What promotes Chinese students’ math homework motivation?

A recent study investigated whether Chinese students’ motivation for doing math homework was affected by factors related to homework, teacher, and parent. The study recruited 3,018 students in grade 8 from 96 classes from three regions in China. These students on average spent 34.1 minutes on math homework each day, and 76.9% of them did math homework four or more days each week.

Using a survey, the researchers assessed students’ math homework motivation (namely academic, self-regulatory, approval-seeking). They then examined factors related to homework (homework quality, interest, favorability, frequency and time), teachers (feedback quality, feedback quantity, and autonomy support), and parents (content support and autonomy support). The multilevel analysis of the relationships showed that:

The triple cluster of homework characteristics, teacher, and parent support, had at least one variable significantly related to the three math homework motivations of the students.
At the class level, students’ assessment of homework quality and favorability had positive effects on their academic motivation.
Moreover, homework quality, teacher feedback quantity, and teacher autonomy support in a class had positive influences on self-regulatory motivation
Also, teacher’s autonomy support of their classroom had a positive influence on students’ approval seeking motivation at the class level.

The authors concluded that an effective way to promote math homework motivation is to improve homework quality, interest, and favorability, rather than homework time and frequency.

Återgett från nyhetsbrevet Best Evidence in Brief av Robert Slavin.