Practice. Practice. Practice. Do Homework Management Systems Work?

Abstract

Practice is an essential component in learning any new skill. For learning the quantitative disciplines at the university level, web-based homework management systems provide the means for extensive practice with immediate feedback, which research suggests should lead to increased student learning (Palocsay & Stevens, 2008; Titard, DeFranceschi, & Knight, 2014). Do web-based homework management systems improve student learning, as measured by exam scores, for adult learners in an online course? Does the use of simple Microsoft Excel-based homework templates relate to improved student exam scores? This natural experiment divided a sample of 2431 online students in an entry level university economics course into three treatment groups to look at the relationship between homework support and exam scores. Group A received no formal homework support. Group B got simple Microsoft Excel templates. Group C got an online homework management system with custom e-textbook. This study compares learning effectiveness of the three treatment approaches based on student exam scores. The results show that mean exam scores increased from 55.29% to 68.24%, with the addition of a web-based homework management system. Additionally, 74.52% of variance in exam scores was explained by variance in homework scores under the web-based homework management system that allowed three attempts on every question. This strong relationship suggests that practice provided by the web-based homework management system is correlated with increased student learning as evidenced by the increased exam scores.

Experiences from a Data-informed Approach to Configuring Online Assignments

“…In my operations management course, the tests are designed to examine the what and why (i.e., to see if a student understands what the concepts mean) as much as the how (whether a student can perform a routine calculation), and thus the online tests are designed to require some deliberation and higher order thinking, which may be why one careful and deliberate attempt leads to better results than two perhaps not as careful attempts. Archer and Olson (2018) extoll the virtues of practice makes perfect and show that, for their setting, multiple attempts of web-based homework management systems improve learning. However, they describe mastering “quantitative disciplines” by way of “massive practice” (p. 1), which seems to focus on the how (to solve a specific type of problem) more so than the what/why (relationships between variables and what-if-something-changes type of question) and does not seem to fit what I am doing with my online tests.…”

A Metacognitive Instructional Guide to Support Effective Studying Strategies

“…Digital learning has the potential to address these challenges and is often used to mediate educational constraints in post-secondary education. Studies have shown that an online guide which demands few resources can effectively support learning in some instances (Archer & Olson, 2018;de Bruin et al, 2017). Here we develop a tool to address the challenges of large class learning in which metacognitive strategies cannot be explicitly taught, however it remains unclear if a digital intervention can replace in-person metacognitive training.…”

The Impact of Assignments and Quizzes on Exam Grades: A Difference-in-Difference Approach

“…The results showed that the students performed very well on the part of the test that was relevant to their home assign-ment. Archer and Olson (2018) used the data from a sample of online students in an entry-level economics course to examine the relationship between homework support and exam scores. The results show that the practice provided by a web-based homework management system was correlated with increased exam scores.…”