In this article, the author focuses on how to reinforce the anti-obesity lessons being taught at home with some solid school programs. She stresses the importance of addressing the problem of childhood obesity in the schools from the aspect of what school boards can do through policy, what administrators can do through better practices in the…

This article argues that, as a pedagogical practice, homework plays a critical, long-term role in the development of children's achievement motivation. Homework provides children with time and experience to develop positive beliefs about achievement, as well as strategies for coping with mistakes, difficulties, and setbacks. This article reviews…

Students, teachers, counselors, and parents are all important in determining the degree to which homework is effective in meeting its goals. Teachers assign homework, parents provide the environment in which it is done, and students?each with a unique profile of motivation and preference for learning?do the homework. It is a challenge for everyone…

The role of homework needs to be considered within the context of the broader developmental needs of children. This article focuses on how children spend their time after school and how homework, as well as other activities, can contribute to school success. Children differ in their after-school experiences, from "latchkey" children who lack…

Homework assignments have been studied extensively in psychotherapy research, but there is little data on the way in which homework is transferred to clinical practice. A survey was conducted of 827 practicing psychologists nationwide regarding their use and attitudes toward homework. Overall, 68% of the present sample indicated that they "often"…

This study explored psychologists' use of homework with clients in general and specifically for clients with schizophrenia. A survey of 48 Australian psychologists confirmed patterns of homework use found in a New Zealand study of practitioners. Ninety-six percent of the Australian psychologists reported using homework and whilst homework was used…

There is considerable debate about the relative importance of family versus school factors in producing academic and nonacademic student outcomes, and whether and how their impacts vary across different student groups. In addition to critically reviewing and synthesizing earlier work, this study extends the literature by (a) using the ECLS-K, a…

The purpose of this case study was to describe the role of teacher knowledge in the instructional methods of a community college developmental literacy instructor and determine in what ways that knowledge may have impacted the perceptions of the student participants regarding their authority over their academic progress in the class. Therefore,…

This study explores the effects of school-level characteristics on North Carolina students' reading and math achievement from fourth through eighth grade, focusing on the relationships between achievement and the racial and poverty composition of schools. After creating race-by-poverty cohorts of schools, I use multilevel models to examine math…

Public education matters, whether you're a student, parent, teacher, administrator, employer, or taxpayer. Although you undoubtedly know something about public education, you may be unaware of important facts about the U.S. educational system or may be surprised to learn how things have changed in recent years. This edition of "A Public…

"Spotlight on New Hampshire" is the fourth installment of the Afterschool Alliance's "New England After 3 PM" series, and the first to focus exclusively on afterschool in New Hampshire. "Spotlight on New Hampshire" finds an overwhelming majority of New Hampshire's education leaders say that afterschool programs…

Efforts to develop interventions to improve homework performance have been impeded by limitations in the measurement of homework performance. This study was conducted to develop rating scales for assessing homework performance among students in elementary and middle school. Items on the scales were intended to assess student strengths as well as…

Effort on homework has a profound impact on student achievement. Researchers typically use an interindividual research design to explain homework effort. In this study with a total of 511 students from Grades 8 and 9, an interindividual perspective (focus on between-students differences) was combined with an intraindividual perspective (focus on…

Self-management procedures have been used in school settings to successfully reduce problem behaviors and increase appropriate behavior. Two multiple-baseline across-participants designs were applied to evaluate the effects of self-management procedures to enhance classroom preparation skills and homework completion behaviors of middle school…

In this contribution we describe a short development course for in-service physics teachers. The course structure and materials are based on the results of educational research, and its main objective is to provide in-service teachers with a first contact with the active learning strategy "Tutorials in Introductory Physics," developed by…