Academic Goals, Student Homework Engagement, and Academic Achievement in Elementary School

Antonio Valle; Bibiana Regueiro; José C Núñez; Susana Rodríguez; Isabel Piñeiro; Pedro Rosário

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00463

Academic Goals, Student Homework Engagement, and Academic Achievement in Elementary School

Front Psychol. 2016 Mar 31:7:463. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00463. eCollection 2016.

Authors

Antonio Valle¹, Bibiana Regueiro¹, José C Núñez², Susana Rodríguez¹, Isabel Piñeiro¹, Pedro Rosário³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of A Coruña A Coruña, Spain.
² Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo Oviedo, Spain.
³ Departmento de Psicologia Aplicada, Universidade do Minho Braga, Portugal.

Abstract

There seems to be a general consensus in the literature that doing homework is beneficial for students. Thus, the current challenge is to examine the process of doing homework to find which variables may help students to complete the homework assigned. To address this goal, a path analysis model was fit. The model hypothesized that the way students engage in homework is explained by the type of academic goals set, and it explains the amount of time spend on homework, the homework time management, and the amount of homework done. Lastly, the amount of homework done is positively related to academic achievement. The model was fit using a sample of 535 Spanish students from the last three courses of elementary school (aged 9 to 13). Findings show that: (a) academic achievement was positively associated with the amount of homework completed, (b) the amount of homework completed was related to the homework time management,

Keywords: academic achievement; academic goals; approach to homework; elementary school; homework; student homework engagement.

(c) homework time management was associated with the approach to homework, (d) and the approach to homework, like the rest of the variables of the model (except for the time spent on homework), was related to the student's academic motivation (i.e., academic goals).