{"title":"Are we doing homework wrong? The marginal effect of homework using spaced repetition","authors":"Alan Green","doi":"10.1016/j.iree.2024.100288","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>While assigning homework in college courses is supported by both psychological research on memory and studies of economics classes, research examining the marginal effect of homework scores on exam performance generally shows insignificant results. These weak marginal effects may be due to the number of times students repeat the work and how spread out they are; the few studies that show positive marginal effects of homework performance use at least three spaced repetitions. This study evaluates a spaced repetition model of short homework assignments repeated at increasing intervals in intermediate microeconomics. Results show a positive significant marginal effect; students who did better on the homework assignments scored higher on both in class exams and a cumulative final. The implication is that the simple change of structuring homework assignments with additional spaced repetitions may significantly improve learning.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":1,"journal":{"name":"Accounts of Chemical Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":16.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Accounts of Chemical Research","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477388024000069","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
While assigning homework in college courses is supported by both psychological research on memory and studies of economics classes, research examining the marginal effect of homework scores on exam performance generally shows insignificant results. These weak marginal effects may be due to the number of times students repeat the work and how spread out they are; the few studies that show positive marginal effects of homework performance use at least three spaced repetitions. This study evaluates a spaced repetition model of short homework assignments repeated at increasing intervals in intermediate microeconomics. Results show a positive significant marginal effect; students who did better on the homework assignments scored higher on both in class exams and a cumulative final. The implication is that the simple change of structuring homework assignments with additional spaced repetitions may significantly improve learning.
期刊介绍:
Accounts of Chemical Research presents short, concise and critical articles offering easy-to-read overviews of basic research and applications in all areas of chemistry and biochemistry. These short reviews focus on research from the author’s own laboratory and are designed to teach the reader about a research project. In addition, Accounts of Chemical Research publishes commentaries that give an informed opinion on a current research problem. Special Issues online are devoted to a single topic of unusual activity and significance.
Accounts of Chemical Research replaces the traditional article abstract with an article "Conspectus." These entries synopsize the research affording the reader a closer look at the content and significance of an article. Through this provision of a more detailed description of the article contents, the Conspectus enhances the article's discoverability by search engines and the exposure for the research.