Homework System Research Articles

Implementation and assessment of Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) based questions in an electronic homework and testing system

To a first approximation, human memory is divided into two parts, short-term and long-term. Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) attempts to minimize the short-term memory load while maximizing the memory available for transferring knowledge from short-term to long-term memory. According to CLT there are three types of load, intrinsic, extraneous, and germane. Our implementation of CLT components into our electronic homework system, JExam, attempts to minimize intrinsic and extraneous load by breaking down multistep problems into smaller, individual steps for the students. Using the static fading approach over several questions, students weave all the steps together to solve the entire problem. Using Item Response Theory (IRT) abilities, we compared the performance of students utilizing the CLT static fading approach to that of students without the CLT components. On seven out of eight topics, students exposed to CLT component homework questions scored higher on subsequent test questions related to that topic than those not exposed to CLT. In four out of the eight cases, students exposed to CLT based homework problems improved their chances of correctly answering related test questions by greater than 10%. Though there exists a large time commitment in producing CLT based homework problems, this study suggests that the reward, in terms of student performance, is well worth the investment.

Case Study Using Online Homework in Undergraduate Organic Chemistry: Results and Student Attitudes

Managing student needs for effective learning in a large-enrollment, introductory organic chemistry course can be a challenging task. Because instructor time is at a premium, it is imperative to find resources that engage the students in active learning and provide them with feedback about their understanding of course content. Appropriately designed online homework systems can provide this level of engagement. Here we describe our experience with using the Sapling Learning online homework system in an organic chemistry course for prepharmacy majors. Based on the literature describing the effectiveness of online homework in general chemistry and other courses, we hypothesized that student engagement in the online homework would be associated with students’ performance in the course, but that studying with the textbook problems would provide a greater benefit because the material was more sophisticated. We found that engagement in using the system was positively correlated with course grade, and that stude...

Early Identification of Student Performance and Effort Using an Online Homework System: A Pilot Study

Two distinct student groups, in terms of academic performance, were identified early in the semester as either being under-performing students or over-performing students using an online homework system. The students who are identified as under-performing received, on average, lower grades than their fellow students but spent more time completing the homework assignments. These students are great candidates for targeted advertisement of student resources such as tutoring services. The students who are identified in the over-performing student population received higher grades than their fellow students, but spent less time completing the homework assignments. These students are great candidates for honors programs, independent research projects, and peer-tutoring programs. Incorporating these evaluation criteria to online homework systems will allow instructors to quickly identify students in these academic student populations.

Function plot response: A scalable system for teaching kinematics graphs

Understanding and interpreting graphs are essential skills in all sciences. While students are mostly proficient in plotting given functions and reading values off graphs, they frequently lack the ability to construct and interpret graphs in a meaningful way. Students can use graphs as representations of value pairs, but often fail to interpret them as the representation of functions, and mostly fail to use them as representations of physical reality. Working with graphs in classroom settings has been shown to improve student abilities with graphs, particularly when the students can interact with them. We introduce a novel problem type in an online homework system, which requires students to construct the graphs themselves in free form, and requires no hand-grading by instructors. Initial experiences using the new problem type in an introductory physics course are reported.

Using WeBWorK, a Web-Based Homework Delivery and Grading System, to Help Prepare Students for Active Learning

WeBWorK, an online homework system, can be be used to deliver daily reading questions to students. The author studied its use for this purpose with a lower division Introduction to Programming course and an upper division Probability and Statistics course. In the lower division course, WeBWorK significantly improved peer instruction performance, and resulted in students spending on average 45% more time on reading their textbook. In the upper division course, WeBWorK had no effect. We discuss and conjecture explanations.

Effect of clickers versus online homework on students' long-term retention of general chemistry course material

This study reports the effects of student response systems (clickers) versus online homework on students' long-term retention of General Chemistry I course material. Long-term content retention was measured by a comprehensive yearlong American Chemical Society (ACS) GC97 exam administered seven months after students had completed the General Chemistry I course. The analysis indicated that while students who used clickers or online homework systems earned a little over 2% higher than the non-clicker, non-online homework (lecture-only) group on ACS GC97 exam average scores, this difference was not statistically significant. Interestingly, the data also revealed that more students were retained both in clicker and online homework classes than lecture-only classes. This work suggests that treatments that enhance student's feedback may increase student retention in the course sequence with no loss in learning.

Enhancing the Study of Business Statistics with an e-Homework System

This paper compares the performance of two classes of students who were enrolled in an Introductory Business Statistics course. Students in one class were required to use e-homework, an online system and another class completed their homework assignments without the online system. The major objective of this study was to determine whether there was any difference in the level of performance between students who used the online homework system and those who did homework assignments in the traditional method. The students in a large class with online homework were compared to students without online homework. This e-homework system enables instructors to monitor individual student’s performance and transmit immediate feedback to students. This paper answers the question: Can online homework improve the performance of students enrolled in an Introductory Business Statistics course? To answer this question, we evaluated the students’ performance based on their final grades in a first year Introductory Statistics course. Students’ perceptions of the usefulness of online homework were also considered. The findings of this research showed that students obtain many benefits from online homework. Students were better prepared in writing test, their ability to understand course concepts increased because of the timely feedback they receive from instructors, discussion about Statistics among peers occurred more frequently than in previous semesters. Students cultivated better study habits, and consequently, they developed more confidence in applying their knowledge of statistical concepts.

Student Attitudes and Approaches to Online Homework

Over the past two decades there has been increasing movement toward the use of computers and the internet in conjunction with many courses across the educational spectrum. In addition to having consequences for course delivery, both inside and outside of the classroom, this movement has had an impact on the coursework that is required of students. In this study we consider the use of online homework as an alternative to the traditional medium of pencil and paper. Surveys were conducted to gather data on students' attitudes and practices related to online homework, and these data have been linked to course outcomes. In this paper we present the survey results and examine relationships between student characteristics, study behaviors, and the perceived benefits of online homework systems. In general we find a positive reaction to the use of online homework, with little variance across the particular platforms being used.

WebAssign (published by WebAssign)

One unique aspect of WebAssign is that it is not owned by a publishing company, so its users are not limited to one publisher’s textbooks: they support 122 titles in chemistry alone. One major advantage to WebAssign is being able to change textbooks (and even publishers) without learning a new online homework system.

Mastering Chemistry (published by Pearson/Prentice Hall)

I never thought that assigning homework online would actually lead to more interaction and engagement with students about solving chemical problems. I attribute this to the fundamental approach of the Mastering Chemistry homework system that has been designed to improve the problem-solving skills of students.

Gender differences in the use of an online homework system in an introductory physics course

The two genders make different use of being allowed multiple tries to solve online homework problems: male students frequently attempt to immediately solve the problem, while female students are more likely to first interact with peers and teaching assistants before entering answers. More male than female students state that they use the multiple allowed attempts to enter “random stuff,” while more female than male students state that the multiple attempts allow them to explore their own problem solving approaches without worrying or being stressed out by grades.

Online Homework versus Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Pedagogical Support for Transaction Analysis and Recording

ABSTRACT: Prior research demonstrates that students learn more from homework practice when using online homework or intelligent tutoring systems than a paper-and-pencil format. However, no accounting education research directly compares the learning effects of online homework systems with the learning effects of intelligent tutoring systems. This paper presents a quasi-experiment that compares the two systems and finds that students’ transaction analysis performance increased at a significantly faster rate when they used an intelligent tutoring system rather than an online homework system. Implications for accounting instructors and researchers are discussed.

Online Homework versus Intelligent Tutoring Systems: Pedagogical Support for Transaction Analysis and Recording

This paper describes a quasi-experiment conducted to evaluate the relative impact of an online homework management system and an artificially intelligent (AI) tutoring system on the learning that students derive from homework practice. Empirical findings show that when one group of students completed a homework assignment using the AI tutor, their subsequent test performance was greater than a comparable group of students who completed the same homework problems using a textbook publisher's online homework management system. When the AI tutor was removed from the first group of students and given to the other group, the pattern of performance differences was reversed. Implications for accounting instructors and future research opportunities are discussed.

Changing the Education System with CALM: Computer Assisted Learning Method

OVER THE past decade, at both the university and high school levels, chemistry instructors have become keenly aware of an increasing number of students who are proving to be unable to solve complex problems. Today's students have grown up with technology, and most would prefer to do their homework using a digital tool rather than pencil and paper. Those students who do try to work out pencil-and-paper problems can become easily frustrated if they encounter difficulties and are unable to get immediate, useful feedback. To address this problem, chemistry department faculty members at Indiana University, Bloomington (IUB), developed a novel online learning tool called CALM (Computer Assisted Learning Method). CALM was initially developed for use in the general chemistry curriculum at the university, where introductory courses typically enroll between 200 and 600 students. But CALM has since made the transition to high schools, crossing one of the most formidable boundaries in U.S. education and demonstrating the potential of a P-16 system to foster highly productive cross-level cooperation. The story of CALM's beginnings is instructive. In 1996, the first author decided to introduce online homework into a large undergraduate chemistry course at IUB. The idea behind this change was simple: science involves problem solving, and to master concepts in science requires practice in solving problems and answering questions. The advantage of an online system was clear: it could provide instant feedback to the students on the correctness of their responses. Moreover, an ideal system would challenge students according to their individual strengths, so that all students would be appropriately challenged. But in the mid-1990s, online homework systems were in their infancy, and none possessed all the desired features. Consequently, it was decided to develop a system from scratch. Because developing high-quality instructional materials is both time- and resource-intensive, from the outset those of us at IUB wanted to create a system that could be broadly disseminated so that materials developed at one institution could benefit students at multiple institutions. The result of our effort is the Web-based learning tool known as CALM (http://calm.indiana.edu). Early in the development of CALM, the IUB chemistry department decided to share this learning tool, free of charge, with any high school teacher willing to be trained to use it. The training required to start using the program builds important connections between the university faculty and the high school teachers and so is in harmony with the P-16 philosophy. At the same time, high school teachers throughout Indiana have made important connections among themselves. As a result, the use of the program has dramatically increased within the state, and it has yielded some amazing outcomes. DESCRIPTION OF CALM A faculty member using CALM presents students with a set of questions to answer. These questions can be associated with review material, subject matter recently taught in the classroom, or even untaught material so as to gauge the level and abilities of the class in advance. The architecture of CALM is based on Socratic pedagogy. When a question in CALM is answered incorrectly, the architecture allows a new leading question to be posed. Thus a student can be led, step by step, through a complex problem requiring multiple steps. Since the student's responses to this unfolding series of questions can be tracked, common stumbling blocks encountered by multiple students can be brought to the attention of the teacher. Questions in CALM are generated by an algorithm, and different students in the same class will encounter different though similar questions. This algorithmic generation of individualized questions is a key feature of CALM. Not only may the question differ in numerical values, but chemical reactions or graphical images can change as well. …

STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF THE IMPACT OF WEB-BASED HOMEWORK ON COURSE INTERACTION AND LEARNING IN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNTING

According to Laurillard’s Conversational Framework, teaching and learning are a dialogic activity in which the student attempts to re-construct the teacher’s mental model of the material. An essential part of that dialog between teacher and student is the feedback teachers provide to help students adapt their understanding of the concepts presented. Providing this individualized feedback is time consuming and often beyond the resources available to faculty. To address the need for a more efficient and effective approach to offering feedback, textbook publishers, commercial vendors, and the open source community have developed web-based homework (WBH) systems that provide automated grading. This paper examines the use of a commercial web application (WileyPLUS) to automate grading of multi-part accounting exercises and problems in an introductory accounting course for business majors. A survey research methodology was used. Results indicate that web-based homework systems enhance learning but do not increase perceived course interaction levels. Immediate feedback and allowing for multiple attempts encourages practice with the material. Students are mixed on whether restructuring textbook problems to operationalize online grading adequately prepares them for exams.

Exploring the Potential of the Homework System and Tablet PCs to Support Continuity of Numeracy Practices between Home and Primary School

In this study we assess whether and how the Homework System was effective in creating greater continuity of understanding between home and school. Children in a mixed Year 1 and Year 2 class (aged 5–6 years old) were taught numeracy using the Homework System on tablet PCs, and they were assigned activities to carry out on the tablet PC for homework. The Homework System blurs the boundaries between home and school by making learning materials, individual learning histories and information of aims and objectives available in both the school and home context. Six families took part in two semi‐structured interviews, pre and post the introduction of the system. Themes that emerged from these data suggest that the Homework System was successful in empowering parents with a new understanding of classroom teaching methods and materials. Overall, children's levels of enthusiasm, confidence, responsibility and independence in numeracy increased significantly in all the households. Moreover, the way in which home a...

Seekers, sloths and social reference: Homework questions submitted to a question-answering community

An increasing number of students are seeking homework help outside library structures and systems, such as on social reference sites, where questions are answered by online community members who rate one another's answers and provide collaborative filtering in place of traditional expertise. This paper reports the preliminary results of a participant observation and content analysis of homework questions submitted to Answerbag, a social reference site with over one million unique visitors per month. The results suggest that members of the online community are able to distinguish between questions submitted by Seekers—those who interact with the community and engage in conversation about their questions—and Sloths, those who post their homework questions apparently verbatim and interact no further. How the community reacts to these distinct types of questioners reflects values similar to those of professional reference providers, and the community structure also allows members to educate questioners about community standards and the ethics of information seeking.

Automated Review of Prerequisite Material for Intermediate-Level Undergraduate Mathematics

We describe a program that provides structured practice of prerequisite material to students in an ordinary differential equations course using an existing automated homework system originally designed for precalculus and calculus classes. The goal of the program is to improve students' comprehension of material presented in class by timing the review to occur just before the prerequisite material is relevant in class. The review is designed to gain class time that would otherwise be dedicated to review, with minimal involvement of the instructor. We report positive responses from both instructors and students in two sections of the course.

Second-Generation Automatic Problem Grading

Recent years have seen widespread adoption of automatic grading of physics homework problems. Although first-generation homework management systems1–3 provide feedback and assign scores based only on the answers, problem-solving performance on exams seems to be no worse for students using these systems than for those who receive detailed comments from manually graded homework. Apparently immediate feedback, which encourages students to continue to work on a problem until they “get it right,” is as effective as detailed, but delayed, comments on a complete written solution. Second-generation homework systems should combine the two approaches by using immediate feedback in grading complete solutions.

Developing web-oriented homework system to assess students' introductory physics course performance and compare to paper-based peer homework

The World Wide Web influences education and our lives in many ways. Nowadays, Web-based homework has been becoming widespread practice in physics courses and some other courses as well. Although are some disputes whether this is an encouraging or risky development for student learning, there is limited research assessing the pedagogical effect of changing the medium from written, handgraded homework to online oriented, computer-graded homework. In this study, web-oriented homework system is developed to assess students’ introductory physics course performance. Later on, these results are compared with paper-based (peer) homework performance for mid enrollment physics courses. One of two identical sections of introductory physics course students received paper-based, hand graded group homework while the other received the individual web-based homework. Then two groups’ on conceptual and problem-solving performance measures are compared. No significant differences were found in students’ Force Concept Inventory (FCI) test scores; however, average homework performance scores were significant that could be attributed to the homework method used in favor of paperbased peer homework group.