The motivational benefits of homework: a social-cognitive perspective

Theory Into Practice, Summer, 2004 by Janine Bempechat

This article argues that, as a pedagogical practice, homework plays a critical, long-term role in the development of children's achievement motivation. Homework provides children with time and experience to develop positive beliefs about achievement, as well as strategies for coping with mistakes, difficulties, and setbacks. This article reviews current research on achievement motivation and examines the ways parents and teachers encourage or inhibit the development of adaptive beliefs about learning. It then integrates the literature on homework and achievement motivation and shows that homework's motivational benefits, while not named as such, have been in evidence for some time. Finally, the article argues that homework is a vital means by which children can receive the training they need to become mature learners.

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HOMEWORK--TASKS THAT TEACHERS assign to students that are meant to be completed during out-of-school hours--persists as a controversial aspect of children's schooling. Beliefs about the value of homework and concerns over the quantity assigned have fluctuated, both as a function of advances in educational research and concerns about the United States' ability to be competitive on an international level. While educators support homework for its value in reinforcing daily learning and fostering the development of study skills, a backlash against the practice has been growing since the 1990s.

Critics who condemn homework point to the fact that research on the topic has produced inconsistent findings and argue that its impact on achievement, especially in elementary school, is, at best, unclear. If, in the lower grades, homework contributes little or not at all to academic achievement, then why engage in a practice that can promote conflict between parents and children and interfere with development in other domains, such as athletics and the arts (Wildman, 1968)? Why burden overstretched working parents and low-income parents, who are likely to have access to fewer resources to help their children? Perhaps the best recourse is to minimize or eliminate homework altogether.

The purpose of this article is to argue that, as a pedagogical practice, homework plays a critical, long-term role in the development of children's achievement motivation. More specifically, homework assignments provide children with the time and experience they need to develop beliefs about achievement and study habits that are helpful for learning, including the value of effort and the ability to cope with mistakes and difficulty. Skills such as these develop neither overnight, nor in a vacuum Rather, they are fostered over years through daily interactions with parents and teachers, whose own beliefs and attitudes about learning and education have a profound influence on children's developing beliefs about their intellectual abilities (Sigel McGillicuddy-DeLisi, & Goodnow, 1992). In this context, the singular focus on grades and test scores as the primary test of homework's effectiveness is short-sighted. If our goal is to prepare children for the demands of secondary schooling and beyond we need to pay as much attention to the development of skills that help children take initiative in their learning and maintain or regain their motivation when it wanes.

I begin with a brief overview of advances in research on achievement motivation that have provided us with a deeper understanding of how students' beliefs about achievement influence their performance in school. I pay specific attention to the ways parents and teachers encourage or inhibit the development of adaptive beliefs about learning. I then turn to the literature on homework, and show that its motivational benefits, while not named as such, have been in evidence for some time. Finally, I argue that homework is a vital means by which children can receive the training they need to become mature learners.

Motivational Factors in Learning

Over the past 25 years, advances in social cognition have contributed to a much deeper understanding of achievement motivation in children and youth (Weiner, 1994). We no longer view achievement motivation as an inner need or drive that individuals have in greater or weaker strengths Instead, achievement motivation is now best understood as a collection of beliefs, attitudes, and emotions that influence students' performance in school. These include students' explanations for the causes of success and failure, their personal expectancies and standards for performance, confidence in their ability to do well, and beliefs about the nature of intelligence--innate or changeable (Eccles, 1993).

The social cognitive approach to the study of achievement motivation relies heavily on attribution theory, which argues that students come to perceive that success and failure in school can result primarily from effort (or lack of it), ability (or lack of it), and external factors, such as luck or task ease/difficulty (Weiner, 1994). These attributions vary in the extent to which they are perceived as internal/external, stable, and controllable. Effort, for example, tends to be perceived as internal, controllable, and unstable; while ability tends to be viewed as internal, stable, and uncontrollable.