research on homework 2019

The Cult of Homework

America’s devotion to the practice stems in part from the fact that it’s what today’s parents and teachers grew up with themselves.

America has long had a fickle relationship with homework. A century or so ago, progressive reformers argued that it made kids unduly stressed , which later led in some cases to district-level bans on it for all grades under seventh. This anti-homework sentiment faded, though, amid mid-century fears that the U.S. was falling behind the Soviet Union (which led to more homework), only to resurface in the 1960s and ’70s, when a more open culture came to see homework as stifling play and creativity (which led to less). But this didn’t last either: In the ’80s, government researchers blamed America’s schools for its economic troubles and recommended ramping homework up once more.

The 21st century has so far been a homework-heavy era, with American teenagers now averaging about twice as much time spent on homework each day as their predecessors did in the 1990s . Even little kids are asked to bring school home with them. A 2015 study , for instance, found that kindergarteners, who researchers tend to agree shouldn’t have any take-home work, were spending about 25 minutes a night on it.

But not without pushback. As many children, not to mention their parents and teachers, are drained by their daily workload, some schools and districts are rethinking how homework should work—and some teachers are doing away with it entirely. They’re reviewing the research on homework (which, it should be noted, is contested) and concluding that it’s time to revisit the subject.

Read: My daughter’s homework is killing me

Hillsborough, California, an affluent suburb of San Francisco, is one district that has changed its ways. The district, which includes three elementary schools and a middle school, worked with teachers and convened panels of parents in order to come up with a homework policy that would allow students more unscheduled time to spend with their families or to play. In August 2017, it rolled out an updated policy, which emphasized that homework should be “meaningful” and banned due dates that fell on the day after a weekend or a break.

“The first year was a bit bumpy,” says Louann Carlomagno, the district’s superintendent. She says the adjustment was at times hard for the teachers, some of whom had been doing their job in a similar fashion for a quarter of a century. Parents’ expectations were also an issue. Carlomagno says they took some time to “realize that it was okay not to have an hour of homework for a second grader—that was new.”

Most of the way through year two, though, the policy appears to be working more smoothly. “The students do seem to be less stressed based on conversations I’ve had with parents,” Carlomagno says. It also helps that the students performed just as well on the state standardized test last year as they have in the past.

Earlier this year, the district of Somerville, Massachusetts, also rewrote its homework policy, reducing the amount of homework its elementary and middle schoolers may receive. In grades six through eight, for example, homework is capped at an hour a night and can only be assigned two to three nights a week.

Jack Schneider, an education professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell whose daughter attends school in Somerville, is generally pleased with the new policy. But, he says, it’s part of a bigger, worrisome pattern. “The origin for this was general parental dissatisfaction, which not surprisingly was coming from a particular demographic,” Schneider says. “Middle-class white parents tend to be more vocal about concerns about homework … They feel entitled enough to voice their opinions.”

Schneider is all for revisiting taken-for-granted practices like homework, but thinks districts need to take care to be inclusive in that process. “I hear approximately zero middle-class white parents talking about how homework done best in grades K through two actually strengthens the connection between home and school for young people and their families,” he says. Because many of these parents already feel connected to their school community, this benefit of homework can seem redundant. “They don’t need it,” Schneider says, “so they’re not advocating for it.”

That doesn’t mean, necessarily, that homework is more vital in low-income districts. In fact, there are different, but just as compelling, reasons it can be burdensome in these communities as well. Allison Wienhold, who teaches high-school Spanish in the small town of Dunkerton, Iowa, has phased out homework assignments over the past three years. Her thinking: Some of her students, she says, have little time for homework because they’re working 30 hours a week or responsible for looking after younger siblings.

As educators reduce or eliminate the homework they assign, it’s worth asking what amount and what kind of homework is best for students. It turns out that there’s some disagreement about this among researchers, who tend to fall in one of two camps.

In the first camp is Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. Cooper conducted a review of the existing research on homework in the mid-2000s , and found that, up to a point, the amount of homework students reported doing correlates with their performance on in-class tests. This correlation, the review found, was stronger for older students than for younger ones.

This conclusion is generally accepted among educators, in part because it’s compatible with “the 10-minute rule,” a rule of thumb popular among teachers suggesting that the proper amount of homework is approximately 10 minutes per night, per grade level—that is, 10 minutes a night for first graders, 20 minutes a night for second graders, and so on, up to two hours a night for high schoolers.

In Cooper’s eyes, homework isn’t overly burdensome for the typical American kid. He points to a 2014 Brookings Institution report that found “little evidence that the homework load has increased for the average student”; onerous amounts of homework, it determined, are indeed out there, but relatively rare. Moreover, the report noted that most parents think their children get the right amount of homework, and that parents who are worried about under-assigning outnumber those who are worried about over-assigning. Cooper says that those latter worries tend to come from a small number of communities with “concerns about being competitive for the most selective colleges and universities.”

According to Alfie Kohn, squarely in camp two, most of the conclusions listed in the previous three paragraphs are questionable. Kohn, the author of The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing , considers homework to be a “reliable extinguisher of curiosity,” and has several complaints with the evidence that Cooper and others cite in favor of it. Kohn notes, among other things, that Cooper’s 2006 meta-analysis doesn’t establish causation, and that its central correlation is based on children’s (potentially unreliable) self-reporting of how much time they spend doing homework. (Kohn’s prolific writing on the subject alleges numerous other methodological faults.)

In fact, other correlations make a compelling case that homework doesn’t help. Some countries whose students regularly outperform American kids on standardized tests, such as Japan and Denmark, send their kids home with less schoolwork , while students from some countries with higher homework loads than the U.S., such as Thailand and Greece, fare worse on tests. (Of course, international comparisons can be fraught because so many factors, in education systems and in societies at large, might shape students’ success.)

Kohn also takes issue with the way achievement is commonly assessed. “If all you want is to cram kids’ heads with facts for tomorrow’s tests that they’re going to forget by next week, yeah, if you give them more time and make them do the cramming at night, that could raise the scores,” he says. “But if you’re interested in kids who know how to think or enjoy learning, then homework isn’t merely ineffective, but counterproductive.”

His concern is, in a way, a philosophical one. “The practice of homework assumes that only academic growth matters, to the point that having kids work on that most of the school day isn’t enough,” Kohn says. What about homework’s effect on quality time spent with family? On long-term information retention? On critical-thinking skills? On social development? On success later in life? On happiness? The research is quiet on these questions.

Another problem is that research tends to focus on homework’s quantity rather than its quality, because the former is much easier to measure than the latter. While experts generally agree that the substance of an assignment matters greatly (and that a lot of homework is uninspiring busywork), there isn’t a catchall rule for what’s best—the answer is often specific to a certain curriculum or even an individual student.

Given that homework’s benefits are so narrowly defined (and even then, contested), it’s a bit surprising that assigning so much of it is often a classroom default, and that more isn’t done to make the homework that is assigned more enriching. A number of things are preserving this state of affairs—things that have little to do with whether homework helps students learn.

Jack Schneider, the Massachusetts parent and professor, thinks it’s important to consider the generational inertia of the practice. “The vast majority of parents of public-school students themselves are graduates of the public education system,” he says. “Therefore, their views of what is legitimate have been shaped already by the system that they would ostensibly be critiquing.” In other words, many parents’ own history with homework might lead them to expect the same for their children, and anything less is often taken as an indicator that a school or a teacher isn’t rigorous enough. (This dovetails with—and complicates—the finding that most parents think their children have the right amount of homework.)

Barbara Stengel, an education professor at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, brought up two developments in the educational system that might be keeping homework rote and unexciting. The first is the importance placed in the past few decades on standardized testing, which looms over many public-school classroom decisions and frequently discourages teachers from trying out more creative homework assignments. “They could do it, but they’re afraid to do it, because they’re getting pressure every day about test scores,” Stengel says.

Second, she notes that the profession of teaching, with its relatively low wages and lack of autonomy, struggles to attract and support some of the people who might reimagine homework, as well as other aspects of education. “Part of why we get less interesting homework is because some of the people who would really have pushed the limits of that are no longer in teaching,” she says.

“In general, we have no imagination when it comes to homework,” Stengel says. She wishes teachers had the time and resources to remake homework into something that actually engages students. “If we had kids reading—anything, the sports page, anything that they’re able to read—that’s the best single thing. If we had kids going to the zoo, if we had kids going to parks after school, if we had them doing all of those things, their test scores would improve. But they’re not. They’re going home and doing homework that is not expanding what they think about.”

“Exploratory” is one word Mike Simpson used when describing the types of homework he’d like his students to undertake. Simpson is the head of the Stone Independent School, a tiny private high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that opened in 2017. “We were lucky to start a school a year and a half ago,” Simpson says, “so it’s been easy to say we aren’t going to assign worksheets, we aren’t going assign regurgitative problem sets.” For instance, a half-dozen students recently built a 25-foot trebuchet on campus.

Simpson says he thinks it’s a shame that the things students have to do at home are often the least fulfilling parts of schooling: “When our students can’t make the connection between the work they’re doing at 11 o’clock at night on a Tuesday to the way they want their lives to be, I think we begin to lose the plot.”

When I talked with other teachers who did homework makeovers in their classrooms, I heard few regrets. Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher in Joshua, Texas, stopped assigning take-home packets of worksheets three years ago, and instead started asking her students to do 20 minutes of pleasure reading a night. She says she’s pleased with the results, but she’s noticed something funny. “Some kids,” she says, “really do like homework.” She’s started putting out a bucket of it for students to draw from voluntarily—whether because they want an additional challenge or something to pass the time at home.

Chris Bronke, a high-school English teacher in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove, told me something similar. This school year, he eliminated homework for his class of freshmen, and now mostly lets students study on their own or in small groups during class time. It’s usually up to them what they work on each day, and Bronke has been impressed by how they’ve managed their time.

In fact, some of them willingly spend time on assignments at home, whether because they’re particularly engaged, because they prefer to do some deeper thinking outside school, or because they needed to spend time in class that day preparing for, say, a biology test the following period. “They’re making meaningful decisions about their time that I don’t think education really ever gives students the experience, nor the practice, of doing,” Bronke said.

The typical prescription offered by those overwhelmed with homework is to assign less of it—to subtract. But perhaps a more useful approach, for many classrooms, would be to create homework only when teachers and students believe it’s actually needed to further the learning that takes place in class—to start with nothing, and add as necessary.

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More than two hours of homework may be counterproductive, research suggests.

A Stanford education researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.   "Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good," wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .   The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students' views on homework.   Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.   Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.   "The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students' advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being," Pope wrote.   Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.   Their study found that too much homework is associated with:   • Greater stress : 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.   • Reductions in health : In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.   • Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits : Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were "not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills," according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.   A balancing act   The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.   Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as "pointless" or "mindless" in order to keep their grades up.   "This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points," said Pope, who is also a co-founder of Challenge Success , a nonprofit organization affiliated with the GSE that conducts research and works with schools and parents to improve students' educational experiences..   Pope said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.   "Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development," wrote Pope.   High-performing paradox   In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. "Young people are spending more time alone," they wrote, "which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities."   Student perspectives   The researchers say that while their open-ended or "self-reporting" methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for "typical adolescent complaining" – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.   The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Clifton B. Parker is a writer at the Stanford News Service .

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Relationship Between Students’ Prior Academic Achievement and Homework Behavioral Engagement: The Mediating/Moderating Role of Learning Motivation

Susana rodríguez.

1 Department of Psychology, University of A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain

José C. Núñez

2 Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

Antonio Valle

Carlos freire, maría del mar ferradás, carolina rodríguez-llorente.

The interest of assigning homework is frequently discussed due to its alleged low impact on student achievement. One of the current lines of research is to emphasize the quality of student homework engagement rather than the amount of time spent on homework. The aim of this study was to determine (a) the extent to which students’ prior achievement affects their homework engagement (i.e., time spent, time management, and amount of teacher-assigned homework done), and (b) how students’ intrinsic motivation toward homework may mediate or moderate the relationship between prior achievement and the homework engagement variables. A large sample of students from the first 4 years of Secondary Education ( N = 1899) completed questionnaires. The results showed that intrinsic motivation partially mediates, but does not moderate, the effect of prior achievement on the three variables related to homework engagement (time spent, time management, and amount of teacher-assigned homework done). These results highlight the importance of considering both students’ current level of achievement and their motivation toward homework engagement when assigning homework.

Introduction

Homework assignment is used regularly as an instructional strategy to optimize students’ learning and academic achievement ( Cooper et al., 2006 ; Ramdass and Zimmerman, 2011 ). In general, there seems to be a positive relationship between homework and academic achievement ( Trautwein et al., 2006 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ; Fan et al., 2017 ), although this relationship will vary in magnitude and direction depending on variables such as students’ age, the amount of time spent, the management of that time, the motivational orientation or cognitive engagement, as well as the quality of parental involvement, or the quality of the teacher-assigned homework.

Current academic achievement, in turn, seems to be associated with student engagement in the future performance of homework. Moreover, based on the responses of a broad sample of students aged between 9 and 16 years old, Regueiro et al. (2015) found that prior achievement was significantly related both to students’ subsequent motivation to do homework (i.e., intrinsic motivation, interest, and perception of utility) and to their homework engagement (time spent on homework, homework time management, amount of homework done).

This relationship between prior achievement and homework engagement can be explained by different pathways, external (through parental or teacher involvement) and internal (different levels of knowledge, expectations of future achievement, perceived competence, motivation, etc.). From this point of view, students with good prior achievement may also meet the internal and external conditions that lead to favorable personal homework engagement, whereas if prior achievement is not good, the external and internal conditions will certainly not be as favorable for good homework engagement. Thus, for example, when family involvement becomes more controlling and there is lower motivational and emotional support ( Núñez et al., 2015c , 2017 ; Regueiro et al., 2017a ), teachers develop low expectations about the students’ engagement and future achievement ( Kloomok and Cosden, 1994 ; Pitzer and Skinner, 2017 ; Zhu et al., 2018 ), and the students develop more negative expectations about their competence and future performance, and become discouraged and cease to engage progressively. These unfavorable affective-motivational conditions, in turn, are an added handicap to the already poor personal conditions (low academic achievement) when facing the next learning experiences ( Ben-Naim et al., 2017 ). All of this often leads to a new academic failure, either partial ( Klassen et al., 2008 ) or generalized to the entire academic area ( Shifrer, 2016 ).

The present study analyzes the mediator or moderator role of intrinsic motivation regarding the effect of prior achievement on student homework engagement (time spent on homework, homework time management, and amount of homework done). Although there is abundant information available with regard to student engagement, the same cannot be said regarding the area of homework. The data from this study can contribute to better understanding the way in which past achievement can condition students’ future homework engagement.

Prior Achievement and Motivation

Motivational variables determine student homework engagement; that is, students’ reasons for doing homework significantly influence their degree of engagement (e.g., time spent, optimization of that time, and amount of homework done) and their academic achievement ( Pan et al., 2013 ).

However, the nature of the relationship between motivation and academic achievement is bi-directional, such that the latter is also a significant antecedent of relevant motivational factors in the academic field such as self-concept or self-efficacy ( Marsh et al., 2005 ; Schöber et al., 2018 ). From this viewpoint, students’ learning failures, experienced not so much due to their skills as to their lack of motivation, lead them to developing beliefs of lack of competence, which, in turn, lead to low expectations of achievement and, as a consequence, low homework engagement and poor school performance. Therefore, the data derived from past research suggest including students’ prior achievement as an important variable to understand their homework engagement ( Cool and Keith, 1991 ; Trautwein et al., 2002 ; Zimmerman and Kitsantas, 2005 ; Fast et al., 2010 ; Chen et al., 2013 ; Garon-Carrier et al., 2016 ).

A study carried out by Hong (2001) pointed out that high-performing students are more self-motivated to do homework than low-performing students. As a result, students who have already been successful in tasks like homework, compared to less successful students, feel more confident to perform tasks successfully in the future. Believing in their capabilities to achieve set goals influences students’ motivation and effort to learn and, therefore, their engagement ( Schunk and Ertmer, 2000 ; Ormrod, 2003 ). In addition, academic achievement also maintains a positive relationship with other motivational variables, such as interest in the homework and the perception of its usefulness ( Wigfield and Cambria, 2010 ).

Motivation and Behavioral Engagement

The expectancy-value theory ( Eccles et al., 1984 ; Wigfield and Eccles, 2000 ) is especially appropriate to explain the motivational aspects of behavior regarding homework ( Trautwein and Köller, 2003 ). It indicates that students are more willing to engage in homework they perceive as emotionally rewarding and valuable, and where their effort is rewarded.

As shown in their work Ben-Eliyahu et al. (2018) , we think about motivation as a pre-existing learner characteristic that produces engagement and self-regulated learning as part of engagement process. Schunk and Mullen (2012) describe this commitment as “the manifestation of students’ motivation.” Like various authors, Pekrun and Linnenbrink-Garcia (2012) suggest that commitment is a mediator between emotion and achievement, whereas Ainley (2012) argues that motivation leads to achievement through commitment. For other authors, motivation is a predictor of engagement ( Lazowski and Hulleman, 2016 ) and, for Ben-Eliyahu et al. (2018) , motivation triggers commitment. In previous studies, it was also found that different forms of motivation predict commitment ( Patall et al., 2016 ; King and Datu, 2017 ).

Research suggests that students’ type of motivation for a task is significantly related to their engagement ( Ryan and Deci, 2000 ). There is evidence indicating that many students do homework for extrinsic reasons, such as getting good grades, for their desire to please or to avoid punishment ( Walker et al., 2004 ). However, this kind of motivation is associated with low levels of engagement, learning, and achievement ( Vallerand et al., 1997 ). On another hand, students who perform homework driven by intrinsic reasons tend to show high levels of persistence, creativity, achievement, positive emotions, interest, and engagement ( Flink et al., 1992 ; Bouffard et al., 2001 ; Coutts, 2004 ). Motivation is therefore considered a very influential variable in the process of doing homework and, specifically, in students’ homework behavioral engagement ( Xu and Corno, 1998 ; Corno, 2000 ).

Goal of This Study

Homework assignment without taking into account the diversity of the classroom is a habitual practice. This instructional strategy ends up being successful for some students, but is clearly inappropriate for others. Homework assignment should be adapted to the needs and potentials of the students. Otherwise, rather than helping them to develop, homework assignment progressively undermines their motivation and interest. In the present study, prior achievement and all that this entails (knowledge, perceived competence, expectations, etc.) were considered to constitute a potential determinant of student homework engagement (in terms of amount of time spent on homework, time management, and the amount of teacher-assigned homework done). In addition, we expect to answer the question of whether motivation mediates or moderates the relationship between prior achievement and homework engagement.

Therefore, we examined (a) the extent to which students’ prior achievement conditions their homework engagement, and (b) how students’ interest in doing homework (i.e., intrinsic motivation) may mediate and/or moderate that relationship. The initial hypotheses are as follows:

• simple (1) Firstly, although the relation between time spent on homework and subsequent student achievement is clearly inconsistent ( Cooper et al., 2006 ; Trautwein et al., 2006 ; Trautwein, 2007 ; Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2009 ; Dettmers et al., 2009 ; Fernández-Alonso et al., 2015 ; Núñez et al., 2015a , c ), previous research argues that prior achievement significantly influences students’ academic engagement (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2002 ; Chen et al., 2013 ; Garon-Carrier et al., 2016 ). Under these precedents, it was hypothesized that the relationship between prior achievement and student homework behavioral engagement would be positive and statistically significant, suggesting that high-performing students would spend more time on homework, better optimize that time, and would do more teacher-assigned homework than low-performing students.
• simple (2) Secondly, some data suggest that prior academic achievement positively influences students’ academic motivation ( Valentine and Dubois, 2005 ; Schöber et al., 2018 ). In turn, students’ motivation is positively associated with the time spent on homework ( Dettmers et al., 2009 ; Regueiro et al., 2015 ), the amount of homework done ( Regueiro et al., 2017b ), the management of homework time ( Núñez et al., 2015a ), and academic achievement ( Valle et al., 2016 ). Therefore, we hypothesized that the relationship between prior achievement and student homework behavioral engagement would be partially mediated by students’ intrinsic motivation. In this way, intrinsic motivation would act as a mediator if the influence of prior achievement on student homework behavioral engagement were conditioned, at least partially, by the influence of students’ motivation. As well as the direct effect, the indirect effect of prior achievement on the variables of student behavioral engagement would also be positive (indicating that higher prior achievement is related to higher intrinsic motivation and greater student behavioral engagement).

Whereas mediation attempts to explain how and why certain effects occur, moderation provides information about when such effects will take place. In statistical terms, there is moderation when the interaction between the independent variable (in our case, prior achievement) and the third variable (intrinsic motivation) significantly affects the dependent variable (student behavioral engagement in homework). As there are no data from previous studies that have addressed this issue, we will not offer any hypothesis about the moderator role of intrinsic motivation. The question to explore here will be: is the effect of prior achievement on student homework behavioral engagement significantly different (e.g., in intensity or direction) as a function of students’ motivational level?

Materials and Methods

Participants.

Participants were 1899 students (51.2% girls) of Compulsory Secondary Education (CSE) from 17 schools of four provinces in the north of Spain, of which 13 are public schools and 4 are subsidized. In terms of distribution by grade, 28.5% are enrolled in 1st grade of CSE (7th grade), 25.2% are in 2nd grade of CSE (8th grade), 22.2% are in 3rd grade of CSE (9th grade), and 24.1% are in 4th grade of CSE (10th grade). Participants’ age ranged between 12 and 16 years.

Instruments

The variables time spent on homework, homework time management, amount of homework done, and homework intrinsic motivation were measured with several items of the Homework Survey (e.g., Núñez et al., 2015a , b , c ; Valle et al., 2015a , b , 2018 ).

Time Spent on Homework

The students responded to two items (usually/during a typical week) with the following general formulation: “How much time do you usually spend each day on homework?” with the response options 1 = less than 30 min , 2 = 30 min to 1 h , 3 = 1 h to an hour and a half , 4 = 1 h and a half to 2 h , 5 = more than 2 h . The reliability is acceptable (α = 0.78).

Amount of Homework Done

This information was obtained from students through their responses to two items related to the amount of teacher-assigned homework usually done. The two items were worded as follows: “Some students complete all their homework, and others only complete some of it. What about you? How much of your homework do you do…? (usually/during a typical week).” The students chose an answer from a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 ( I didn’t do any of my homework ) to 5 ( I did all my homework ). The reliability is acceptable (α = 0.82).

Homework Time Management

This was evaluated through the response to two items worded as follows: “Students often spend a lot of time doing homework, although most of the times, they don’t use that time properly, as they waste it (e.g., talking on the phone, being distracted by intrusive thoughts, procrastinating). And you, how do you manage the time you spend doing your homework (usually/during a typical week)?,” on which they were requested to rate their level of perceived quality of homework time management on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 ( I don’t optimize it at all: “I am continually distracted by everything” ) to 5 ( I optimize it completely: I concentrate, and until I finish doing homework, I don’t think about anything else ). The reliability is acceptable (α = 0.77).

Intrinsic Motivation for Homework

Interest in learning by doing homework was assessed by students’ responses to eight items ( e.g., “I enjoy doing homework, because it allows me to learn more and more”; “Doing homework helps me understand what is being taught in class” and “Doing homework helps prepare me for the next day’s lesson/develop good self-discipline/learn how to plan my time or to be more responsible” ), which were rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 ( totally false ) to 5 ( completely true ). The reliability is acceptable (α = 0.86).

Prior Achievement

Prior achievement was evaluated according to the average academic grades obtained in the last year in Spanish, Math and foreign language (English). These grades were ranged from 1 to 5 (1 = insufficient, 2 = sufficient, 3 = good, 4 = notable, 5 = outstanding).

The procedure employed in this investigation followed the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration and was approved by the Research and Teaching Ethics Committee of the University of A Coruña. First of all, the prior written informed consent was obtained from the management team and the teaching staff of the participating schools. Subsequently, the written informed consent was obtained from the participants and their parents or legal guardians. Data collection was carried out during school hours. The instruments were administered by staff who collaborated in the research.

Data Analysis

The data were analyzed with the SPSS 22 program. Twelve students were eliminated because they had a large amount of missing data or presented outlier values. No significant amount of missing data was found in any of the variables. The missing values were treated through the multiple imputation procedure. Prior to the study of the hypotheses, as preliminary analysis, we analyzed the correlation matrix and the distribution of the variables included in the study (prior achievement, intrinsic motivation, time spent on homework, time management, and amount of teacher-assigned homework done). With the help of the PROCESS ( Hayes, 2013 ) module implemented in the SPSS, we analyzed whether intrinsic motivation mediated and/or moderated the effect of prior achievement on the three variables of student behavioral engagement considered. Figure 1 shows the mediation and moderation schema corresponding to hypotheses.

A simple mediation and moderation conceptual models of intrinsic motivation (IM) in the effect of prior achievement (PACH) on student behavioral engagement in homework (SBEH).

Gender and age (grade) were included in the design to statistically control for their potential effect. The effect sizes were calculated with Cohen’s (1988) d : d < 0.20 = minimum effect size; d > 0.20 < 0.50 = small effect size; d > 0.50 < 0.80 = medium effect size; d > 0.80 = large effect size.

Descriptive Statistics

In Table 1 are summarized the descriptive statistics and Pearson correlations corresponding to the variables included in the study. The variables included in the study were significantly correlated, and the skewness and kurtosis data suggested an acceptable normal distribution. According to the relationship between the variables, we observed that: (i) females, compared to males, tended to spend more time on homework, reported better time optimization, and they did more assigned homework, had higher intrinsic motivation toward homework, as well as higher academic achievement; (ii) students’ motivation and interest and homework engagement decreased as they progressed through the school grades (7th to 10th grade); (iii) prior achievement had a significant and positive relationship with intrinsic motivation and student behavioral homework engagement; (iv) and homework time spent, homework time management, and amount of homework done were positively interrelated and positively related to intrinsic motivation.

Descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis) and Pearson correlation matrix.

Mediation Analysis

In Table 2 are summarized the results of the mediation analysis of the intrinsic motivation of the effect of prior achievement on student homework behavioral engagement (homework time spent, homework time management, and amount of homework performed).

Summary of the mediation model.

Mediation Model (Dependent Variable: Homework Time Spent)

The data obtained suggested that homework intrinsic motivation almost completely mediated the effect of prior achievement on homework time spent. Specifically, whereas the indirect effect of prior achievement on homework time spent was positive and statistically significant ( b = 0.034, p < 0.001, d = 0.274), the direct effect was minimal ( b = 0.054, p < 0.05), with a small effect size ( d = 0.119). The overall effect was b = 0.088 ( p < 0.001, d = 0.193). The mediational model explained 9% of the variability of the time spent on homework. The data also showed that gender was related to the prediction of time spent on homework ( b = 0.366, p < 0.001), although the effect size was small ( d = 0.332). Grade was not a predictor in this model.

Mediation Model (Dependent Variable: Homework Time Management)

Intrinsic motivation acted like a partial mediator of the effect of prior achievement on homework time management (indirect effect: b = 0.049, p < 0.001), although it had a small effect size ( d = 0.323). Prior achievement also maintained a statistically significant but small direct effect on homework time management ( b = 0.149, p = 0.001), ( d = 0.186). The overall effect was almost intermediate ( b = 0.198, p < 0.001, d = 0.486), explaining a total of 16.7% of the variability of homework time management. Gender and grade significantly predicted homework time management, although the effect size was minimal (no effect) (see Table 2 ).

Mediation Model (Dependent Variable: Amount of Homework Done)

The data provided by the mediational analysis indicated that intrinsic motivation was a partial mediator of the effect of prior achievement on amount of homework done (indirect effect: b = 0.042, p < 0.001), with a small effect size ( d = 0.323). The direct effect was intermediate ( b = 0.237, p < 0.001, d = 0.729), and the total effect was large ( b = 0.279, p < 0.001, d = 0.841). The model explained 30.9% of the variability of the amount of homework done. Gender and grade were significant predictors, although whereas gender was hardly a predictor ( d = 0.145), grade had an intermediate effect size ( d = 0.588) (see Table 2 ).

Moderation Analysis

Table 3 provides a summary of the moderation analysis of the intrinsic motivation of the effect of prior achievement on student homework behavioral engagement. The data derived from the analysis shows that intrinsic motivation does not have a moderating effect either in the relationship between prior achievement and time spent on homework ( b = 0.002, p > 0.05, d = 0.003) or with homework time management ( b = -0.004, p > 0.05, d = 0.007). This means that the effect of prior achievement on these two variables is of the same sign and intensity at any level of intrinsic motivation. However, a small moderator effect was observed in the relationship between prior achievement and amount homework done ( b = -0.062, p < 0.01, d = 0.153). As can be observed in the last three rows of Table 3 , depending on the level of intrinsic motivation, the effect size of prior achievement on amount of homework done was different in intensity (but not in direction). In general terms, the greater the intrinsic motivation, the lower the effect of prior achievement, and vice versa.

Summary of the moderation of intrinsic motivation of the effect of prior achievement on student homework behavioral engagement (interaction effects).

Doing homework is an instructional strategy frequently used by the vast majority of teachers, from all educational stages and all the countries belonging to the OECD. However, in the last report of this international organism, some concern was expressed about using this instructional strategy, as the data seem to indicate that countries using less homework are obtaining better achievement in PISA. They also indicated that the use of this strategy is negatively associated with children’s mental health. However, it is clear from the reviewed literature that the most rigorous studies suggest that such claims are not entirely true because other variables must be taken into account besides the time spent on homework, both extrinsic to the student (family involvement, teacher involvement) and those related to the students (level of prior knowledge, motivation, attitude, effort, self-regulation skills in the process of doing homework, etc.).

In this line, the present investigation sought to shed some light on this issue, focusing on the relative importance of the level of prior achievement in student homework engagement. Specifically, first, we studied the predictive capacity of prior achievement in student homework engagement in terms of the amount of time spent weekly, time management, and amount of teacher-assigned homework done. Secondly, we analyzed in greater depth how that relationship might be mediated, moderated, or both, by students’ intrinsic motivation (i.e., intention to engage in homework in order to learn and progress academically). The interest of the work was formulated in terms that if this relationship were significant, student’s current level of achievement should be taken into account by teachers when elaborating and assigning homework. And if motivation mediated or moderated the relationship, it should also be known and taken into account at this time. The main reason is that, if the hypotheses of the study were correct, the unadapted assignment of homework would be an inappropriate instructional strategy, partly responsible for students’ ambiguous relationship with achievement, and even for adverse consequences.

The results confirmed the first and second hypotheses, but not the third one entirely. These results will be discussed below in detail.

In the first hypothesis, we expected that the relationship between prior achievement and student behavioral engagement would be positive. The data partially confirmed this hypothesis. In particular, as expected, high-performing students, compared to low-performing ones, managed homework time better (although the effect size is small) and did more teacher-assigned homework (with an almost large effect size). On the contrary, the amount of time spent on homework was barely explained by students’ prior achievement (the size of the effect is practically non-existent). These results are in the line of those obtained in other studies, which also found that the amount of time spent on homework is of little interest ( Trautwein, 2007 ; Dettmers et al., 2009 ; Regueiro et al., 2015 ).

The second hypothesis was also confirmed. In particular, it was found that the relationship between prior achievement and student homework behavioral engagement is partially mediated by students’ intrinsic motivation, indicating that higher prior achievement is related to higher intrinsic motivation and greater student behavioral engagement. As in other studies, the data from this research indicate that students’ motivation is positively associated, on the one hand, with academic achievement ( Valle et al., 2016 ) and, on the other, with student homework engagement: the time spent on homework ( Dettmers et al., 2009 ; Regueiro et al., 2015 ), homework time management ( Núñez et al., 2015a ), and the amount of teacher-assigned homework done ( Regueiro et al., 2017b ). This research found that the greater the prior achievement, the higher is students’ motivation and, finally, the greater their homework engagement. However, the amount of variance explained in each of the three variables of engagement is substantially different. Whereas only 9% of the time spent doing homework and 16.7% of time management are explained, 30.9% of the amount of teacher-assigned homework done is explained. But, while the data from this study refer to the importance of prior achievement and intrinsic motivation in the explanation of student homework engagement, they also raise some questions such as, for example, what personal variables are responsible for the amount of the remaining variance? what relevance do the family and school contexts have?

In terms of the moderation hypothesis, the results of the analysis of this study suggest that the effect of prior achievement on the time spent on homework and on time management does not change according to students’ motivational level. This means that the relationship described above has the same force and sign whether the student is little or very intrinsically motivated to work on homework. In the case of these two variables (time spent and time management), students’ motivation only facilitates an indirect pathway through which prior achievement would influence student homework engagement. However, some moderation was observed when the dependent variable was the amount of teacher-assigned homework done. In this case, and in general terms, when intrinsic motivation is high, the effect of prior achievement on the amount of homework done is smaller than when motivation is medium or low. These results can be interpreted in the sense that the higher the motivation, the lower is the capacity of prior achievement to determine student engagement in teacher-assigned homework. These findings offer a less deterministic vision: when students’ motivation is high, homework engagement is less determined by past conditions that we cannot influence. Therefore, high intrinsic motivation seems to be an important protective factor.

Educational Implications

The results of this study have some implications for educational practice, which should be taken into account when designing and developing homework.

Firstly, we should assume that student homework engagement is determined by multiple factors that should be taken into account to ensure quality engagement. Students do not engage deeply in their homework just because it is their obligation (this may be the least powerful reason). As seen in this study, intrinsic motivation is an important determinant, mainly in terms of homework time management and the amount of teacher-assigned homework done, which in terms of the effect size, is close to large. As a result, and if only for this reason, it seems clear that it is not just is question of designing and assigning homework, but that homework and the contexts must be of quality, which invite the student to engage with them in order to learn. And it is not enough that the homework and the context are of quality, it is also necessary for students to perceive such quality so their deep engagement takes place ( Rosário et al., 2018 ). Therefore in order to motivate students, an interesting practice when assigning homework might be to consider the relevance of each task with a view to students’ learning and personal autonomy.

Also, secondly, students’ prior achievement is shown as another important determinant of student homework engagement, mainly in terms of the amount of teacher-assigned homework done, and to a lesser extent, with regard to time management. However, as confirmed in the moderation analyses, in relation to the amount of homework done, this effect decreases when intrinsic motivation is high. Thus, insofar as we can highly motivate students to do homework with a deep focus, the determining effect of prior achievement will be lower and, therefore, low-performing students will be less vulnerable.

However, even in this case, it is relevant to take this into account when developing and assigning homework to the students. In general terms, from our data, poor achievement will lead to a decrease in intrinsic motivation (less interest in deep homework engagement), which will lead to a less effective behavioral engagement. In the end, this lower engagement could contribute to subsequent lower achievement, and so on. This loop would have obvious negative consequences. Therefore, it is necessary to significantly adapt the assignment of homework to this group of students, so that, taking into account these limiting initial conditions, the homework will involve real opportunities of personal engagement and success. This will facilitate student engagement – effective engagement – and, over time, the change of direction of that negative loop that makes them so vulnerable.

As previous research suggests, homework should be adapted to students’ potential and explicitly linked to academic success, but should also be perceived as useful by learners ( Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 , 2012 ; Trautwein et al., 2006 ; Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2009 ; Dettmers et al., 2010 , 2011 ; Rosário et al., 2018 ). Teachers must face the challenge of linking homework characteristics to their students’ learning needs and interest. In this sense, it seems interesting that teachers explicitly state the competences and knowledge that is expected to be optimized with homework and that the instrumental, personal and/or professional use of the tasks that are sent home from the classroom are specifically agreed upon.

Limitations

Although the results seem to be consistent, this research has some limitations that should not be ignored. Firstly, given that gender and grade were relevant in the explanation of student engagement, and although their effect was statistically controlled by including them as covariates, due to the characteristics of the statistical design, the data from this study do not provide information on how gender or grade might be moderating the effects found. Further studies could primarily examine this issue of undeniable relevance.

Secondly, it could be important to analyze the hypotheses of this study using data obtained with measurement instruments other than self-report measures, as this would allow us to determine the validity of the results of the scope of this study. Thirdly, would be of undoubted interest to study the objectives of this research in younger students, from Elementary Education, as the results of this research might not be generalizable to younger ages. Finally, although the procedure to study mediation/moderation is well established with data derived from cross-sectional designs, even with simple models of mediation/moderation, like those used in this investigation, the data obtained might have differed significantly if we had chosen a longitudinal data collection strategy (or repeated measures). For the design of future studies, this issue of particular relevance should be taken into account.

Ethics Statement

This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the Research and Teaching Ethics Committee of the University of A Coruña, with written informed consent from all subjects. All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The protocol was approved by the Research and Teaching Ethics Committee of the University of A Coruña.

Author Contributions

SR, AV, CF, and MF collected the data and wrote the manuscript. JN analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. CR-L collected the data and helped revision of the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Funding. This work was developed with the financing of the research projects EDU2013-44062-P (MINECO), EDU2017-82984-P (MEIC), and Government of the Principality of Asturias, Spain. European Regional Development Fund (Research Groups Program 2018–2020 FC-GRUPIN-IDI/2018/000199).

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Student perception of teacher and parent involvement in homework and student engagement: the mediating role of motivation.

• 1 Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain
• 2 Department of Psychology, University of A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain
• 3 Department of Specific Didactics and Methods of Research and Diagnosis in Education, University of A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain

Currently, there is much debate about the value of assigning homework. Organizations such as the OECD have concluded that doing more homework is not synonymous with better performance. This study was designed to analyze the mediating role of student motivation in the relationship between the involvement of parents and teachers in homework and the engagement of students in these tasks. Seven hundred and thirty students in Compulsory Secondary Education (7th–10th grade) participated from 14 schools in the north of Spain. Three competing models were developed and tested to study motivational mediation: a non-motivational mediation model (direct effects model); a total motivational mediation model (indirect effects model); and a partial motivational mediation model (mixed effects model). The best model was adjusted according to gender and school year variables. The total mediation motivational model demonstrated the best fit (indirect effects model). The results suggest the total mediation of student motivation in the relationship between the perception of parents’ and teachers’ involvement in homework and student cognitive engagement in these tasks. Some differences, albeit slight, were observed with respect to gender and school year. The results have clear theoretical and educational implications.

Introduction

Homework has been a very common topic in educational research in recent decades ( Trautwein, 2007 ; Fernández-Alonso et al., 2015 ; Valle et al., 2015 ; Baş et al., 2017 ; Fan et al., 2017 ), most of which has tended to analyze its relationships and its real impact on student academic achievement. Past research has often focused more on aspects related to the amount of homework done and the time spent on it than on the quality of the homework process, its precursors, and its effects on learning.

The homework process is what students do when dealing with homework; how they approach their work and how they manage their personal resources and settings when they do homework. Research and theory suggest that students’ intentions and reasons for doing homework influence how they cope with it; in other words, the quality of their engagement ( Ryan and Deci, 2000 ). Some students approach homework with the intention of learning and reinforcing the knowledge acquired in class, trying to resolve questions that may arise while doing homework, and relating the homework to what they have previously learned. It therefore involves an intrinsic purpose of understanding the ideas and using strategies to create meaning. In this context, intrinsic motivation has been associated with a host of positive outcomes such as persistence, performance, interest, and positive emotions ( Bouffard et al., 2001 ; Hardre and Reeve, 2003 ; Coutts, 2004 ; Valle et al., 2016 ). Most studies have shown that the deeper students’ approach to learning, the better their learning outcomes. When students are involved in academic tasks mainly for the purpose of understanding, they do those tasks more profoundly and meaningfully, they use self-regulation strategies in their learning process and exhibit better well-being ( Bouffard et al., 2001 ; Midgley, 2002 ; Vansteenkiste et al., 2005 ). Conversely, if students work on homework because they feel compelled by their teachers, and perhaps by their parents, a sense of duty or avoidance of punishment ( Walker et al., 2004 ), it is very likely that the student will exhibit poor persistence and little significant learning ( Vallerand et al., 1997 ).

Various theoretical approaches have been used as frameworks for research in the past: Self-Determination Theory (SDT- Deci and Ryan, 2000 ), Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT- Eccles, 2005 ), Goal Orientation Theory ( Elliot, 2005 ) and the Student Engagement Framework ( Reschly and Christenson, 2012 ). These theoretical frameworks, in various ways, agree in assuming that academic motivation is context-dependent. The support provided by context (mainly parents and teachers) is fundamental in explaining the type of, and changes in, motivation ( Katz et al., 2010 ). In Connell and Wellborn’s (1991) model of self-system processes, motivation was viewed as a mediator between context and outcomes. In our study, as in recent research (e.g., Feng et al., 2019 ), we attempted to analyze the extent to which this model can be applied to the field of homework. The student engagement framework seems to be a good theoretical model to pursue this objective.

In this study we investigate to what extent students’ homework motivation mediates between the support of the context (i.e., parental and teacher homework involvement) and student homework engagement.

Motivation and Student Homework Engagement

Engagement and motivation to learn are highly interrelated. Some researchers use the terms engagement and motivation interchangeably (e.g., Martin, 2007 ), others have proposed that the meta-construct of student engagement subsumes motivation (e.g., Fredricks et al., 2004 ), while others argue that they are different, but closely related constructs. As different constructs, motivation represents intention and engagement represents action (e.g., Russell et al., 2004 ). In our study we follow this third line of thought: motivation and student engagement are understood as related, but different constructs.

Student engagement has been significantly associated with contextual factors ( Lam et al., 2012 ). Parent and teacher involvement are two of the main variables responsible for student motivation and homework engagement. Research has identified parent involvement in homework as one way that parents and families can influence student motivation and school engagement. Parents who provide assistance with homework play a critical role not only in fostering learning, but in scaffolding strategies for time management and problem-solving ( Moè et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, their interest in and help with homework predicts their children’s self-perceptions of competence ( Hoover-Dempsey et al., 2001 ; Pomerantz et al., 2006 ).

So, how does parent and teacher involvement in homework impact children’s engagement and achievement? To answer this primary question, we bring the proposal from Grolnick and Slowiaczek (1994) to the homework field. They suggest two models: (i) a direct effects model, and (ii) an indirect or motivational model.

Focusing on the field of parental involvement in homework, the direct effects model would suggest that parental involvement in children’s homework helps children by teaching them the academic skills they need to do good homework. The indirect effects model suggests that parental homework involvement affects children by promoting their motivation to engage with their homework and school tasks and do them well. According to this indirect or motivational model, when parents place importance on homework, children themselves come to value homework and develop the sense of competence that enables them to make efforts in learning activities, such as homework. Thus, the motivational homework model suggests that parental involvement in homework facilitates the motivational resources that enhance children’s homework engagement ( Raftery et al., 2012 ). Both models would have similar explanations in the case of teacher involvement in homework.

Teacher Involvement in Homework

Setting homework is an extremely widespread instructional practice ( OECD, 2014 ). And, although the reasons for setting homework may be different depending on variables such as the type of culture ( Moorhouse, 2018 ), teachers play absolutely critical roles in the homework process ( Murillo and Martinez-Garrido, 2014 ). They play these important roles at two points in the homework process. In the first phase by setting the objectives of homework assignments and designing tasks; and in the final phase by implementing classroom follow-up practices ( Cooper, 2001 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ; Rosário et al., 2015 ).

Some researchers found that middle and high school students who perceived their homework assignments as well-selected or well-prepared by their teachers reported higher motivation and effort at student and at class level ( Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2007 ; Dettmers et al., 2010 ). As Trautwein et al. (2006) stated in their theoretical homework model, the perceptions of homework quality influence homework expectations and the value ascribed to it, which predicts homework effort. In a recent study with elementary students, Rosário et al. (2019) concluded that what seemed to explain achievement was the students’ perception of the quality of homework (i.e., assignments which are well-chosen by the teacher, which are interesting, related to the material taught in class, and useful for understanding the material covered in class), more than the type of homework set (see also, Fredricks, 2011 ).

Cunha et al. (2018a) explored teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback (47 teachers from elementary and middle schools participated in six focus groups) focusing on definition, purpose, types, and perceived impact. Teachers conceptualized homework feedback in three directions (i.e., teacher feedback to students, student feedback to teachers, and homework self-feedback). The most common purpose reported by most teachers was teacher monitoring of student learning, with checking homework completion and checking homework on the board being the most commonly used type of homework feedback in class. In another study at middle school level, Rosário et al. (2019) found that teachers’ purposes for homework follow-up practices in class were focused on identifying students’ learning strengths and weaknesses, promoting students’ engagement, and addressing students’ difficulties in mathematics. The follow-up practices included homework feedback provided in class: oral or written praise, criticism, written comments (highlighting right and wrong answers), rewards, general review of homework in class, and grading (e.g., Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Corno, 2000 ; Cooper, 2001 ; Medwell and Wray, 2018 ).

These homework feedback practices are an important instructional tool for teachers in their teaching processes (e.g., helping identify students’ difficulties, errors or misconceptions in homework; approaching the learning content accommodating students’ lack of prior knowledge, and redesigning homework to match student needs) ( Corno, 2000 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ; An and Wu, 2012 ). However, feedback provided by the teacher is also important for students because it is a way for the students to perceive the quality of their progress and help them to overcome difficulties they may have when doing homework ( Trautwein et al., 2009 ; Núñez et al., 2015a ). To be effective, feedback should provide information on the progress achieved and on how to act in the future. Providing feedback about a particular task should include information about how successfully it was done, providing an opportunity to improve and expand knowledge.

Previous research has shown that teacher homework feedback, as perceived by students, is positively related to student interest in homework ( Xu, 2008 ), quality of student motivation toward homework ( Katz et al., 2010 ), homework management strategies ( Xu et al., 2017 ), and amount of homework completed and academic achievement ( Núñez et al., 2015a ). For example, the study by Núñez et al. (2015a) , with students from various school years (grades 5–12), concluded that the better the student perception of teachers’ homework feedback, the greater the amount of homework completed and the better the homework time management. When students perceive their homework as of higher quality, they are more likely to put in more effort, complete homework more frequently, perform better on assignments, and achieve higher grades in mathematics. Moreover, these authors found that students’ academic achievement is indirectly and positively associated with teacher homework feedback through students’ homework behaviors and self-regulation (i.e., amount of homework completed; quality of homework time management), highlighting the importance of student engagement in the homework process. Research also shows engagement to be higher in students who have developed strong relationships with their teachers, in which the teachers support students’ autonomy, have high expectations, and give consistent and clear feedback.

Parental Involvement in Homework

Patall et al. (2008) found positive effects in relation to parental involvement in homework, among other variables, in student attitudes to homework, and Pomerantz et al. (2007) found that parental behavioral involvement improves student achievement because it promotes student motivation and encourages student commitment. However, relationships between parental involvement in homework and academic achievement have been extensively debated and frequently researched ( Gonida and Cortina, 2014 ; Gonida and Vauras, 2014 ) with inconsistent results. Some studies have found a positive relationship (e.g., Cooper et al., 2001 ; Pomerantz and Eaton, 2001 ), others have reported a negative relationship ( Schultz, 1999 ), and others mixed results (e.g., Dumont et al., 2012 ).

In three longitudinal studies, Van Voorhis (2011) found a positive relationship between parental involvement, guided by a systematic intervention, and student achievement in mathematics, science, and language. Although some studies using structural equation models (SEM) have also reported a positive relationship between parental involvement and achievement ( Cooper et al., 2001 ; Pomerantz and Eaton, 2001 ), others have found a negative relationship, and some, mixed results ( Dumont et al., 2012 ). In particular, Dumont et al. (2012) found both positive and negative relationships depending on the quality of parental involvement and the different measures of the educational outcome (achievement, self-concept, and attitudes).

The mixed results may be due to multiple factors. Results vary depending on factors such as research design ( Patall et al., 2008 ); content domain (e.g., subject-specific vs. general homework and academic achievement, Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2012 ); different dimensions of the construct measured ( Dumont et al., 2012 , 2013 ; Karbach et al., 2013 ); student school year ( Cooper and Valentine, 2001 ), etc. Of all of those, the type of parental involvement may be one of the most determining factors ( Ng et al., 2004 ; Pomerantz et al., 2007 ; Patall et al., 2008 ; Karbach et al., 2013 ; Gonida and Cortina, 2014 ; Suárez et al., 2014 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ). Dumont et al. (2012 , p. 64) suggested that “it is therefore crucial to distinguish between different dimensions of parental homework involvement and not to focus only on its quantity. Because different forms of parental homework involvement may have contrasting effects, an exclusive focus on the extent of parents’ involvement may lead to erroneous conclusions about its effectiveness.”

Different types of parental involvement in homework have been reported in the literature. For example, Hoover-Dempsey et al. (2001) describe eight ways in which parents can be involved in their children’s homework. From a more precise perspective, Pomerantz et al. (2007) indicated four qualitatively different dimensions of parent involvement in homework: autonomy support vs. control, process vs. person focus, positive vs. negative affect, and positive vs. negative beliefs about children’s potential. At a more systematic and operational level, Lorenz and Wild (2007) , proposed four different types of parental involvement: autonomy supportive practices (i.e., parents encourage self-initiated homework activities), control (i.e., parents pressure children to complete their homework assignments and issue instructions that undermine autonomous behavior), structure (i.e., parents organize the homework environment), and emotional involvement (i.e., parents acknowledge children’s feelings about homework). Gonida and Cortina (2014) , basing their work on various ideas from previous research, developed and validated a self-report scale that provides information directly through parents’ responses on four different forms of parental involvement in homework: (i) autonomy support and promotion of self-regulated learning, (ii) control, (iii) interference, and (iv) cognitive engagement related to schoolwork as supplementary to homework. Recently, Cunha et al. (2018b) validated the Parental Homework Management Scale (PHMS) for parents of elementary and junior high school children (ages 9–13 years) in the domain of mathematics, based on the responses of a sample of 2,118 parent–child dyads. The PHMS scale was originally constructed to measure four common types of parental involvement: (1) environment, (2) time, (3) motivation, and (4) emotion management. However, the results showed that at such early ages the PHMS is composed of two different but related factors: (1) environment-time management and (2) motivation-emotion management.

Different types of parental homework involvement have different implications for the student’s engagement with homework. Dumont et al. (2012) found both positive and negative relationships, depending on the nature or quality of the involvement. For example, whereas perceived parent–child conflicts about homework were negatively associated with educational outcomes, perceived parental competence and support for students’ self-direction were positively related to achievement. Similar results were reported by Karbach et al. (2013) , who found that academic achievement was significantly and negatively associated with parental control and strict structure (i.e., excessive control and pressure on children to complete assignments, consistent guidelines and rules about homework and school work). Gonida and Cortina (2014) saw different patterns of student gain depending on the type of parental involvement in homework: autonomy support was the most positive (parents who are involved giving support and favoring the autonomy of the child promote the development of a motivational orientation directed to learning and mastery), while interference was the most damaging (because it undermines mastery goal orientation and reduces perceived competence). Data from the study by Cunha et al. (2018b) showed a similar picture to that of previous studies (e.g., Dumont et al., 2012 ; Karbach et al., 2013 ; Gonida and Cortina, 2014 ): the two dimensions of the PHMS (i.e., environment-time and motivation-emotion management) were positively associated with homework self-regulation strategies and positive homework emotions. Finally, Silinskas and Kikas (2019) found that perceived parental control negatively and significantly predicts mathematical performance, student self-concept and student persistence. However, perceived parental support positively predicts student task persistence.

So, the results from past research show without a doubt that autonomy support is the most advisable form of parental involvement in children’s homework. Parental homework autonomy support can encourage the development of intrinsic motivation toward homework (see also Katz et al., 2011 ; Madjar et al., 2016 ; Moè et al., 2018 ; Feng et al., 2019 ), increased perceived competence and homework management ( Xu et al., 2017 ; Moè et al., 2018 ), and task persistence ( Silinskas and Kikas, 2019 ), as well as reducing procrastination ( Katz et al., 2014 ). In general, all of this suggests that parental homework involvement may play a valuable role in student homework management.

Role of Student Age and Gender

The association between parental homework involvement and student achievement proved to be mediated by school year ( Skaliotis, 2010 ), happening less frequently as students grow older ( Hoover-Dempsey and Sandler, 1997 ), although the data we have available seem to suggest greater consistency in middle and high school than in elementary school (see Chen, 2008 ; Patall et al., 2008 ). Silinskas and Kikas (2019) reported mixed results from their study with elementary school students. On the one hand, the results showed that perceived parental support was positively related to student task persistence, but the relationship disappeared when the sample was split by gender. Differences related to school year in the relationship between parental homework involvement and student homework management were also found by Núñez et al. (2015b) . The data from that study indicated that perceived parental homework support and control was not related to student homework behaviors at the elementary school level, there was considerable association at the junior high school level, and more targeted association at the high school level. Finally, the study by Gonida and Cortina (2014) , found differences associated with school year (elementary and junior high school years) in parental homework involvement. However, those differences were related to the mean scores for some of the variables (i.e., parent autonomy homework support and control), but no differences were seen in the structural part of the full mediation model tested.

Findings from Núñez et al. (2015b) suggested that higher school years (Grades 5–12) were associated with lower levels of perceived homework feedback from teachers. This coincides with data from other studies (e.g., Katz et al., 2010 ).

With respect to student variables (homework motivation and homework engagement), the available data suggest that as students move from elementary to high school, motivation and engagement decrease. For example, Katz et al. (2010) found school-year-related differences in student homework autonomous motivation: junior high school students have lower motivation than elementary school students. Similar data has been seen in studies carried out in different cultures and environments. Hong et al. (2009) , analyzing Chinese students’ (7th and 11th graders), concluded that older students were less engaged, persisted less, and expressed less enjoyment doing homework than younger students did. This pattern of devaluing school work, and exhibiting less effort and persistence when completing homework is in line with other studies and analyses in western cultures (e.g., Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2012 ; Regueiro et al., 2018 ). The data from samples of European students gives us the same picture: statistically significant differences as a function of school year in student homework motivation and engagement. For example, the study from Regueiro et al. (2015) with fourth to tenth grade students found that students in the higher grades, compared with the youngest, are less interested in homework, find it less useful, and have a more negative attitude toward homework.

Finally, several studies have looked at gender. For example, in a recent study, Madjar et al. (2016) did not find statistically significant differences in boys and girls in goal orientation toward homework, although Xu (2006) had found such differences. In middle school students, Feng et al. (2019) found that boys reported higher homework autonomy motivation than girls. On the other hand, in contrast to the data from Xu and Corno (2006) , Núñez et al. (2015a) , reported the absence of gender differences in the perception of teacher homework feedback.

The Current Study: Goals and Hypotheses

In this study we intend to analyze the validity of the indirect effects model (or motivational model) of student homework engagement, in students from two different school levels (middle and junior high school students), and by gender. We will analyze the extent to which motivation mediates the effect of the involvement of parents and teachers on student homework engagement (i.e., use of SRL strategies). In general terms, we intend to test the hypothesis that students’ autonomous motivation to do quality homework mediates the relationship between perceived teacher and parental involvement on homework and the students’ homework engagement. For a mediating effect to occur, the mediator variable must be significantly related to both the independent variable and the dependent variable. Based on the results of previous research (e.g., Katz et al., 2010 ; Feng et al., 2019 ), which support a model of indirect effects or motivational model ( Raftery et al., 2012 ), in this study we hypothesize that (i) student’s perceptions of the involvement of their parents and teachers in their homework significantly influences their motivation toward homework, and (ii) that this in turn influences their engagement ( Bouffard et al., 2001 ) in the realization of quality homework (i.e., use of self-regulated learning strategies in homework).

Data from previous research lead us to specify both hypotheses in the following terms (see Figure 1 ). First, we expect that the perception of involvement of both parents and teachers in homework will significantly and positively affect student homework motivation. The greater the perception of the involvement of teachers and parents in homework, the more motivated the student, and vice versa (e.g., Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ; Patall et al., 2008 ; Karbach et al., 2013 ; Núñez et al., 2015a , b , 2017 ; Rosário et al., 2015 , 2018 ). However, given the more direct relationship between teachers and homework, as reported in other studies (e.g., Feng et al., 2019 ), we expect teachers’ behavior to be a more powerful predictor than parents’ behavior. Secondly, we also expect the use of self-regulation strategies for working on homework to be significantly and positively conditioned by student’s motivation for homework engagement (e.g., Midgley, 2002 ; Vansteenkiste et al., 2005 ; Valle et al., 2015 ). Students who are more motivated toward the task (with the intention of learning) will tend to use more self-regulation strategies in their homework than students with less task-oriented motivation.

Figure 1. Three versions of the motivational mediation model of homework (non, total and partial mediation).

In order to examine these hypotheses, we formulated a model of structural equations with three variants: (i) a no motivational mediation model, or the direct effects model; (ii) a total motivational mediation model, or indirect effects model; and (iii) a partial motivational mediation model, or mixed effects model. In the total motivational mediation model, the effect of the perception of involvement of parents and teachers in homework on the use of self-regulation learning strategies occurs entirely through student homework autonomous motivation (there is an indirect effect, but not direct). However, there is partial mediation when, at the same time, both an indirect (mediation) and a direct effect occur. Finally, non-mediation takes place when the perception of involvement of parents and teachers in homework is not related to the mediating variable (i.e., homework autonomous motivation), and instead they directly influence the use of self-regulated learning strategies when working on homework.

Previous research leads us to assume a total motivational mediation hypothesis (although partial mediation could also occur). According to a model of total motivational mediation (see Figure 1 ), we hypothesize that:

H1: Perceived parental involvement (i.e., parental content-oriented support) has a positive and statistically significant effect on student’s motivational involvement in homework (i.e., homework autonomous motivation), but not on student’s homework engagement (i.e., student homework engagement).

H2: Perceived teacher involvement (i.e., teachers’ homework management) has a positive and statistically significant effect on student’s motivational involvement in homework (i.e., homework autonomous motivation), but not on student’s homework engagement (i.e., student homework engagement).

H3: Student’s motivational homework involvement (i.e., homework autonomous motivation) is positively and statistically significantly related to subsequent homework engagement (i.e., student homework engagement).

H4: Perceived teachers homework involvement (i.e., teachers’ homework management) determines students’ motivational involvement in their homework (i.e., homework autonomous motivation) to a greater extent than perceived parents’ involvement (i.e., parental content-oriented support).

H5: Taking the results of the study from Gonida and Cortina (2014) as a reference, we expect no significant differences in the homework motivational model (structural part of the model) between boys and girls.

H6: In relation to school year, although this model has not been tested at different ages (the study by Feng et al., 2019 , only used middle school students), based on the data provided by other researchers that have worked with different academic levels with respect to effects of parental involvement (e.g., Cooper and Valentine, 2001 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ) and teacher involvement (e.g., Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2007 ; Katz et al., 2010 ; Xu et al., 2017 ) in students’ homework, we hypothesize the existence of statistically significant differences in the structural part of the established model.

Materials and Methods

Participants.

The sample included 730 students in 4 years of Compulsory Secondary Education (CSE) in Spain who were enrolled in one of the 14 public schools participating in the study (located in three provinces in northern Spain). Approximately half of the schools are located in urban areas, and the other half are in rural or semi-urban areas. Just over half (56.6%) of the students were girls. The distribution of participants by year is similar: 26.6% in 7th grade; 20.8% in 8th grade; 24.9% in 9th grade; and 27.7% in 10th grade. The ages of the participants ranged between 12 and 16 years old.

Instruments

The variables Perceived Parental Homework Involvement and Perceived Teacher Homework Involvement were obtained from various items of the Homework Survey (see Appendix ), used in previous research (e.g., Núñez et al., 2015a , b ; Valle et al., 2015 ).

Perceived Parental Homework Involvement (PPHWI)

This measures parents’ supportive behavior (as perceived by the students) when their children do homework (see Appendix ). The three items in this subscale were taken from the Parental Homework Support Scale ( Xu et al., 2017 ). The measure mainly has to do with perceived parental content-oriented support, rather than parental homework autonomy as such. The students’ responses are rated on a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 ( totally false ) to 5 ( absolutely true ). Taking into account the small number of items (three), the measure shows good reliability in the current study (α = 0.84).

Perceived Teacher Homework Involvement (PTHWI)

This evaluates the teacher’s feedback perceived by students when the students do homework in the classroom (see Appendix ). It requests information about teachers’ behavior in adapting homework to students’ difficulties and supervising their level of comprehension, as well as errors made. In this study it is understood in the sense of teacher homework management (homework handling). Responses are rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 ( totally false ) to 5 ( absolutely true ). Although the number of items is small (three), the reliability of the measurement in this study is moderate (α = 0.60).

The variables Student Homework Autonomous Motivation and Student Homework Engagement were provided by the students’ responses to the “Inventario de Procesos de Estudio” [(Study Process Inventory) Rosário et al., 2013 ], after adapting it to the process of doing homework. Respondents rate each one of the six items on a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 ( totally false ) to 5 ( absolutely true ).

Student Homework Autonomous Motivation (SHWAM)

We estimated students’ greater or lesser motivational involvement through their intention to master the homework and learn (task orientation). This instrument evaluates students’ interest in homework, their satisfaction when doing it, as well as their positive feelings about working that way. The three items offer a measure of students’ autonomous motivation for homework similar to that provided by the scale from Katz et al. (2011) and used in Moè et al. (2018) . Taking into account the small number of items (three), the reliability of the measurement in this study is acceptable (α = 0.73).

Student Homework Engagement (SHWE)

Students’ engagement in homework was measured with three items that asked them about the self-regulated learning strategies used when doing homework (planning, monitoring, and evaluation). The three items were extracted from the Self-Regulation Learning Strategies Inventory ( Rosário et al., 2012 ), and provide information about the use of a macro-SRL strategy consisting of the three phases described by Zimmerman’s Model (e.g., Zimmerman, 2011 ). The reliability of the measure is modest in this study (α = 0.70), but if we take into account the number of items (three), it can be considered acceptable.

The target variable data were collected during regular school hours, after obtaining the consent of the school directors and the students’ parents. The questionnaires were administered in a single session by specialized staff that collaborated in the investigation. Participants completed all the questionnaires individually and without a time limit. The procedures followed in the study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Research and Teaching Ethics Committee of the University of A Coruña, the University of Oviedo, and the Helsinki Declaration.

Data Analysis

The structural equation model (SEM) was adjusted with the AMOS 22 program in SPSS ( Arbuckle, 2013 ). Students with a large number of missing values were removed from the database (1.23%), while the rest of the missing values were imputed.

The data were analyzed in three steps. Firstly, we calculated and reviewed the descriptive statistics and the Pearson correlation matrix. Secondly, considering that the variables exhibited a normal distribution, we estimated the goodness of fit of three versions of the structural equation model using robust maximum likelihood (RML): (i) no mediation (direct effects model), (ii) total mediation (indirect effects model), and (iii) partial mediation (mixed effects model). Thirdly, based on the AIC and BIC statistics, the best model of the three was identified and adjusted for the total population, for boys and girls, and for the two school levels. While we initially used data from 4 years (7th–10th grade) for the analysis of the effect of this variable, we regrouped the 4 years into two groups: middle school (7th and 8th grade) and junior high school (9th and 10th grade). In the Spanish educational system, 7th and 8th grade correspond to the first cycle of CSE and 9th and 10th grade to the second cycle of CSE. In the Spanish system these educational stages have different motivational, affective, cognitive and behavioral requirements at the student and context level. The first stage (7–8th) in which students “feel older” (e.g., greater autonomy, less parental control) also involves difficulties in adapting to a very different situation from the one they have left behind (new classmates, new friends, new teachers, etc.), and is more demanding. In contrast, in the second stage (9–10th) the students are more confident (of themselves and of the context), and have greater perceived control. Similarly, parents and teachers expect more autonomy from them but also more responsibility. This second stage also represents the end point of compulsory education. Taking all that into account, it seemed appropriate to adjust the homework motivational model in the two stages separately.

Model fit was evaluated using the most important indexes and statistics from AMOS 22 [i.e., χ 2 , χ 2 / df , the adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI), the comparative fit index (CFI), and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA)]. Evidence of a good fit is when χ 2 has a p > 0.05, χ 2 / df < 5, AGFI ≥ 0.90, CFI ≥ 0.95, and RMSEA ≤ 0.05. The smallest values of AIC and BIC indicate the best model. The effect size of the regression coefficients were calculated using Cohen’s (1988) d statistic.

Following the data analysis strategy above, the results are described in three sections: (a) descriptive statistics; (b) selecting the best model; and (c) fit of the selected model and parameter evaluation.

Descriptive Statistics

Table 1 gives the descriptive statistics for the total sample of students. The data show: (1) that the variables were significantly correlated with each other (all the correlation coefficients were statistically significant), and (2) that the symmetry and kurtosis of the variables indicated a sufficiently normal distribution.

Table 1. Pearson correlations, mean, standard deviation, skewnes, and kurtosis of observed measures.

Selecting the Best Model

Table 2 shows the results of the adjustment of the three models in competition. The data indicates that the two models that include mediation (total and partial mediation models in Figure 1 ) have excellent indexes of fit. The small difference in the values of the fit indexes of the two models is due to the fact that the two direct effects that made partial mediation possible (perceived involvement of parents and teachers on the student’s engagement in homework) are not statistically significant (perceived parental involvement → student homework engagement = 0.061, p > 0.05; perceived teacher involvement → student homework engagement = 0.036, p > 0.05). However, because the AIC and BIC values of the total mediation model are lower than those of the partial mediation model, and because the total mediation model is more parsimonious than the partial mediation model, we selected the total mediation model as the model with best fit.

Table 2. Results of the fit of the three competing motivational mediation models.

Evaluation of the Total Mediation Model of Homework

The Total Mediation Model was adjusted for the total sample, for boys and girls, and for school years, grouped into two levels [middle (7th–8th) and junior high school (9th–10th)]. Table 3 presents the corresponding fit statistics. The data show an excellent fit of the model in all cases for the total sample and for the four specific samples. These results suggest that the Total Mediation Model does not require additional modifications.

Table 3. Goodness-of-fit statistics for the Motivational Total Mediation Model of homework in the overall sample, and by gender and grade.

Table 4 shows the standardized regression coefficients, statistical significance, and effect size corresponding to the fit of the model in the four specific samples and in the total sample. In general, the data support the motivational total mediation model, both for girls and boys and for the two school levels analyzed. The data in Table 4 , relative to the total sample give good support to the hypotheses that produce the motivational model of total mediation.

Table 4. Standardized regression coefficients of the Motivational Total Mediation Model of homework.

H3 was confirmed: motivation was a powerful determinant of the use of self-regulated learning strategies doing homework (student homework engagement), both in the total sample and as a function of gender and school level (the regression coefficients were higher than b = 0.90), except for the junior high school sample (9th–10th grade), which was slightly lower ( b = 0.89). The effect sizes were very large (see the d statistic in Table 4 ). Likewise, H1 and H2 were confirmed in the total sample. The data also support the hypothesis about the association between perceived teacher involvement on homework and student autonomous motivation, with a moderate effect size ( d = 0.608), and the hypothesis about the relationship between perceived parental involvement in homework and student autonomous motivation, which was significant, albeit with a small effect size ( d = 0.302). Confirming the fourth hypothesis (H4), that perceived teacher involvement in homework has a greater relationship than perceived parental involvement in homework with students’ autonomous homework motivation. The confirmation of the first three hypotheses (along with the fourth) allow us to conclude that student autonomous motivation mediates the relationship between the involvement of parents and teachers perceived by students and student homework engagement.

Student homework engagement is explained to large degree (90.9%) by the direct effect of student autonomous motivation, but also due to the indirect effect of perceived teacher and parent homework involvement through student autonomous motivation. More specifically, of the total explanation of student homework engagement, the unique effect of student autonomous motivation is 24.79%; the effect corresponding to perceived parental homework involvement on student homework engagement through student autonomous motivation is 18.29%; and the effect corresponding to perceived teacher homework involvement on student homework engagement through student autonomous motivation is 47.74%. As it is a model of total mediation of student motivation, the direct effect of teacher and parent on student homework engagement is zero. Finally, parent and teacher homework involvement explain 36.4% of student autonomous motivation, directly (28.78%: 3.68% parents and 25.10% teachers) and indirectly (7.62%; one through the other: r = 0.399, d = 0.870).

The data support only a partial confirmation of the fifth hypothesis (H5). There are no significant differences in terms of two of the three direct effects of the model: both girls’ and boys’ perception of teacher homework involvement is statistically and significantly related to student autonomous motivation, to a similar extent (with a moderate effect size, slightly higher than d = 0.50). On the other hand, girls and boys exhibit positive, statistically significant and similar relationships between student autonomous motivation and student homework engagement (with a very large effect size, around d = 1.5). However, there are differences between the two groups in the association between perceived parental homework involvement and student autonomous motivation: while it is positive and statistically significant for girls (with a moderate effect size), it is not statistically significant in the sample of boys. Therefore, the data suggest that in the sample of girls there is mediation of student autonomous motivation in the relationship between perceived parental homework involvement and student homework engagement, while this is not so in the sample of boys. In other words, boys’ homework engagement is not explained by perceived parental homework involvement.

Finally, the data related to school year (H6), indicate that the relationship between student autonomous motivation and student homework engagement does not vary according to whether the students are in middle or junior high school. Likewise, they are not significantly different in the association between perceived teacher homework involvement and student autonomous motivation. However, as with gender, significant differences were found in the association between perceived parental homework involvement and student autonomous motivation. In particular, while the relationship is statistically significant in junior high school (although the effect size is small, d = 0.346), it is not in middle school ( p > 0.05). Also in this case, the data suggest that there is no mediation at middle school: perceived parental homework involvement does not directly or indirectly determine student homework engagement.

Ancillary Analyses

The data in Table 4 indicate that the association between student autonomous motivation and student homework engagement is very strong, both for the total sample ( b = 0.953) and for girls ( b = 0.950), boys ( b = 0.942), middle school students ( b = 0.951), and junior high school students ( b = 0.886). This adds fuel to the fire of the dispute over whether they are similar or different constructs. Although in this study we have assumed the theoretical position that motivation and engagement are different constructs, and were treated that way in the formulation of the model and the treatment of the data, there is no doubt that the two variables are intimately related, as the aforementioned data demonstrates. Are they different constructs (e.g., Russell et al., 2004 ; Reeve, 2012 ) or are they two dimensions of a macro-construct (e.g., Fredricks et al., 2004 ; Martin, 2007 )?

To answer this question, we produced two models by confirmatory factor analysis, with one and two factors, taking observed measures as the answers to the three items that theoretically measure student homework autonomous motivation and the three that theoretically measure student homework engagement. If the unifactorial model has the best fit, we could say we are faced with a macro-construction where motivation and engagement are two sides of the same coin. However, if the bifactorial model offers the best fit, then we may conclude that these are related but different constructs.

The data provided by the CFA seems to support a two-factor model. Although the fit of both models is good [one factor model: χ 2 (9) = 48.014, p < 0.001, GFI = 0.977, AGFI = 0.946, TLI = 0.950, CFI = 0.971, RMR = 0.046, RMSEA = 0.078; two factor model: χ 2 (8) = 41.455, p < 0.001, GFI = 0.980, AGFI = 0.946, TLI = 0.954, CFI = 0.980, RMR = 0.045, RMSEA = 0.076], the two factor model fits significantly better than the one factor model since the AIC is smaller (AIC one factor model = 72.014; AIC two factor model = 67.455). Therefore, the data seem to suggest that student motivation and student engagement are closely related but distinct constructs. The results of this research do not solve the question at all, so it may be a good idea to design a highly controlled study with zero threats to the validity.

In this study, we wanted to analyze the mediating role of students’ autonomous homework motivation in the relationship between perceived parental and teacher involvement in homework and the students’ homework engagement (i.e., use of SRL strategies in homework). In order to examine this hypothesis, we produced a structural equation model, and three versions (no motivational mediation, partial motivational mediation and total motivational mediation) were tested, for the total sample, and by gender and school year (middle and junior high school). Below, we discuss the results and their educational implications. We also describe some limitations of the study that could influence the data.

From a general point of view, the data suggest a total motivational mediation model, with some differences by gender and by school year. Despite the differences, we can conclude that motivation completely mediates the effect of teacher and parental involvement on students’ homework engagement (i.e., the use of self-regulated learning strategies).

The results of this study are largely in line with those from Feng et al. (2019) , in that autonomous motivation mediates the relationship between perceived teacher homework management and perceived parent homework content-oriented support and student homework engagement. However, in our study, autonomous motivation mediated completely between perceived parent content-oriented support and student homework engagement, whereas the study by Feng et al. (2019) reported partial mediation.

As in previous research (e.g., Valle et al., 2016 ), in this study students’ homework engagement is directly predicted by student autonomous motivational engagement (interest in learning and/or gaining competence and autonomy). As in other studies (e.g., Midgley, 2002 ; Vansteenkiste et al., 2005 ; Valle et al., 2015 ; Veas et al., 2018 ), the results suggest that student engagement in homework depends greatly on being motivated to acquire competence and autonomy. However, the dependence of autonomous motivation and student engagement in our study is even stronger than in previous studies. Our data seem to suggest that the three variables considered as predictors of student homework engagement really are predictors, and do not vary by gender or student age. Our data from secondary education students (7th–10th grade) complement the data from Valle et al. (2016) , although that was from students in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades.

Likewise, the results in this study about the relationship between parent and teacher homework involvement and student homework autonomous motivation are in accordance with the initially proposed hypotheses in the case of the total sample, but not when gender or school year are considered.

More specifically, when it comes to parents’ involvement in their children’s homework (i.e., content-oriented support), in line with other studies (e.g., Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ; Van Voorhis, 2001 ; Pomerantz et al., 2007 ; Patall et al., 2008 ; Karbach et al., 2013 ; Gonida and Cortina, 2014 ; Gonida and Vauras, 2014 ; Suárez et al., 2014 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ; Cunha et al., 2018b ; Moè et al., 2018 ; Feng et al., 2019 ; Silinskas and Kikas, 2019 ), when children perceive that their parents provide support (i.e., oriented to content), their interest grows due to increased competence and autonomy through their engagement in homework. However, the size of this association is weaker than expected. Although some studies have reported a moderate effect size (e.g., Katz et al., 2011 ; Moè et al., 2018 ; Feng et al., 2019 ), the data from our study, without looking at student age or gender, have a modest (e.g., Gonida and Cortina, 2014 ) to small (e.g., Silinskas and Kikas, 2019 ) effect size.

Looking at the responses of 5th and 8th grade students, Gonida and Cortina (2014) found a positive relationship between parent autonomy and student mastery ( b = 0.18, p < 0.01), with a modest effect size. Despite finding differences between 5th and 8th grade in mean scores for some of the latent variables, they found no differences in the relationship between the variables. However, as in the study from Silinskas and Kikas (2019) , in our study we also saw differences between girls and boys in the effect of perceived parental content-oriented support on student autonomous motivation. In addition, our study also found a link between middle and junior high grades. In terms of gender, the size of the effect of girls’ perceptions of parental content-oriented homework support on their autonomous motivation toward homework is moderate, in boys this relationship is not statistically significant. In other words, the girls’ autonomous motivation for homework is much more sensitive to variations in the perception they have of the involvement of their parents in homework than in boys. In terms of age, our data indicate that the effect of perceived parental content-oriented support on student autonomous motivation is higher in junior high school (although the effect size is small) than in middle-school (the size of the effect is null). If we combine these results with those from other investigations in which parent homework support and student autonomous motivation for homework was seen to decrease as students age (e.g., Hong et al., 2009 ; Katz et al., 2010 ; Gonida and Cortina, 2014 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ; Regueiro et al., 2018 ), the result seems somewhat paradoxical. As less student autonomous motivation is reported and less parental content-oriented support is perceived as the student gets older, the greater the impact of perceived parental content-oriented support on student autonomous motivation for homework. In other words, as one goes from 7th to 10th grade, there is less autonomous motivation for homework, lower perceived parental content-oriented support but nevertheless, a stronger relationship between the two variables (i.e., student autonomous motivation depends more on perceived parental content-oriented support). The explanation could lie in the child’s own development. It is possible that this happens because as the child grows in competences (cognitive, motivational and affective) they find it logical for their parents to require them to be more autonomous while at the same time they have a better understanding of the importance of their parents’ involvement in their homework.

The data on the effect of perceived teacher homework management on student autonomous motivation were completely in accordance with the hypothesis, both with and without controlling for gender and age. These results are consistent with previous research (e.g., Cooper, 2001 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ; Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2007 ; Trautwein et al., 2009 ; Dettmers et al., 2010 ; Katz et al., 2010 ; Xu et al., 2017 ; Feng et al., 2019 ), highlighting the important role of the association between teacher involvement in homework (e.g., feedback, follow-up practices, and designing homework) and student homework engagement (e.g., homework management strategies, time spent, amount of homework completed, and homework effort), and disengagement ( Bempechat and Shernoff, 2012 ).

The impact of perceived teacher homework management on student autonomous motivation in our study is rather significant (with a moderate effect size in all cases), both in middle and junior high school, although perceived teacher content-oriented support decreases as students get older, both in our study [ t (728) = 9.441; p < 0.001; medium effect, d = 0.70] and in previous studies (e.g., Katz et al., 2010 ; Núñez et al., 2015a ). We believe that both results have a reasonable explanation. Perhaps the decrease in student perceptions of teacher involvement in homework management as they go up the grades may be a true reflection of what actually happens (as students get older, teachers support more student autonomy). And in relation to the effect of perceived teacher homework management on student homework management, it is well understood that the strength of the association is maintained, since in both middle and junior high school it can be equally important for students to perceive that their teachers (i) make sure students understand the assigned tasks, (ii) consider the students when deciding the type of homework, or difficulty and (iii) what homework they see in class to correct mistakes. This seems to be an acceptable explanation for the similar effect sizes in girls and boys.

Although in this study there were gender differences in the mean scores of perceived teacher homework management in favor of girls [ t (675) = 2.90, p < 0.01, small effect size: d = 0.22], gender was not a factor related to the intensity of the effect of perceived teacher homework management on student homework engagement (a very similar effect size, see Table 4 ). This suggests that the autonomous motivation for homework is equally affected by perceived teacher homework management in boys and girls.

Limitations of the Study

The study has some limitations which must be taken into account in the interpretation of the results, comparison with other studies, and generalization to other educational levels, contexts or cultures. Three are particularly important.

Firstly, the measures used to construct the latent variables of the homework motivational model were taken only through self-report scales. The importance of self-report methodology in educational research is undeniable ( Zimmerman, 2011 ), but so are the associated problems of validity and reliability ( Pike and Kuh, 2005 ), and incongruence with other innovative methods of assessment ( Winne and Perry, 2000 ; Azevedo et al., 2017 ). In addition, in this research only three items per variable were used, which could be associated with some of the problems we indicated. For example, the internal consistency of three of the four scales is within the limits of what is acceptable (i.e., perceived teacher homework involvement, student homework autonomous motivation, and student homework engagement). Likewise, three items may be too few to adequately capture everything we wanted to measure. This is the case, for example, of the measure of perceived teacher homework management: three items are used that purport to provide information on three types of teacher actions that, while undoubtedly important, may not cover the construct “teacher homework management.”

Secondly, the measures in this study regarding the involvement of parents and teachers correspond only to the perception of the students (i.e., parental homework involvement and teacher homework involvement perceived by the students). We were interested in the perception of the student, more so than that of the teacher or the parents. Although the literature supports the need to consider students’ perspectives of homework assignments (e.g., Warton, 2001 ; Landers, 2013 ) because students are active players in their learning process (e.g., Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2007 ), it also recognizes the advantage of collecting and combining reports from different data sources (e.g., Dettmers et al., 2010 ; Saban, 2013 ; Rosário et al., 2018 ). However, in this study only the perception of the students was included, due to the weak relationship seen in other studies between the perception of the student and the perceptions of teachers or parents (i.e., Rosário et al., 2018 ). It is important to underline this in order for it not to be ignored if the data from this study were to be used in future studies, such as meta-analyses.

Another limitation is that the study is a cross-sectional survey. The data do not support causal analysis, even though our interpretations are based on previous findings and theoretical analysis. This issue must be addressed by future research, through repeated measure designs (e.g., Silinskas et al., 2013 ; Silinskas and Kikas, 2019 ) or using experimental or quasi-experimental designs which are as ecologically valid as possible (e.g., study 2 from Moè et al., 2018 ).

Educational Implications

This study has clear educational implications. First, we found that one of the most important predictors of student homework engagement is student autonomous motivation (directly) and teacher and parental homework involvement (indirectly, through autonomous motivation). This highlights the importance of parents and teachers focusing on making students see that doing homework is not a punishment, or wasted time, but an opportunity to gain competence and above all, autonomy ( Pomerantz et al., 2007 ).

Student engagement is affected by parents not only in terms of how much they participate, but also through the style with which they relate to their children in school-related tasks and aspects ( Grolnick et al., 1997 ), including homework ( Pomerantz et al., 2007 ). Parental autonomy support has significant consequences for motivation and student homework engagement. However, the impact should be greater than that reported by research. Because of this, it seems urgent to design interventions with parents in order to work with them to effectively use am autonomy support parental style when helping their children with homework. It is possible that this type of training would make this behavior clearer and more visible in the eyes of their children (as with the control style). An example of this type of intervention can be seen in Moè et al. (2018) . The data from Moè’s study showed that the training program reduced parental negative affect, and prevented a decrease in student homework motivation and emotions.

The effect of teacher homework management on student autonomous motivation for homework (directly) and student homework engagement (indirectly) was important in terms of quantity and quality. Even if things seem to be going well, they can always improve. As with parents, it is also necessary to design evidence-based interventions that facilitate the role of the teacher in the design and monitoring of homework ( Pianta et al., 2012 ; Rosário et al., 2015 ).

Given that the real involvement (of parents and teachers) may be different from students’ perceptions, we must train parents and teachers in effective ways of involvement that promote students’ competences and autonomy, and that facilitate student’s accurate perceptions of this. It is useless for teachers and parents to become involved in student homework to promote student competence and autonomy if students cannot perceive this behavior. This is what the study from Rosário et al. (2018) suggests, concluding that preparing good tasks (homework) is important, but it is not enough. In reality, it is the students who finally have to understand the teachers’ purposes, the interest of the tasks and, of course, how useful the tasks are for the development of their own competence and autonomy.

Student engagement is a very important construct for explaining student progress (and dropout) in school and extracurricular tasks ( Raftery et al., 2012 ; Rumberger and Rotermund, 2012 ). Student engagement is also important for the field of homework, its relationship with learning and performance, and it is a crucial element for connecting students, schools and families ( Epstein, 2011 ). The model developed by Connell and Wellborn (1991) clearly explains how student engagement is determined by students’ motivational processes and the context. In this study we examined the mediating role of student autonomous motivation between context and student engagement.

Despite its limitations, our work provides interesting data, and some issues which may be of interest in the field of homework. For example, given the strong relationship between student autonomous motivation for homework and student homework engagement, are they different constructs or are they part of the same construct? Our data suggest that they are different constructs but there is little difference in the fit of both models. More research on this matter would be welcome. More research is also needed in order to clarify the differences between boys and girls and between middle and junior high school students regarding their perceptions of their parents’ involvement in homework. Likewise, we think that the positive, significant relationship between students’ perception of the involvement of parents and teachers in homework is very good news. This means that despite the difficulty of the connection between family and school, at least in the field of homework, there is a strong relationship: the better the perception of teacher homework management, the better the perception of parents’ content-oriented support. Although, as we see, there is already a certain connection between school and family, schools do need to think creatively about how to involve families more in educational work with their children ( Raftery et al., 2012 ). A good example may be the approach developed by the National Network of Partnerships Schools (NNPS).

Ethics Statement

The data of the target variables were collected during regular school hours, after obtaining the written informed consent of the school directors and the students’ parents. The questionnaires were administered in a single session by specialized staff that collaborated in the investigation. Participants completed all the questionnaires individually and without time limit. The procedures followed in the study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration, and were approved by the Research and Teaching Ethics Committee of the University of A Coruña.

Author Contributions

JN, BR, NS, and AV contributed conception and design of the study. IP and MR organized the database. JN and AV performed the statistical analysis. JN, BR, and NS wrote the first draft of the manuscript. IP, MR, and AV wrote sections of the manuscript. All authors contributed to manuscript revision, read and approved the submitted version.

This work was developed with the financing of the research projects EDU2013-44062-P (MINECO), EDU2017-82984-P (MEIC), and Government of the Principality of Asturias, Spain. European Regional Development Fund (Research Groups Program FC-GRUPIN-IDI/2018/000199).

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Appendix: Items Used as Observed Variables

Perceived teacher homework involvement (homework management).

• The teachers ensure that I understand the assigned homework.

• The teachers adapt the difficulty of the homework to each of us.

• In class, we correct the homework to see where we have made mistakes.

Perceived Parental Homework Involvement (Content-Oriented Support)

• My parents ask me if I need help with my homework.

• Generally, one of my parents helps me with my homework if I need it.

• When I have doubts about the homework, my parents’ explanations are very useful.

Student Homework Autonomous Motivation

• I do homework with interest because it helps me to better master what the teacher explains in class every day.

• Homework is a great opportunity to check to what extent I have mastered knowledge of the subjects.

• I like doing homework because I almost always end up with a good feeling of competence and I feel proud of myself.

Student Homework Engagement (SRL Strategies Management)

• When I’m doing homework, I think about how I’m doing it to confirm whether I am applying what the teacher taught us in class, and if not, to see how I can do better.

• Before I do the homework, I tend to think whether I am clear about what was taught in class and, if not, I review the lesson before beginning.

• Before I do my homework, I think of different ways to do it, whether I understand what I am doing, and whether I know how to apply it to other similar but unresolved classroom tasks (other problems, another text commentary, etc.).

Keywords : student homework motivation and engagement, perceived parental homework involvement, perceived teacher homework involvement, secondary education, homework engagement

Citation: Núñez JC, Regueiro B, Suárez N, Piñeiro I, Rodicio ML and Valle A (2019) Student Perception of Teacher and Parent Involvement in Homework and Student Engagement: The Mediating Role of Motivation. Front. Psychol. 10:1384. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01384

Received: 20 December 2018; Accepted: 28 May 2019; Published: 13 June 2019.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2019 Núñez, Regueiro, Suárez, Piñeiro, Rodicio and Valle. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Natalia Suárez, [email protected] ; [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Evaluating the Role of Homework

Winter 2022

By Alison Baran

Doing Our Homework

A sign of the times, through the pandemic lens.

• Homework was never intended to make up for “learning loss”; it is a tool for reinforcement and enrichment.
• Caregivers are more overwhelmed than ever before. Many are not in the position to support children with their homework.
• Students have the right to socialize with their peers and engage in extracurricular activities that bring them happiness. During the height of the pandemic, children and teens had limited, if any, opportunities to socialize.
• More than a third (37%) of teens surveyed say their mental health has worsened throughout the pandemic, according to a study done by the Morgan Stanley Alliance for Children’s Mental Health (2021). It is important that all constituents—faculty, administrators, caregivers—have a clear understanding and shared language about the expectations around giving and receiving homework. More than ever, we need to be working together in our schools with the express purpose of putting the mental health needs of our students first.
• Children have the right to playtime, extracurricular activities, downtime, and adequate sleep.
• Teachers should assign homework with a clear sense of why it is being given.
• The purpose of the homework assignment should be articulated to the students, including the fact that a certain task might be a challenge. Research shows that when children know why they are doing the homework, they are more engaged and inspired.
• Tasks should be personally relevant to students and should allow for choices. Children are motivated when they have ownership in their learning.
• Over the course of time, the kinds of homework should vary depending on what is happening in class.
• Homework assignments better serve students when they feel competent and confident with the material being assigned.
• Children deserve feedback about the homework that they have completed.
• Teachers should differentiate for individual needs across all grade levels. This might mean adjusting number of math facts, amount of reading, etc.
• Parents have the right to control their child’s time outside of school without being judged.
• If you have doubts about whether the assignment will further learning, consider that the default might be to have no homework, or think about conducting an experiment of not doing homework for a set period of time.

Readings and Resources

• The Battle Over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents by Harris Cooper
• The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing by Alfie Kohn
• Rethinking Homework: Best Practices that Support Diverse Needs by Cathy Vatterott
• “ The Case for (Quality) Homework ,” by Janine Bempechat, Education Next , Winter 2019
• “ The Lost Cause of Homework Reform ,” by Brian Gill and Steven Schlossman, American Journal of Education , November 2000
• “ New York School District Weighs Banning Homework ,” by Alexa Lardieri, U.S. News & World Report , May 31, 2018
• “ Why this superintendent is banning homework—and asking kids to read instead ,” by Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post , July 17, 2017

Alison Baran is a fourth grade teacher at The Park School of Baltimore in Maryland. She’s also the lower school new faculty coordinator.

Your Summer Reading List

Looking for the right book for summer reading? NAIS President, Debra Wilson shared these recommendations in her most recent edition of Head Space. Most of the titles are directly applicable to the work of educators and leaders, but some might enrich your life in different ways..

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McDonald's McChicken Sandwiches Cost $4.89 in June 2024?

The conservative organization media research center (mrc) published an image on facebook claiming the cost of a mcchicken was nearly $5., jordan liles, published june 14, 2024.

About this rating

On June 10, 2024, the conservative organization Media Research Center (MRCTV) posted ( archived ) an image on Facebook. The image displayed a McDonald's McChicken sandwich with an "end-of-2019 price" of $1.29 and a "mid-2024 price" of $4.89, along with a calculated increase of 279.1 percent. The MRC post caption referenced U.S. President Joe Biden, reading, "Thanks, Joe." A repost ( archived ) of the image on June 12 displayed the caption, "Rest in Peace to the days when fast food was affordable." Other users also reposted the image on X.

The pricing information in MRC's image referenced worldwide inflation in recent years, or more specifically the rising costs in the U.S. fast-food industry. Regarding this subject,  The Associated Press published on May 29, "McDonald's said the average price of all menu items has risen 40 percent over the last five years, to account for a 40 percent average increase in the cost of labor, paper and food. That is higher than overall consumer prices, which have increased 21 percent since December 2019, according to government figures."

The purported "mid-2024 price" of $4.89 was the primary claim in the image, according to users' interpretations of the post reflected in their comments, the fact MRC posted the image on Facebook in June 2024, and the yellow, highlighted background behind the dollar figure. One commenter wrote of the image, "I don't eat McDonald's. However, it does tend to show how well Biden's Build Back Better is working."

On June 13, Snopes conducted research to find the truth at the center of the piece of media posted by MRC. While a wealth of data about 2019 pricing was not readily available, we were able to conclude the MRC post's primary claim about the "mid-2024 price" of a McChicken was false. Our data is presented below, including rough estimates for the national-average cost and the average cost of a McDonald's McChicken sandwich in California.

We emailed MRC on June 13 asking if it planned to correct or retract the false Facebook posts. On the following day, a spokesperson for MRC responded to our inquiry. That response appears later in this story.

Error in MRC's Citation of FastFoodMenuPrices.com

Without any visible context in the MRC post's image, the image appeared to reference U.S. national average prices for the McDonald's McChicken sandwich. The slightly visible citation displayed at the bottom of the image read, "Source: fastfoodmenuprices.com (As of End of May 2024)."

A visit to fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/ ( archived ) – the source displayed at the bottom of the image – showed information explaining that the FastFoodMenuPrices.com author sourced the $4.89 price reposted by MRC from a single McDonald's restaurant at 904 Manhattan Ave. in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Also, the FastFoodMenuPrices.com author listed the lone restaurant's price as "for 2023," not for the "end of May 2024" as MRC claimed. FastFoodMenuPrices.com added on its website, "Keep in mind that prices vary a lot depending on where you are, and you might not pay what we paid." This statement was absent from MRC's image.

Setting all of the MRC post's discrepancies aside, a quick and simple check of the publicly available McDonald's mobile app for the June 2024 price at the same Brooklyn McDonald's location displayed $3.49 for a McChicken – a price far short of the $4.89 MRC published to its followers.

Rough Average for US McChicken Price

We continued to use the McDonald's mobile app in order to land on a rough national average cost for the McDonald's McChicken sandwich. For our research, we manually cycled through hundreds of the company's restaurants in the app to compile a sampling of pricing data.

In our first study, we randomly selected three McDonald's restaurants from each of the 50 U.S. states. The result of the 150-restaurant study was a rough national average of $2.79 for a McChicken – once again, a price nowhere near $4.89.

More Data for California

According to the ScrapeHero website , as of March 12, 2024, there were 13,529 McDonalds restaurants in the United States. "The state and territory with the most number of McDonalds locations in the U.S. is California, with 1,221 restaurants, which is about 9 percent of all McDonald's restaurants in the U.S.," Scrapehero reported. (Alternatively, McDonalds.com published in March 2023, "California is home to nearly 1,300 McDonald's restaurants.")

In light of this data – as well as the California $20 minimum wage hike affecting McDonald's and other fast-food companies – we collected pricing information for 50 additional, randomly selected McDonald's restaurants in California. According to the data collected only from that sampling of 50 California locations, the rough average state cost of a McChicken was $3.35. This cost was higher than our study's rough national average of $2.79 but still not close to $4.89.

We also calculated the average of all 200 McDonald's locations for which we compiled data. Those 200 locations included three locations for each of 49 U.S. states (excluding California) and 53 locations for California restaurants. This calculation perhaps added too many locations for California compared to the state's smaller-percentage slice into the national makeup of the company. Even so, that rough average of 200 total McDonald's locations calculated $2.93 for a McChicken. All of our data is available for viewing in a two-tab spreadsheet via Google Sheets.

MRC Response to Snopes

On June 14, MRC Communications Director Iris Miller responded to our email inquiry from the previous day. Miller wrote, "After further review, our team realized the cited website says updated 2024 but the McChicken specifically says 2023. We've added a correction to our post and will be making new graphics for future posts. Unfortunately, Facebook no longer lets you swap out the picture so we cannot correct that without deleting. We used this site since they have past and present (or recent) numbers. As you know, prices can vary widely depending on location."

However, again, as evidenced by the research presented in this fact-check article, MRC's image about McChicken prices involved a lot more than a simple mix-up involving the year.

For further reading, we previously looked into other McDonald's rumors claiming the company planned to leave California entirely and that  McNuggets are made with silicone oil .

"About." MRCTV , https://www.mrctv.org/about.

Bauder, David. "Conservative Groups Attempting to Kill Prospective ABC Show." The Associated Press , 9 Apr. 2015, https://apnews.com/television-76f7856b0793468f9c013bb63a45f245.

Durbin, Dee-Ann. "McDonald's Says $18 Big Mac Meal Was an 'exception' and News Reports Overstated Its Price Increases." The Associated Press , 29 May 2024, https://apnews.com/article/mcdonalds-inflation-prices-big-mac-c9c4abef25369f6b87b2781f5658bc0e.

"McDonald's Menu Prices." FastFoodMenuPrices.com , https://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/.

"Number of McDonald's Locations in the USA in 2024." ScrapeHero , 12 Mar. 2024, https://www.scrapehero.com/location-reports/McDonalds-USA/.

The Conversation. "Inflation Is Spiking Around the World — Not Just in US."  Snopes.com , 1 Aug. 2022, https://www.snopes.com//news/2022/08/01/inflation-us-world/.

"The McDonald's System's Billion Dollar Impact: California." McDonalds.com , https://www.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/our-stories/article/mcdonalds-billion-dollar-impact-california.html.

By Jordan Liles

Jordan Liles is a Senior Reporter who has been with Snopes since 2016.

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Microsoft and Adobe Patch Tuesday, June 2024 Security Update Review

Last updated on: June 12, 2024

Table of Contents

Microsoft patch tuesday for june 2024, adobe patches for june 2024, zero-day vulnerability patched in june patch tuesday edition, critical severity vulnerability patched in june patch tuesday edition, other microsoft vulnerability highlights, microsoft release summary.

• Discover and Prioritize Vulnerabilities inVulnerability Management, Detection & Response (VMDR)
• Rapid Response withPatch Management (PM)

EVALUATE Vendor-Suggested Mitigation with Policy Compliance (PC)

Qualys monthly webinar series.

Microsoft’s June Patch Tuesday is here, bringing fixes for vulnerabilities impacting its multiple products. This month’s release highlights the ongoing battle against cybersecurity threats, from critical updates to important fixes. Let’s dive into the crucial insights from Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday updates for June 2024.

Microsoft Patch Tuesday’s June 2024 edition addressed 58 vulnerabilities, including one critical and 50 important severity vulnerabilities. In this month’s security updates, Microsoft has addressed one  zero-day vulnerability known to be exploited in the wild. Microsoft also addressed seven vulnerabilities in Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based). The vulnerabilities have been patched earlier this month.

Microsoft Patch Tuesday, June edition includes updates for vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office and Components, Visual Studio, Windows Server Service, Windows Kernel, Windows DHCP Server, Azure Storage Library, Azure File Sync, and more.

Microsoft has fixed several flaws in multiple software, including Denial of Service (DoS), Elevation of Privilege (EoP), Information Disclosure, and Remote Code Execution (RCE).

The June 2024 Microsoft vulnerabilities are classified as follows:

Adobe has released  10  security advisories to address  167  vulnerabilities in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Audition, Adobe Media Encoder, Adobe FrameMaker Publishing Server, Adobe Commerce, Adobe ColdFusion, Adobe Substance 3D Stager, Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop, and Adobe Acrobat Android. Of the 167 vulnerabilities, 13 are given critical severity ratings. Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities may lead to security feature bypass, privilege escalation, and arbitrary code execution.

CVE-2023-50868: MITRE: CVE-2023-50868 NSEC3 closest encloser proof can exhaust CPU

The vulnerability exists in DNSSEC validation that may allow an attacker to exploit standard DNSSEC protocols intended for DNS integrity by using excessive resources on a resolver, causing a denial of service for legitimate users.

This vulnerability was disclosed in February and patched in numerous DNS implementations.

CVE-2024-30080: Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

Message Queuing (MSMQ) is a protocol developed by Microsoft to ensure reliable communication between Windows computers across different networks, even when a host is temporarily not connected (by maintaining a message queue of undelivered messages).

To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker must send a malicious MSMQ packet to an MSMQ server. On successful exploitation, an attacker may perform remote code execution on the server side.

• CVE-2024-30082 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Win32k. An attacker who successfully exploits the vulnerability may gain SYSTEM privileges.
• CVE-2024-35250 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Windows Kernel-Mode Driver. On successful exploitation, an attacker may gain SYSTEM privileges.
• CVE-2024-30084 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Windows Kernel-Mode Driver. To exploit the vulnerability, an attacker must win a race condition. On successful exploitation, an attacker may gain SYSTEM privileges.
• CVE-2024-30085 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver. An attacker who successfully exploits the vulnerability may gain SYSTEM privileges.
• CVE-2024-30086 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Windows Win32 Kernel Subsystem. On successful exploitation, an attacker may gain SYSTEM privileges.
• CVE-2024-30087 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Win32k. An attacker would gain the rights of the user running the affected application.
• CVE-2024-30089 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Microsoft Streaming Service. On successful exploitation, an attacker may gain SYSTEM privileges.
• CVE-2024-30091 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Win32k. The attacker would gain the rights of the user running the affected application.
• CVE-2024-30088 and CVE-2024-30099 are elevation of privilege vulnerabilities in the Windows Kernel. To exploit them, an attacker must win a race condition. On successful exploitation, an attacker may gain SYSTEM privileges.

This month’s release notes cover multiple Microsoft product families and products/versions affected, including, but not limited to, Windows Distributed File System (DFS), Windows Themes, Winlogon, Windows Remote Access Connection Manager, Windows Event Logging Service, Windows Link Layer Topology Discovery Protocol, Windows Container Manager Service, Microsoft WDAC OLE DB provider for SQL, Windows Wi-Fi Driver, Windows Win32K – GRFX, Windows Standards-Based Storage Management Service, Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers, Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver, Windows Win32 Kernel Subsystem, Windows NT OS Kernel, Microsoft Streaming Service, Windows Storage, Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS), Windows Cryptographic Services, Microsoft Windows Speech, Microsoft Office SharePoint, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Outlook, Dynamics Business Central, Azure Monitor, Azure SDK, Microsoft Dynamics, Windows Perception Service, Azure Data Science Virtual Machines, Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based).

Discover and Prioritize Vulnerabilities in  Vulnerability Management, Detection & Response (VMDR)

Qualys VMDR automatically detects new Patch Tuesday vulnerabilities using continuous updates to its Knowledgebase (KB).

You can see all your impacted hosts by these vulnerabilities using the following QQL query:

Rapid Response with  Patch Management (PM)

VMDR rapidly remediates Windows hosts by deploying the most relevant and applicable per-technology version patches. You can simply select respective QIDs in the Patch Catalog and filter on the “Missing” patches to identify and deploy the applicable, available patches with one click.

The following QQL will return the missing patches for this Patch Tuesday:

With Qualys Policy Compliance’s Out-of-the-Box Mitigation or Compensatory Controls, the risk of a vulnerability being exploited is reduced when the remediation (fix/patch) cannot be implemented immediately.

Qualys Policy Compliance team releases these exclusive controls based on vendor-suggested Mitigation/Workaround.

Mitigation refers to a setting, standard configuration, or general best-practice existing in a default state that could reduce the severity of the exploitation of a vulnerability.

A workaround is sometimes used temporarily to achieve a task or goal when the usual or planned method isn’t working. Information technology often uses a workaround to overcome hardware, programming, or communication problems. Once a problem is fixed, a workaround is usually abandoned.

The following Qualys Policy Compliance Control IDs (CIDs), and System Defined Controls (SDC) have been updated to support Microsoft recommended mitigation(s) for this Patch Tuesday:

CVSS:3.1 9.8 / 8.5

Policy Compliance Control IDs (CIDs):

• 14297 Status of the open network connections and listening ports (Qualys Agent only)
• 14916 Status of Windows Services
• 4030 Status of the Windows Message Queuing Service

The following QQL will return a posture assessment for the CIDs for this Patch Tuesday:

control.id: [14297, 14916, 4030]

CVE-2024-30070: DHCP Server Service Denial of Service Vulnerability

CVSS:3.1 7.5 / 6.7

• 26238 Status of the DHCP Failover Configuration (Qualys Agent Only)

control.id: [26238]

The next Patch Tuesday falls on July 9, and we’ll be back with details and patch analysis. Until next Patch Tuesday, stay safe and secure. Be sure to subscribe to the ‘This Month in Vulnerabilities and Patch’s webinar.’

The Qualys Research team hosts a monthly webinar series to help our existing customers leverage the seamless integration between Qualys Vulnerability Management Detection Response (VMDR) and Qualys Patch Management . Combining these two solutions can reduce the median time to remediate critical vulnerabilities.

During the webcast, we will discuss this month’s high-impact vulnerabilities, including those that are a part of this month’s Patch Tuesday alert. We will walk you through the necessary steps to address the key vulnerabilities using Qualys VMDR and Qualys Patch Management.

Join the webinar

This Month in Vulnerabilities & Patches

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