Abstract
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOMEWORK AND MATHEMATICS ACHIEVEMENT IN TURKEY ACCORDING TO TIMSS 2011
Homework is a widely used educational instrument in Turkey. However, there is a limited research that investigates the relationship between homework and mathematics achievement in Turkey using not only student but also teacher characteristics measured in standardized tests. To address this issue, the relationship between homework and mathematics achievement was investigated using TIMSS 2011 dataset. Results indicated that student variables could indicate small percentage of the variance in the mathematics achievement whereas no association was found between teacher variables and mathematics achievement. The students whose parents made sure that a time for homework was allocated were more successful, whereas the students whose parents frequently controlled their homework were less successful. A positive relationship was found between time spend on homework and mathematics achievement, whereas a negative relationship was found between frequency of homework and mathematics achievement. Although teachers gave homework very frequently in Turkey, one-third of the teachers did not check the homework. Additionally, the teachers gave feedback on homework, discuss the homework in the classroom and have students correct their own homework rarely.
Keywords
Homework, Mathematics Achievement, Student and Teacher Characteristics, TIMSS