Improving Student Learning in Math Through Web-Based Homework Review

• In Event: Bridging Research and Practice: Findings From the National Center on Cognition and Mathematics Instruction

Abstract

Most middle school students complete mathematics homework every night, but students typically do not receive feedback on performance until the next day in class. Given the rise in the numbers of homes with Internet access, it is now possible to allow students to receive immediate feedback as they complete their homework. While lab studies have shown immediate feedback to be beneficial, it is important to investigate the benefits of immediate feedback in real-world learning environments. We have conducted a randomized controlled experiment to examine the effects of immediate computer automated feedback on knowledge retention. Immediate feedback consisted of a student receiving automated correct/incorrect feedback after submitting their answers to each question. In this study, 63 thirteen and fourteen year olds were randomly assigned to either a traditional homework condition involving practice without feedback or a web-based homework condition that added correctness feedback and ability to try again. All students used ASSISTments to do their homework but we turned off all of the intelligent tutoring aspects of hints, feedback messages and mastery learning as appropriate to the two practice conditions. The teacher had access to summaries of the homework performance of individual students and the group as a whole and could adapt the next day’s homework review accordingly.

Students in both groups showed that their initial performance on the homework problems covering the day’s instructional targets was far from initial mastery. The control group who did not receive immediate feedback when completing their homework showed no overall learning gain during the homework practice. For these students, the teacher reviewed their homework answers the next day and the review tended to cover all the problems. In the experimental group, students were given immediate feedback as to whether the answers were correct or incorrect and were allowed to try again to answer a problem correctly. As a consequence, they learned during the homework exercise. The teacher was therefore able to use the data from the item report to focus the homework review the next day on the most challenging problems based upon individual and group performance. Both groups learned from the teacher led homework review but the overall gain across the two activities of engaging in online homework and subsequent teacher-led homework review was greater for the students who experienced the initial web-based correctness feedback, with an effect size of 0.56. Discussion will focus on the benefits to students and teachers of adaptive homework activities mediated by technology-based data collection and reporting systems like ASSISTments.

Authors

• Kim Kelly

• Neil T. Heffernan, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

• Cristina Heffernan, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

• Susan R. Goldman, University of Illinois at Chicago

• James W. Pellegrino, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Deena Soffer Goldstein, University of Illinois at Chicago