Using national longitudinal data of students during their 9th and 11th grades, we address popular concerns over screen time activities distracting students' academic pursuits. We examine gender differences in the types of screen time use, expecting the skill-based activity of video gaming to be more common among boys and the socially oriented…

The Additive Factor Model (AFM) is a cognitive diagnostic model that can be used to predict student performance on items in a context that allows for student learning. Within AFM, "skills" have a learning rate, and student acquisition of a skill depends only on the number of opportunities a student has had to exercise that skill and the…

We present a comment on "Benefits of completing homework for students with different aptitudes in an introductory electricity and magnetism course", by F. J. Kontur, K. de La Harpe, and N. B. Terry PRST-PER 11, 010105 (2015). Our data show that the conclusions Kontur and coworkers draw from their data may not be generally applicable.

Computer-assisted assessment (CAA) is widely used in modern university courses in many different fields. It can be used both in formative and summative assessments and with different emphasis on (self-)training, grading, and feedback generation. This article reports on experiences from using the CAA tool "JACK" to support a university…

The purpose of the current investigation was to examine the relationships among a range of specific barriers and facilitators of parent involvement and a variety of types of school involvement within a diverse group of immigrant parents of English Learners (ELs) in four elementary school districts. In-home types of educational involvement such as…

The article evaluates the relationship between homework and self-regulation from the elementary grades to college. It reveals that quality measures of homework such as managing distractions, self-efficacy and perceived responsibility for learning, setting goals, self-refection, managing time, and setting a place for homework completion are more…

This article presents the results of a study focused on the issue of how proctored testing affects student test scores in a formal Intermediate Algebra course setting. The study follows a model of assessment in which students in one group have taken two of their five unit exams as proctored tests along with a proctored comprehensive final exam,…

The author, an early adopter of Aplia, describes the use of Aplia both pre- and post-acquisition by Cengage Learning. Students improve their exam scores (by 5 to 7 percent) and are receptive to using Aplia. Students report despite spending between 7 and 9 hours a week on Aplia assignments, they would gravitate to future offerings that included…

Past research has consistently shown that there is a relation between personality and academic performance, but much less work has focused on explaining this relation. The present study examined whether three aspects of homework behavior, namely homework time, procrastination, and learning strategies, mediate the relation between personality and…

Mathematics is often thought of as a purely intellectual and unemotional activity. Recently, researchers have begun to question the validity of this approach, arguing that emotions and cognition are intertwined. The emotions expressed during mathematics work may be linked to mathematics achievement. We used behavioral measures to identify the…

Two studies investigated the relationship between parental support, students' motivational orientations, and students' emotions during homework. It was assumed that intrinsically motivated students would feel better when parents provided much learning autonomy, while extrinsically motivated students would experience more positive affect when…

This study examines the effect of homework compliance on treatment outcome in 123 participants receiving cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for cocaine dependence. Regression analyses revealed a significant relationship between homework compliance and cocaine use that was moderated by readiness to change. Homework compliance predicted less cocaine…

According to the domain-specific, multilevel homework model proposed in the present study, students' homework effort is influenced by expectancy and value beliefs, homework characteristics, parental homework behavior, and conscientiousness. The authors used structural equation modeling and hierarchical linear modeling analyses to test the model in…

In this article, research conducted in the United States since 1987 on the effects of homework is summarized. Studies are grouped into four research designs. The authors found that all studies, regardless of type, had design flaws. However, both within and across design types, there was generally consistent evidence for a positive influence of…

Educational psychologists find that prior knowledge influences new learning. We examined whether course achievement for introductory psychology students is facilitated or impaired by their prior knowledge of psychology. We administered a pretest exam to 422 students early in the semester and gathered subsequent exam scores and other measures of…