sharing clear expectations of learning objectives and assessment criteria also serve as the bedrock for the understanding of the standards required. Feedback is necessary to enable students to understand where they are, and finally, self-assessment provides a medium for developing personal feedback literacy and peer assessment provide context for social learning, which can encourage peers to learn from each other. By including self and peer assessment techniques, by reviewing and commenting on each other’s work, they become more aware of the standards required and that serves as feedback that they can act on to modify their work and better meet assessment criteria.
In a secondary school context, increased engagement can come about by the research project being interesting or authentic to the students’ world, thus increasing the relatedness students feel, providing sufficient challenge that encourages desire to prove one’s competence in performing a task, or even by giving students increased amount of time to think and develop deeper understanding of the relevant concept. Through a questionnaire, students recognized that it was useful to assess someone else’s work before handing in their own work (Newby & Winterbottom, 2011). Through anecdotal evidence with some of my students, identifying the mistakes of others helped them avoid making similar mistakes for themselves. Social mixing can also occur during this process as students tend to be more accepting of comments from their peers as opposed to comments from a singular adult such as the teacher. This of course, does not preclude quiet students from being heard, as comments can take multiple forms of representation from being written to being verbal.
Through multiple rounds of practice, and increased awareness of success criteria, students can be developed to sift out instances where their peers are inadequate in their explanation during self or peer assessment, and this further develops their feedback literacy.
Conclusion
Designing of homework tasks that are relevant, appropriate, and appealing to students requires clear understanding of content and the necessary assessment tools. Understanding student voice can aid in the development of homework that aids students in a differentiated manner. All homework as with classwork requires feedback for students to demonstrate and develop their understanding of the lesson content for them to achieve the learning outcomes and meet assessment criteria in the long run. Providing students with an opportunity to critique each other’s work breaks monotony of a single source of feedback, allowing social learning to take place. That said, not all homework needs to be a long-drawn affair, some can be kept short to serve the various purposes intended by the teacher. In my view, homework, feedback and AfL can be seen as parts of a jigsaw puzzle which when completed, paints a holistic picture of how teaching and learning culture can look like.
References
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