(4) Research-Based Guidelines for Homework

Here are some of the research-based guidelines for homework that are available to the Dept of Education, to schools, to teachers, to anyone with a little bit of digging. Very probably there are more... if you find some, please email me (talbotmrstuart@gmail.com) and, after reviewing their authenticity, I might well add them here and so you'll be helping others.

(1) Marzano & Pickering…

March 2007 | Volume 64 | Number 6 Responding to Changing Demographics Pages 74-79 Special Topic / The Case For and Against Homework Robert J. Marzano and Debra J. Pickering
…
"Research provides strong evidence that, when used appropriately, homework benefits student achievement. To make sure that homework is appropriate, teachers should follow these guidelines:

• Assign purposeful homework. Legitimate purposes for homework include introducing new content, practicing a skill or process that students can do independently but not fluently, elaborating on information that has been addressed in class to deepen students' knowledge, and providing opportunities for students to explore topics of their own interest.
• Design homework to maximize the chances that students will complete it.
• For example, ensure that homework is at the appropriate level of difficulty.
• Students should be able to complete homework assignments independently with relatively high success rates, but they should still find the assignments challenging enough to be interesting.
• Involve parents in appropriate ways (for example, as a sounding board to help students summarize what they learned from the homework) without requiring parents to act as teachers or to police students' homework completion.
• Carefully monitor the amount of homework assigned so that it is appropriate to students' age levels and does not take too much time away from other home activities."

https://www.siprep.org/uploaded/ProfessionalDevelopment/Readings/Homework.pdf

(2) Harris Cooper, 2006

Cooper and his team reviewed more than 60 research studies on homework between 1987 and 2003. 

“Homework for young students should:

• be short, 
• lead to success without much struggle, 
• occasionally involve parents and, 
• when possible, use out-of-school activities that kids enjoy, such as their sports teams or high-interest reading."

--Harris Cooper
https://today.duke.edu/2006/03/homework.html

(3) Canadian Council, 2009

To improve the assignment of homework, the Canadian Council (2009) give some general recommendations from its review of 18 research studies. These include

• focusing on homework type rather than homework quantity; 
• incorporating a meta-cognitive aspect to it; 
• assigning homework judiciously, taking into account many factors including the impact on families;
• understand that homework will affect students differently, with low-achieving students and older students (aged 14 plus) having the most to gain; 
• to maximize effect, aim to increase intrinsic motivation.

For full details, see pages 48 and 49 of its full report, i.e. its "systematic review of literature examining the impact of homework on academic achievement." (Funding for the Council seems to have stopped and their website taken down: if you can't find a pdf of the report and you wish to then just email me for it and I'll email it back.)

(4) Carr, 2013

Similarly Carr reviews the literature on recommendations and says,
“Ultimately, effective homework should be

• purposeful, 
• efficient, 
• personalized, 
• doable, and 
• inviting.” 

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1004337.pdf (see p.175)

(5) Kohn and others (2012) 

While these guidelines are published in a newspaper article (the Washington Post), it summarises the ideas of Alfie Kohn, a big name in homework research... 

3 new guidelines for ‘healthy homework’

By Valerie Strauss

June 25, 2012

…

Below are three recommendations for healthy homework, written in an effort to realign homework policy and practice with student learning, health and engagement. The authors are the team behind the documentary “Race to Nowhere,” led by director Vicki Abeles, as well as homework experts Etta Kralovec, co-author of “The End of Homework”; Alfie Kohn, author of “The Homework Myth”; and Sara Bennett, author of “The Case Against Homework.”

Here are the homework guidelines:

1. HOMEWORK SHOULD ADVANCE A SPIRIT OF LEARNING

Educators at all grade levels should assign homework only when:

• Such assignments demonstrably advance a spirit of learning, curiosity and inquiry among students.
• Such assignments demonstrably provide a unique learning opportunity or experience that cannot be had within the confines of the school setting or school day.
• Such assignments are not intended to enhance rote skill rehearsal or mastery. Rehearsal and repetition assignments should be completed within the confines of the school day, if they are required at all.
• Such assignments are not intended as a disciplinary or punitive measure, nor as a means of fostering competition among or assessment of students.

2. HOMEWORK SHOULD BE STUDENT-DIRECTED

Educators at all grade levels, but particularly in elementary and middle grades, should limit take-home assignments to:

• At-home reading chosen by the student.
• Project-based work chosen by the student.
• Experiential learning that integrates the student’s existing interests and family commitments.
• Work that can be completed without the assistance of a sibling, caregiver or parent.

3. HOMEWORK SHOULD PROMOTE A BALANCED SCHEDULE

Educators at all grade levels should avoid assigning or requiring homework:

• On non-school nights, including weekends, school holidays, or winter or summer breaks.
• On the nights of major or all-school events, concerts, or sports activities.
• When a child is sick or absent from school.
• When it conflicts with a child’s parental, family, religious or community obligations.

We the undersigned acknowledge that the above commitments will ask of school leaders that they provide teachers with professional development support and time to restructure their classroom practices to eliminate an over-reliance on homework.

We believe that such support and restructuring will help us to ensure that homework can better:

• Support learning and engagement among students, regardless of family background, income level, or caregivers’ educational status.
• Narrow the achievement gap by ensuring that instruction, rehearsal, mastery and remediation happens primarily at school and in the classroom, rather than at home, where resources and instructional support are less equitably distributed.
• Enhance family engagement with schools and students by providing parents and caregivers more opportunities to influence and collaborate on homework policy and practice.
• Provide time for students to develop a rich array of extracurricular personal interests and to engage in meaningful family, religious, community, creative or athletic activities outside of school.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/3-new-guidelines-for-healthy-homework/2012/06/25/gJQAFcV30V_blog.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.318d455b9b8f

(5) Vatterot, 2017; Rudman 2014; Felicello 2018; and more!

It was thanks to Joan Kiely of Marino College's super presentation at the National Parents Council Education Conference in Dublin in June 2019 (video available here), where I presented too (video available here), that I learned of Cathy Vatterot's 2017's and Rudman's 2014 research-based guidelines.

Joan is one of the authors of the 2019 Irish research paper 'Parental Involvement, Engagement and Partnership in their Children’s Education during the Primary School Years', which states many recommendations from the literature from pages 39 to 41...

• Enjoy!... "It is recommended that teachers use a metacognitive approach to homework, do not grade homework and make homework fun (Felicello, 2018)."
• Differentiate!... "Teachers should make available several kinds of homework instructions along with various types of homework assignments to meet specific learners' needs (Hong and Milgram, 2000) and interests (Felicello, 2018; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001; Trautwein et al., 2006), because according to Rudman (2014), if homework is planned to meet students' individual learning styles, it is more effective as a learning tool."
• Allow Choice!... "Vatterot (2017) asked students to create their own homework assignments and self-monitor their progress, and showed that personalised homework like this can work. Individualised homework develops learner confidence and allows students to be in control of their own learning (Vatterot, 2017)."
• For low achievers, use real-life assignments and...  "One of the most effective homework strategies amongst children who are low achievers is to give ‘real life’ assignments, and the use of homework planners and getting pupils to keep their own record of homework completion are also effective homework strategies for low achieving children (Rudman, 2014)"
• Everyday Contexts... Keep it Relatable... " Williams et al. (2017) also recommend situating homework in everyday contexts."
• Teachers to embrace parents as EQUAL partners, and recognise each parent is unique: "The role of parents in homework must be voluntary, respectful, and individualised, and the value of family life must be honoured (Vatterot, 2009). Traditionally schools have controlled how parents interacted with them and a cautionary word should be made that practices to foster home-school links are acts of collaboration rather than colonisation (Edwards and Warin, 1999). Therefore, power relationships between schools and parents must be addressed in order to embrace parents as equal partners in their child’s education. Future research must also bear in mind that parents are not a homogenous group and parents may think differently about homework depending on their experience of their children’s schools and their own culture and experience."
• Use the student's motivation to ensure engagement: "The literature on homework suggests that the key to academic success does not rely on the amount of homework done, but rather on how students engage on homework (Trautwein et al., 2009; Núñez et al., 2015c), and on how homework engagement is related with student motivation (Martin, 2012)."

It's good to see this report. It's great that the government is finally taking the first steps to reform homework. It's great too that the research carried out by Joan and her team found the same effects of homework on family life as I have highlighted from international research, e.g. "the fact that
homework feels mostly stressful to parents" on page 6 of their Executive Summary.

(6) Jackson and Harbison, 2014 

Ireland's own Joanne Jackson and Lorraine Harbison wrote a paper in the Irish Teachers Journal on homework in 2014 that I came across only in June 2018. Leah O'Toole et al's 2019 research paper 'Parental Involvement, Engagement and Partnership in their Children’s Education during the Primary School Years', summarises their research-based guidelines succintly:

• "Jackson and Harbison (2014) concluded that it is not the act of the assignment of homework that is important but rather the type of homework that is assigned. 
• Homework should have a clear purpose, 
• be customised to suit students’ needs, 
• promote student autonomy and 
• appeal to students aesthetically to motivate children (p.60). 
• Communication between parents and schools should be improved, with an emphasis on parent-school, rather than school-parent (p.61). 
• Finally, a radical overhaul of homework was deemed necessary by the authors, based on their findings (Jackson and Harbison, 2014, p.61)

Now that, hopefully, you've found something useful, I encourage you to act on it in your local context to help:

1. reduce stress for many children
2. boost enjoyment for all children, and
3. improve learning for all children.