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Homework attitudes and management strategies.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

This study linked family help and time spent on homework to homework attitudes and homework management strategies reported by 221 students in grades 11-12. Compared with those students who received no family help, students who received family help reported more frequently working to manage their homework. In addition, compared with students who spent less than three hours a week on homework, students who spent three hours or more reported having more positive attitudes toward homework and a more frequent use of homework management strategies.

Introduction

One important school task that is closely associated with self-regulation of learning is the reference task of homework (Corno, 2000; Schunk & Zimmerman, 1994; Xu, 2004; Xu & Corno, 1998). It is often stated that a major purpose of homework is to help students develop good study habits and desirable self-regulatory strategies, such as better time organization and greater self-direction (Cooper, 1989; Epstein & Van Voorhis, 2001; Warton, 2001; Xu & Yuan, 2003). However, the issue of how students manage homework has received little attention in homework research literature, particularly at the secondary school level (Bali, Demo, & Wedman, 1998; Xu & Corno, 2003). Recently, several studies have examined the role of family help (Xu & Corno, 2003, in press) on middle school homework management, including arranging the homework environment, managing time, focusing attention, monitoring motivation, and controlling emotion. However, no data were available from these studies about whether the use of homework management strategies was associated with time spent on doing homework.

The present study has linked family help and time spent on homework to high school students' attitudes toward homework and their efforts to manage their homework. This line of research is important, as students' efforts to manage their homework and their attitudes toward homework may be influenced by the amount of time they spend on doing homework, as high school students usually have been left out of public discussions of homework (Loveless, 2003).

Related Literature

The present investigation was informed by two lines of related literature: (a) literature that examines the role of family involvement on homework management; and (b) literature suggests a possible connection between time spent on homework on students' attitudes toward homework.

One study by McCaslin and Murdock (1991) implied that middle school children could learn from parents how to manage their homework. Researchers interviewed parents and children from one sixth-grade class in the Midwest concerning their homework interactions. In one family, the father encouraged his son to control negative emotions that arose during homework (Kuhl, 2000). When his son got upset with homework, he would tell the boy to calm down, so that he could get back on track and get to the bottom of the problem. Consequently,...

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