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THEORY INTO PRACTICE / Summer 2004Homework

Many of the discussions in both the popular andacademic press assume that the key participantsand stakeholders have the same understandingsabout homework and its meanings. However, thisis not necessarily the case. For example, in thewidely reported tension and conflict in familiesabout homework completion, one contributing fac-tor may be the meanings students, parents, andeducators ascribe to homework and the purposesit fulfills. This article examines how research hasconsidered these varying meanings and perceptionsand how they may impact student attitudes andbehaviors toward homework. The article arguesthat the positive outcomes of homework frequentlycited by parents (such as motivational, academic,and life skills benefits) are less recognized by chil-dren, especially elementary students. In most cases,the mismatch is likely to be between the student fo-cus on proximal costs of homework and the adultfocus on long-term benefits. The implications of theseunderstanding for practitioners is then discussed.

I get nothing out of homework. I know everythingthat’s in it and it’s boring and a waste of time. It

would be better if you actually learned somethingfrom homework. You only learn things at school sowhat’s the point of doing it again at night? You’vehad six hours at school. It means I can’t ride mybike and play outside with my friends. (Mike, Grade 5)

The benefits are when he goes to high school, he’salready used to doing it. It’s time management. Heknows he has to do it and he has to take the conse-quences if he doesn’t. He’s not too young to havethat responsibility. It’s a life lesson that there arethings you have to do on a daily basis whether youreally want to do them or not. It also reinforces whatthey’ve learned during the day. (Mike’s mother)

NOT ALL CHILDREN RESENT HOMEWORK. Indeed, some parents report their preschooler re-

quests homework, either real or pretend, in an ef-fort to emulate their older siblings. They see it aswork and as signifying a more grown-up status.Why then does homework frequently become achore and a source of dispute by the time childrenare in middle school? One contributing factor isthat parents and children often hold very differentviews about the topic. As a consequence, the op-portunities for conflict and resistance arise whenopinions expressed about homework’s purpose andbenefits are as discrepant as those held by Mikeand his mother.

Homework itself, as other articles in this is-sue illustrate, is a complex issue. There is tremen-dous variety in its practices, in the type and amountof work assigned, where and when it is completed

Pamela M. Coutts

Meanings of Homework andImplications for Practice

Pamela M. Coutts is an associate professor and Headof the School of Education, Australian Centre for Edu-cational Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney.

THEORY INTO PRACTICE, Volume 43, Number 3, Summer 2004Copyright © 2004 College of Education, The Ohio State University

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Meanings of HomeworkCoutts

(with or without parental involvement), and whetheror not it is graded by teachers. All of these factorsmay be linked to the young student’s attitudes tohomework. Within this article, however, I am fo-cusing on one particular aspect: views about thepurpose of homework and the likelihood of parent-child agreement about those views. Throughout, asabove, I will illustrate the theoretical issues withquotations from a study in progress of interviewswith Australian parents and their children aboutthe purpose, costs, and benefits of homework.

The Adult Viewpoint: “It’s Life—We Have to Do Things”

Homework is to teach the child later in life theyhave responsibility and they have to be disciplinedto get things done. It’s life—we have to do things. Itteaches the child to think for themselves. It’s a step-ping stone to future education and how the systemworks. To get good marks and get into Universitythey have to put the work in. (Father of Jane, Grade4)

The research literature (Epstein, 1988) rec-ognizes a number of established reasons why teach-ers assign homework. These can be grouped as (a)academic functions (e.g., to complete unfinishedwork, revise, drill, consolidate, prepare, expand onconcepts introduced in the classroom); (b) moregeneral socialization purposes (e.g., to encourageresponsibility, study skills, or time management)—what Epstein and Van Voorhis (2001) call “per-sonal development;” (c) home/school/communitycommunication; and (d) school and system require-ments (e.g., to ease time constraints in a crowdedcurriculum). Obviously, not all reasons apply inany one situation and those designated functionsare not equally applicable across stages of school-ing. In general, however, parents see homework’spotential benefit largely as achievement-related; itleads to increased success on classwork and fos-ters attitudes and habits that lead to successful fu-ture learning. These beliefs, of course, aresupported by research that has consistently showna positive correlation between time spent on home-work and achievement for high school students(Cooper & Valentine, 2001).

Parents are often future-oriented when think-ing about the potential benefits of homework, asillustrated in the quotation from Jane’s father. Other

more abstract benefits are also strong in parentalviewpoints: the emphasis on the development ofqualities such as responsibility, self-regulation, andtime management emerge in reports from parentsof young elementary children (Warton, 1998; Xu& Corno, 1998). One difficulty for children is thatthese future benefits may have limited immediaterelevance. Little research, however, has investigat-ed whether individual parents’ views about thepurpose of homework are tailored to the under-standings and needs of their children. It is tempt-ing to propose that the more direct educationalobjective of completing homework to improve ac-ademic achievement will become more salient toparents as the child progresses through the educa-tional system and encounters an increasing empha-sis on formal assessment procedures and feedback.

Not all parents are entirely positive about thepurposes of homework, regardless of whether thereare disputes within the family about its comple-tion. Indeed, previous research (Warton, 1998) hasillustrated that in one sample approximately onefourth of elementary students’ mothers did not com-pletely accept the official educational rhetoric abouthomework benefits for young students. Some wereambivalent, others considered reasons for assign-ing homework had more to do with routinely im-plementing school policy or completing a crowdedcurriculum than with student benefits. When theperceived purposes accrue no personal benefit tothe child, it is difficult for the parent to remainpositive and, presumably, to convey positive mes-sages to the child about homework’s importance.

The purpose of homework is to consolidate, but Ifirmly believe it’s also to get through the curriculumbecause it cannot fit into the school day. (Mother ofJakob, Grade 2)

Occasionally a more vehement view is expressed,as in the following comment from a parent whowas also a first grade teacher:

I hate homework. I hate giving homework, I hatemarking homework, I hate supervising homework.But parents who are not teachers put a lot of impor-tance on homework, and they judge teachers on howmuch homework they give.

This quotation illustrates another argument, name-ly, that many teachers assign homework becausethe school community will judge them harshly if

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they do not. In the main, however, most parentsacknowledge potential benefits of homework inboth academic and life-skill spheres. The negativeaspects of homework that the parent/teacher quot-ed above are more consistent with the views ofmany students, not parents.

The Student ViewpointI’d much prefer school to be 2 hours longer insteadof coming home and having to do homework. (Matt,Grade 7)

As the group intimately involved in complet-ing homework, children necessarily hold somewhatdifferent ideas of the task than adults. Neverthe-less, if the long-term benefits of homework as de-scribed by adults are to be achieved, homeworkmust eventually be completed by the learner, will-ingly and in good spirit. Consequently, a motiva-tional framework is useful for examining thechildren’s views regarding homework. Many of thereasons for completing homework are extrinsic, butif students are to develop attributes such as responsi-bility through completing homework there must alsobe an intrinsic component. As a result, the student’ssubjective or perceived task value is critical. AsEccles (1983) argues, both positive and negative fac-tors influence perceived task value, and for chil-dren the negative factors regarding homework areoften substantial. The factors commonly regardedas relevant to the task value of homework as anachievement-related activity are its importance orutility, its intrinsic value, and the perceived costs.These clearly vary with the age of the students andtheir understandings about homework, but little re-search has examined developmental changes inchildren’s ideas about homework except by infer-ence from cross-sectional studies. The followingsection outlines the principal findings.

Importance and utility of homeworkIf homework plays a part in establishing and

consolidating child beliefs and study patterns re-garding academic work, it can be argued that theelementary years are especially critical. However,what is remarkable in young students’ accountsand ideas about homework is the almost completeabsence of reference to the benefits that parentslist. When asked about homework, young children

reply simplistically in terms of homework’s pur-pose being to learn or revise (Warton, 1997; Xu &Corno, 1998). For adults, it may appear obviousthat there is a link between learning and achieve-ment, but for young children this may not be thecase. Part of what children acquire through the for-mal school system is an understanding of the con-nection between certain learning activities andformal learning outcomes as well as the languageto describe cognition. As Kreutzer, Leonard, andFlavell’s (1975) pioneering work on the develop-ment of metamemory clearly demonstrated, youngchildren have limited knowledge about many as-pects of their cognition, from matters as basic asthe items they need to review in order to improverecall. It is not surprising, therefore, that whenfaced with a question about the purpose of home-work, they reply in a general sense without anydetailed understanding of what it means “to learn”or “to revise.” In contrast, research (Warton, 1998)indicates that parents describe the academic goalof homework in the first years of schooling as topractice and consolidate important, basic literacyand numeracy skills but also describe as equally, ifnot more important, the goals of developing variouslife skills such as maintaining routines and being re-sponsible. There is almost no current research thatsuggests young children perceive time managementor study skills as outcomes of homework or per-ceive these parental beliefs about homework.

Furthermore, there is a sense, both from theirown accounts and that of parents, that many youngchildren complete homework to avoid getting intotrouble (either at school or at home) or to please theirteacher or parent (Corno, 2000; Warton, 2001).

If you don’t do your homework, Miss gets really,really angry. . . . Well not really angry but really,really sad about it. (Eve, Grade 1)

This lack of focus on self-benefits and emphasison completion of homework for reasons of com-pliance may be seen as valid aspects of homework’sutility for children, but they are not what adultsusually mean by the term. Young children mayinfer the importance of homework from the adultsaround them—from the efforts many parents putin place to ensure homework is completed, or fromthe reactions their efforts to avoid or delay home-work might provoke in parents and teachers. But it

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is clearly not for some years that they come tounderstand some of the broader advantages of do-ing homework (see Warton, 1997 for a discussionof the development of understanding about respon-sibility in this context).

When some longer term perspective emergesin student ideas, it is usually in terms of home-work in elementary school providing a preparationfor homework in later years of schooling.

I’m going to have to do it in high school so it’s goodthat I learn how now. (Jenny, Grade 5)

The implication of such a comment is that home-work facilitates learning to work independently. Ref-erences to responsibility for homework also begin toemerge in students’ responses by the end of elemen-tary school (Warton, 1997). As has been previouslyacknowledged (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1997),direct parental involvement in homework declinesover time, and parents frequently nominate the endof elementary school as a turning point in the typeand level of involvement in their children’s home-work. Agreement between some children and theirparents about the usefulness of homework as ameans of learning responsibility and as prepara-tion for future study indicates that some of theparental ideas about homework are being both rec-ognized and assimilated.

By high school, student responses about thepurposes of homework focus strongly on consoli-dation and revision, with the acknowledgement thatthere is not always sufficient time within classesfor the teacher to do anything other than introducematerial. As a consequence, some students are pos-itive about the chance to “actually learn it our-selves so we can refer and reflect on the lessonafterwards” (Marcus, Grade 10). By high schoolalso, the pattern where academically able studentsboth receive more homework and spend more timeon it than other students is well established. More-over, an increasing proportion of secondary stu-dents complete no assigned homework (Campbell,Hombo, & Mazzeo, 2000). When asked abouthomework, however, students make no referenceto the personal development benefits of homeworksuch as taking responsibility for learning and timemanagement. While it is clear by their actions thatacademically focused adolescents have developedthese skills, their lack of explicit reference to them

as homework outcomes suggests that such skillsare assumed to be in place. It also suggests thatparents and educators of this age group no longerview homework as a means of encouraging moregeneral socialization benefits. It is another warn-ing to researchers to be cautious of generalizationsabout homework meanings that do not take possi-ble developmental differences into account.

Intrinsic value of homeworkWhile there is some developmental progres-

sion in understanding the importance or utility ofhomework, and some convergence with the adultviewpoint, there appears to be an absence of a sim-ilar pattern regarding the intrinsic value of home-work. When children enter school, they may appearexcited by the idea of homework, but it takes aremarkably short period of time before many aredisillusioned. In one study, a significant propor-tion of students in the early years of school (grades1 to 3) agreed that homework was dull and boring(Bryan, Nelson, & Mathur, 1995). By the middleyears of elementary school it is the most commondescription of regular homework. From the stu-dent perspective, homework can be boring eitherbecause it is routine and more of the same, or it isjust too easy. In each case, the teacher has usuallyassigned homework for a particular purpose (e.g.,for consolidation of learning, or to instill regularrevision and study habits) that is either not recog-nized or not acknowledged by the students. If wewant students to be intrinsically motivated to learnand to complete homework, it would be of benefitif the task itself was valued and viewed as inter-esting and engaging, regardless of any links be-tween the task and other outcomes.

Perceived homework costsAll tasks have costs associated with them.

From a parent’s point of view, the costs of home-work are most explicitly stated in terms of timetaken to supervise children and the conflict or dis-putes within the family over homework and its com-pletion. In contrast, many children and adolescentsfeel negatively about the homework activity itself,as well as the interactions surrounding it. Overall,the level of dissatisfaction with homework appearshigher for those most closely involved, namely the

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students, than for either parents or teachers (Cooper,Lindsay, Nye, & Greathouse, 1998).

When so many students describe homeworkas boring and lacking intrinsic interest, it is notsurprising that the activity is not liked. However,the attitude about homework for many goes be-yond a neutral opinion to an active dislike. In Chenand Stevenson’s (1989) study, for example, morethan 60% of fifth grade students in their U.S. sam-ple felt negative about homework, while Leone andRichards (1989) found adolescents rated homeworkas a more negative experience than class work.Significantly, this latter study gives us a clue aboutone of the contributing factors to this negative at-titude: the typically solitary nature of the home-work task and the separation of homework fromthe social aspects of learning. In their study, ado-lescents reported higher levels of interest and pos-itive affect when completing homework withfriends rather than with family members or bythemselves (Leone & Richards, 1989).

Homework activities frequently not only re-quire students to work independently but have ad-ditional costs in terms of time taken away fromfriends. The social group for students in middlechildhood and early adolescence is especially im-portant; for many the social goals of schooling aremore important than academic goals (Wentzel,1989). As Urdan and Maehr (1995) argue, the re-lationship between social goals and achievementbehavior is complex. Although academic and so-cial goals are not necessarily in conflict, many stu-dents are explicit that homework is an activity thatprevents or disrupts other more desirable leisureactivities, such as sports or just spending time withfriends. If homework is seen as a barrier to suc-cessful group involvement, there is no guaranteethat it will be chosen over social, peer-orientedactivities, despite parental and teacher pressure.

Comparison of adult and student viewpointsThere is little doubt that parents and elemen-

tary students interpret the purposes of homeworksomewhat differently. One of the complicating fea-tures of the acquisition of values and beliefs abouthomework is that typically, as the vignette fromMike and his mother illustrates, parents talk most-ly in terms of long-term socialization goals, while

children focus on the immediate negative conse-quences. A superficial response to this discrepan-cy between the general, overarching, socializationgoals of parents and the relatively short-term, in-strumental goals held by students would be to sug-gest that if children in the early years of schoolingwere to understand the longer term goals espousedby their parents, there would be less likelihood ofconflict. This, however, underestimates the com-plexity of the issue and the developmental patternsin understanding and priorities.

There is a convergence of viewpoints of par-ents, educators, and students in middle and highschool years in that homework is seen by all par-ticipants as a vehicle for academic progress. Con-sequently, there is a disjunction between the moresophisticated and abstract socialization goals forhomework in elementary school and the relativelydirect, achievement-related goals for older students.Because proximal goals and timely feedback arekey aspects to improving self-efficacy (Pajares,2002), it is ironic that these are more readily pro-vided to older students in the context of the moreexplicit academic outcomes than with elementarystudents and outcomes such as the development ofresponsibility. The issue with secondary school stu-dents is not a lack of understanding about the aca-demic benefits homework may provide, but theperception that the immediate, associated costs maybe greater than the potential benefits. As a result,adolescents may reject those academic goals. Thissituation is exacerbated by the tendency of home-work policies and practices to encourage extrinsicrather than intrinsic motivation through the typesof activities required.

Implications for PracticeBefore suggesting some implications for prac-

tice from the differing viewpoints of parents and chil-dren, a word of caution is in order. This article hasfocused on the adult perspective from a parent’s viewsrather than a teacher’s views. While these are verysimilar, especially with regard to the socializationgoals of homework, research indicates some dif-ferences in viewpoints—specifically in expectationsabout the quality of completed homework and thetime required to be spent on it. Bryan, Burstein,and Bryan (2001) review such issues in regard to

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students with learning disabilities. The importanceof these differences cannot be understated sincethe likelihood of contention within the family isgreat when the messages from home and schoolare not completely in synch. Consequently, clearcommunication between student, parent, and teach-er is essential about meanings and intended bene-fits of homework. School homework policiesdeveloped in partnership with the community wouldseem to offer a good starting point, especially ifthese policies provide a framework explaining thephilosophy behind the setting of homework, thesupport parents can provide, and the mechanics ofhomework practices.

The second point is the need for consistencybetween the planned purposes of homework andthe type of task assigned. For example, if the in-tention is to foster good work habits in the earlyyears of school, this may be better met by assign-ing very small but regular amounts of homeworkin order to establish a routine. Surprisingly, manyAustralian schools in the first years of school pro-vide a weekly sheet to be signed by the parentsand returned at week’s end. Such a process essen-tially places the responsibility for remembering andtime management on the parent instead of on thestudent. A limited amount of homework assignedeach day will place fewer memory demands on theyoung child and is likely to help in the early estab-lishment of a regular routine. Additionally, in sucha procedure it is important for the child to be cog-nizant that one of the important reasons they aregiven daily homework is to help them learn to re-member without reminders. It is then a small stepto discuss issues of responsibility.

Perhaps the most important issue to consideris the type of homework activity assigned. It ap-pears that McBeath’s (1996) argument of “a hiatusbetween class work and homework,” where classwork is seen as far more varied, stimulating, andinteresting than typical homework, has not beenheeded sufficiently. School systems have account-ability here as well, given the frequency of com-plaints about overcrowded curriculums. Buthowever tempting it may be for teachers to makecompletion of sets of work begun in the classroomas part of homework, it will be viewed as a penal-ty for lack of performance by less able students.

More importantly, in such circumstances the stu-dents are required to complete the work withoutboth the academic and social support found in aclassroom. Nevertheless, this is an area where therehave been recent promising advances: innovativeapproaches to homework that encourage true home-school partnerships (e.g., TIPS, Epstein & VanVoorhis, 2001) or initiatives in Strathclyde, Scot-land for supported study centers open after schoolhours to support the learning of disadvantaged stu-dents (McBeath, 1996). What these have in com-mon is a view that the social context, as well asthe physical environment, is important for learn-ing. They address the social isolation that manymiddle and high school students find so alienatingabout homework.

The challenge for teachers who do not haveaccess to one of these programs is to assign home-work that strengthens the targeted skills and knowl-edge but in a way that is relevant and interestingto students who all too often see homework’s costs.As a consequence, the levels of dispute within afamily may diminish as students begin to focus onfuture homework benefits.

ReferencesBryan, T., Burstein, K., & Bryan, J. (2001). Students

with learning disabilities: Homework problems andpromising practices. Educational Psychologist, 36,167-180.

Bryan, T., Nelson, C., & Mathur, S. (1995). Home-work: A survey of primary students in regular,resource, and self-contained special educationclassrooms. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 27,85-90.

Campbell, J.R., Hombo, C.M., & Mazzeo, J. (2000).NAEP 1999 trends in academic progress: Threedecades of student performance. Washington, DC:U.S. Department of Education/NCES 2000-469.

Chen, C., & Stevenson, H.W. (1989). Homework: Across-cultural examination. Child Development, 60,551-561.

Cooper, H., Lindsay, J.J., Nye, B., & Greathouse, S.(1998). Relationships among attitudes about home-work, amount of homework assigned and complet-ed, and student achievement. Journal ofEducational Psychology, 90, 70-83

Cooper, H., & Valentine, J.C. (2001). Using researchto answer practical questions about homework.Educational Psychologist, 36, 143-153.

Corno, L. (2000). Looking at homework differently.The Elementary School Journal, 100, 529-548.

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Eccles, J.S. (1983). Expectancies, values and academicbehaviors. In J.T. Spence (Ed.), Achievement andachievement motives: Psychological and sociologi-cal approaches (pp. 75-146). San Francisco: Freeman.

Epstein, J.L. (1988). Homework practices, achieve-ments, and behaviors of elementary school stu-dents. Baltimore, MD: Center for Research onElementary and Middle Schools, Johns HopkinsUniversity. (ERIC Document Reproduction ServiceNo. PS017621)

Epstein, J.L., & Van Voorhis, F.L. (2001). More thanminutes: Teachers’ roles in designing homework.Educational Psychologist, 36, 181-193.

Hoover-Dempsey, H.V., & Sandler, H.M. (1997). Whydo parents become involved in their children’seducation? Review of Educational Research, 67,3-42.

Kreutzer, M.A., Leonard, C., & Flavell, J.H. (1975).An interview study of children’s knowledge aboutmemory. Monographs of the Society for Researchin Child Development, 40(1, Serial no. 159).

Leone, C.M., & Richards, M.H. (1989). Classwork andhomework in early adolescence: The ecology ofachievement. Journal of Youth and Adolescence,18, 207-222.

McBeath, J. (1996). Developing skills for life afterschool. Forum of Education, 51(1), 13-22.

Pajares, F. (2002). Gender and perceived self-efficacyin self-regulated learning. Theory Into Practice,41(2), 116-125.

Urdan, T.C., & Maehr, M. (1995). Beyond a two-goaltheory of motivation and achievement: A case forsocial goals. Review of Educational Research, 65,213-243.

Warton, P.M. (1997). Learning about responsibility:Lessons from homework. British Journal of Edu-cational Psychology, 67, 213-221.

Warton, P.M. (1998). Australian mothers’ views aboutresponsibility for homework. Research in Educa-tion, 59, 50-58.

Warton, P.M. (2001). The forgotten voices in home-work: Views of students. Educational Psycholo-gist, 36, 155-165.

Wentzel, K. (1989). Adolescent classroom goals, stan-dards for performance, and academic achievement:An interactionist perspective. Journal of Educa-tional Psychology, 81, 131-142.

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