Classical educational research provides empirical evidence of the positive effect of doing homework on academic results. Nonetheless, when this effect is analyzed in detail there are inconsistent, and in some cases, contradictory results. The central aim of this study was to systematically investigate the effect of homework on performance of students in mathematics and science using multilevel models. The original sample consisted of 7,725 Spanish adolescents with a mean age of 13.78 (Ϯ0.82) of which 7,451 were evaluated after purging the sample of the students who did little to no homework. A 2-level hierarchicallinear analysis was performed, student and class, with 4 individual adjustment variables: gender, socioeconomic and cultural level, year repetition, and school grades, which were used to reflect previous student achievement. The individual level examined time spent, effort made, and the way homework was done. The class level considered frequency of assignment and quantity of homework. Prior knowledge, estimated using school grades, is shown to be the most important predictor of achievement in the study. Its effect is greater than the combined effect of all the other variables studied. Once background factors are controlled, the homework variables with most impact on the test are student autonomy and frequency of homework assignment by teachers. Autonomy when doing homework was shown to be the most important individual-level variable in both mathematics and science, and not effort and or time spent doing homework. The optimum duration of homework was found to be 1 hr a day.

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The optimum time students should spend on homework has been widely researched although the results are far from unanimous. The main objective of this research is to analyze how homework assignment strategies in schools affect students' academic performance and the differences in students' time spent on homework. Participants were a representative sample of Spanish adolescents (N = 26,543) with a mean age of 14.4 (±0.75), 49.7% girls. A test battery was used to measure academic performance in four subjects: Spanish, Mathematics, Science, and Citizenship. A questionnaire allowed the measurement of the indicators used for the description of homework and control variables. Two three-level hierarchical-linear models (student, school, autonomous community) were produced for each subject being evaluated. The relationship between academic results and homework time is negative at the individual level but positive at school level. An increase in the amount of homework a school assigns is associated with an increase in the differences in student time spent on homework. An optimum amount of homework is proposed which schools should assign to maximize gains in achievement for students overall.

The development of students' socio-affective and social skills is part of the general objectives of national curricula (Eurydice, 2018). These are extremely important aspects in the educational context as they are part of students' overall development (Abrahams et al., 2019). In line with these curricular aims, large-scale evaluation programs have begun to include non-cognitive aspects. For example PISA 2015 included collaborative problem solving (OECD, 2017), and in 2018 it included global competence, conceptualized as the capacity to understand others' perspectives and points of view (OECD, 2018, 2019). Educational evaluations with large samples in Latin America have explored socioeconomic factors associated with performance (Murillo & Hernández-Castilla, 2011). In the United States, The National Assessment of Educational Progress includes an adaptation of the Grit Scale (Duckworth et al., 2007). Grit is one of the noncognitive variables that has appeared most often in the literature over the last ten years. It consists of a positive trait based on an individual's perseverance, combined with the passion for achieving a long-term objective (Duckworth et al., 2007). As Duckworth (2016) put it, being gritty is holding on tightly to a meaningful objective, being gritty is falling seven times but getting up eight. Despite the increase in research into grit in the last ten years, results have not been conclusive. One of the most recent debates about grit is whether it should be considered as a general or specific domain (Cormier et al., 2019). Most studies have focused on grit

The role of teacher, family and the background of students in conducting homework and math performance were investigated. Participants were 7,725 Spanish adolescents with the mean age of 13.78 (± .82) and 2,246 teachers who taught the above mentioned students. A two-level hierarchical linear analysis, students (N = 7,541) and classrooms (N = 353), was performed, adjusted for background and prior achievement variables. The results indicate that the autonomous work of the students is more important than the time they spent on homework. The weight that homework has in school grades (Level 1) and frequency allocation (level 2) are the two most important variables related to the policy of the teacher assignments. Finally, family involvement in learning and the importance of homework for the family also appear positively and significantly linked to the performance.Keywords: homework, mathematics, academic performance, multilevel models. ResumenSe investiga el papel que juegan el profesorado, la familia y las características del alumnado en la realización de los deberes y el rendimiento en matemáticas. Participan 7725 adolescentes españoles con una media de edad de 13.78 (± .82) y 2246 profesores que imparten docencia al alumnado mencionado. Se realiza un análisis jerárquico-lineal de dos niveles, estudiantes (N = 7541) y aulas (N = 353), ajustado por variables antecedentes y de rendimiento previo. Los resultados indican que el trabajo autónomo del alumnado es más importante que el tiempo dedicado a los deberes. El peso que los deberes tienen en las calificaciones escolares (nivel 1) y la frecuencia de asignación (nivel 2) son las dos variables más importantes vinculadas a la política de deberes del profesorado. Por último, la implicación familiar en el aprendizaje y la importancia de los deberes para la familia también aparecen positiva y significativamente vinculadas a los resultados.Palabras clave: deberes escolares, tareas escolares en el hogar, matemáticas, rendimiento acadé-mico, modelos multinivel.

persigue entre sus objetivos mitigar la desigualdad en materia de educación y suprimir las discriminaciones en las posibilidades de aprendizaje de grupos desfavorecidos. La investigación sobre la eficacia escolar aborda esta problemática, contribuyendo con un amplio volumen de hallazgos (Scheerens,

ResumenFormar al profesorado como profesionales reflexivos e investigadores debe ser una prioridad para un sistema educativo que busca la mejora de su alumnado en el manejo de información compleja y la resolución de problemas de forma creativa y divergente. El educador reflexivo, tal como es percibido por el profesorado español que participa en el estudio TALIS (OECD, 2014), ha sido distribuido en una escala o índice TRI que permite mostrar la frecuencia de participación en actividades formativas que facilitan un "Desarrollo profesional reflexivo" (DPR). La mitad de la muestra considera que su desarrollo profesional incluye actividades formativas ocasionales de carácter reflexivo. Se identifican, mediante análisis multinivel, los factores individuales y de centro asociados al perfil docente de educador reflexivo, que se corresponden con un atributo individual vinculado a una formación en red o de colaboración docente en torno a un centro con liderazgo pedagógico y control evaluativo. Esto supone para el docente una mayor dedicación e intensidad, una autopercepción de efectividad profesional y dominio sobre los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje que utiliza con su alumnado. El índice DPR se muestra consistente en la representación de un perfil docente que favorece la efectividad de los procesos de aula. Por la situación que presenta España en la estimación del índice DPR, consideramos de interés hacer evolucionar los modelos de formación inicial y continua del profesorado hacia un enfoque que potencie las capacidades reflexiva, investigadora y colaborativa de nuestro profesorado y estudiantes.Palabras clave: Educador reflexivo, profesorado investigador, formación de profesorado. AbstractTraining teachers as reflective practitioners and researchers should be a priority for an educational system that seeks to improve their students in managing complex information and solving problems creatively and divergently The reflective educator, as perceived by the Spanish teachers participating in TALIS, has been distributed on a scale or TRI index that allows us to show the frequency of participation in educational activities that facilitate a reflective professional development (DPR). Thus we see that half of the sample believes that his professional development includes occasionally training activities of reflective character. Identified by multilevel analysis, the personal and school factors associated with the reflective teacher educator profile, correspond to an individual attribute but linked to a collaborative network for training teacher around a school center with instructional leadership and evaluative control. This means for teachers more dedication and intensity, but also results in a self-perception of professional effectiveness and control over the processes of teaching and learning using with their students. DPR index is shown as consisting in the representation of a teaching profile that favors the effectiveness of classroom processes. According to the situation of Spain in estimating the DPR index, we consi...

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