New Perspectives in Science Education
Does Homework Increase Students' Autonomy?
Floriana Battaglia, University of Pisa (Italy)
Lucio Bontempelli, University of Pisa (Italy)
Abstract
Assigning homework is a very common practice among Italian teachers. From elementary school until high school, no student escapes this task, with a few exceptions in the case of full-time school.
Generally, the requests of the teachers are more demanding when students grow older, the stated purpose is to train students to greater autonomy gradually. But is it really so? On this point, studies are conflicting: some authors consider homework an important tool in the school, but recent studies have found no correlation between time spent on homework and academic achievement.
In general it seems that the advantages of assigning homework are not associated with the time it takes students to do their homework. So there are other factors that should be investigated.
In order to insure that homework can actually increase the autonomy of the students, they need to be calibrated in such a way that students do not require the support of families, it is also necessary a proper correction by the teacher at school. But if, on the other hand, when assigning homework, teachers rely more or less consciously to families, the effects may be negative.
In some cases, the fact that teachers feel they do not have much time to explore activities at school due to the reduced time and heterogeneous classes, may be a factor that makes homework dysfunctional. The risk is that school delegates some of its functions to families, increasing inequality in the case that there is a lack of time or ability of the parents.
In addition, a dysfunctional mode of using homework can negatively interfere with the sense of self-esteem and the development of autonomy, in addition to absorbing too much time, which is detrimental to the afternoon activities in which students are normally engaged.
So, if on the one hand it is stated that the school is not the only educational agency, on the other hand it is not given space and time for other activities recognized as formative and important for teens.
The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework to identify ways of managing homework that enhance the autonomy and recognising those that are dysfunctional.
