Parental Involvement with Homework and Third Grade Student Achievement

Abstract

Teachers have been assigning homework since the first days of organized education. Homework builds responsibility and encourages practice and review of rudimentary and complex concepts and knowledge. As a means to understand and study possible improvements to student achievement, this thesis project explores the correlation between student achievement in mathematics and parental involvement in student homework and education; further the study seeks to identify successful strategies to improve grades, learning motivation and parental involvement. The research was conducted in a suburban district in Western New York State with a group of twenty third-grade students. (This study mostly targeted students who were in need of academic improvement, but also helped support and strengthen the grades of higher achieving students.) During the course of the study, both students and parents responded to surveys on student’s attitudes and perceptions about homework. While the research conclusions note a correlation between student motivation and parental involvement, it also identified the need for parental “coaching” by the teacher to assure similar strategies and knowledge in order to complete a given homework assignment.