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Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by mjburgess on Friday April 20, 2018 @04:36AM (#16883139)
It's important to add here that homework has never been shown to improve grades or educational outcomes generally, and it's a very well-studied topic.
Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by yoz-y on Friday April 20, 2018 @04:59AM (#16883252)
It has absolutely helped me to drill in my multiplication tables and learn to write at least somewhat legible letters.

If there is one thing I regret about my college years it is not doing math assignments.

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by arethuza on Friday April 20, 2018 @07:30AM (#16883894)
I found it completely impossible (and I did try) to pass university level maths courses without carefully doing every tutorial.
Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by mjburgess on Friday April 20, 2018 @10:50AM (#16885222)
By "homework" i mean specifically comparing cohorts of students in high-school that do and do not do the homework they're set, and connecting that with long-term grade trajectories.

I dont have the sources to hand, but i recall an economist talking about large studies in this area.

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by nicoburns on Friday April 20, 2018 @03:38PM (#16887863)
I think some of this might be that high school tends to be quite easy for the brightest students. I did close to none of my homework all the way through high school because I didn't have to (paying attention in class was sufficient for me to graduate with mostly A's and get into the university of my choice).
Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by astura on Friday April 20, 2018 @04:34PM (#16888264)
Well, yeah... sure, in high school the material is so easy and the pace is so slow that someone reasonably "smart" can do very well without doing homework.

Just because that's the case it doesn't follow that "homework doesn't improve grades."

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by bsder on Friday April 20, 2018 @04:49AM (#16883208)
Really? Never?

I find that hard to believe.

Writing, to take one example, requires practice. The amount of practice you can get in a single academic year maxes out at 180 hours without homework and you would have no time to actually teach.

I can imagine that 5 hours a week of writing homework in English rapidly exceeds the amount of time you could ever spend in class.

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by dingaling on Friday April 20, 2018 @06:40AM (#16883689)
If children aren't receiving sufficient formalised practice in 30 hours of school per week then the curriculum is too crowded.

Imagine a manager saying "you need to brush up on your C++. But we're too busy to arrange training. An hour a day after work should help instead"

Children need time to develop in ways other than rote education. Homework steals that time from them. I am quite happy to write "did not have time to complete due to Scouts / swimming / x " on assignment sheets.

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by germinalphrase on Friday April 20, 2018 @11:35AM (#16885626)
As a teacher, I can confirm that state standards are generally overcrowded. This naturally leads to (for instance) high school students who don't know their parts of speech, but - you know - gotta keep moving.

The discrete goals that schools are expected to fulfill are excessive, poorly defined, and politically vulnerable. It's a odd game.

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by bsder on Friday April 20, 2018 @07:33PM (#16889153)
> If children aren't receiving sufficient formalised practice in 30 hours of school per week then the curriculum is too crowded.

That's fine, but don't complain about the education of the children not being very good afterward.

100 hours barely moves you out of the novice category for any subject.

> Imagine a manager saying "you need to brush up on your C++. But we're too busy to arrange training. An hour a day after work should help instead"

Funny, that's exactly what about 1/3 of the students in the CS classes that I taught were doing. Almost all of whom paid for the class themselves.

They disagree with your assessment to the tune of several thousand dollars of hard earned money.

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by misja111 on Friday April 20, 2018 @04:55AM (#16883238)
Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by ItsMe000001 on Friday April 20, 2018 @05:00AM (#16883257)
Linking to a single study is useless unless the topic is something very specific and the linked study happens to be a match (for the specifics being discussed).

That said, OPs comment is overly broad and devoid of specifics, so okay, you refuted his "never".

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by oblio on Friday April 20, 2018 @05:06AM (#16883276)
Isn't it OP's job to present proof for his claim? He just made a sweeping statement with no proof backing it up.
Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by nothrabannosir on Friday April 20, 2018 @05:44AM (#16883454)
> Isn't it OP's job to present proof for his claim?

No, it’s not his job. I’m guessing programming is probably his job.

He’s not a researcher and this is not a peer reviewed journal. This is a place where amateurs of conversation come to discuss things that are of interest, but most of us know nothing about, in our spare time. It started out differently but that’s basically what it has evolved into.

Providing citations is nice, it helps, it’s useful and constructive. But it’s not a job, it’s not a duty. You are a capable person with a working, sceptic brain who can do your own research if you so please. Anyone is free to make baseless claims, just downvote them or kindly ask for more info if you don’t like it.

But I’m tired of this “provide 3 different citations from peer reviewed journals to get a passing grade” attitude. It’s getting so bad I’m seeing it in daily life now, and it’s killing all sense of colloquial conversation. You do some work if you don’t like what people are saying. Everyone will thank you for it.

Or just ignore them. Or downvote them. Or be amicable, at least. But nobody has to do anything. I disagree.

Sorry, I guess :/ pet peeve.

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by oblio on Friday April 20, 2018 @06:04AM (#16883534)
I didn't even downvote and I don't have a bone to pick in this fight.

But the discussion went:

* original poster (HN1) made a general claim

* someone (HN2) answered with a sourced counter-argument for a specific case

* another commenter (HN3) said something like "good on you, but your source doesn't prove much cause it doesn't disprove all the other cases"

Conceptually, for me at least, I'd rank their statements, from good to bad: HN2 > HN1 >>>>> H3.

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by samsonradu on Friday April 20, 2018 @06:20AM (#16883597)
This is so spot on, and I guess sometimes people forget that internet forums are to be taken with a grain of salt and you should do your own research.

The one thing I dislike the most is the IANAL - "Don't take this as legal advice" disclaimer that I see abused. I mean, really, who is naive enough to take random legal advice from strangers?

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by ksenzee on Friday April 20, 2018 @11:48AM (#16885763)
"IANAL and this is not legal advice" is not meant to help naive strangers. It's meant as a defense against a potential lawsuit. https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/683/usa-is-i-am-not-...
Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by user5454 on Friday April 20, 2018 @08:07AM (#16884068)
> I mean, really, who is naive enough to take random legal advice from strangers?

Having recently read some stories over at darwinawards.com, I can think of quite a few people who would seem a lot less naïve, if all they had done was taking legal advice from strangers...

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by DoubleCribble on Friday April 20, 2018 @02:08PM (#16887072)
Not true at all. There's a large part of brain development that comes from simply practicing handwriting.[0] Putting pen to paper is a huge part of language mastery. In most educational situations, that practice is going to occur outside of the classroom as there is simply not enough time in the typical school day.

Even in the study mentioned in a previous comment [1], the authors disagree as, "we find additional homework to be most effective for high and low achievers".

[0]https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/why-handwriting-is...

[1]https://www.binghamton.edu/economics/research/old-working-pa...

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by smcl on Friday April 20, 2018 @05:36AM (#16883425)
Interesting also that Finland has a good reputation for its education, and its WAY down the bottom of that list, which seems to agree with your statement.
Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by user5454 on Friday April 20, 2018 @08:26AM (#16884174)
There's a difference between the measurement "how much homework a student have" and the measurement "how much parents help with children's homework". The article is about the latter, while the GP discusses the former. I'm pretty sure Finnish students have homework.

I also think the "poorer countries" is a red herring (e.g. Singapore scores quite highly on the list), I think it's more about cultural differences and competition about a much more limited number of places for higher education.

My own (very limited) experience with the education systems in several Asian countries is that the focus is more on feeding students facts. Whereas the education in the Nordic countries generally focus more on learning how to solve problems, either by yourself or in groups.

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by anouk_anca on Friday April 20, 2018 @04:39AM (#16883162)
On the other hand, parental involvement in their children's education has been shown to have a positive impact on children's development.
Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by scandox on Friday April 20, 2018 @04:48AM (#16883201)
How did they distinguish parental involvement specifically in education from the fact that supportive, encouraging parents are likely to engage with their child's education? I ask because my instinct is that emotional stability and encouragement are probably more important than homework.
Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by anouk_anca on Friday April 20, 2018 @05:10AM (#16883291)
> emotional stability and encouragement are probably more important than homework

I'm not sure if there is any work directly comparing the two, but it's true that emotional stability and encouragement are very important.

"The most determinative factor in parental involvement appears to be what could be called: good parenthood in the home situation (Desforges & Abouchaar, 2003; Fantuzzo et al., 2004; McWayne et al., 2004). This factor is characterised by the establishing of a safe and stable home setting, stimulation of intellectual development e.g. by discussions between parent and child, modeling, disseminating the importance of education and fostering high expectations about children’s school success." [0]

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265632472_Parental_...

Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by bornonline1 on Friday April 20, 2018 @05:44AM (#16883457)
Again the issue is how we learn. Short sessions show some effects but homeworks are very tedious and put a lot of pressure on everyone.
Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by nso95 on Friday April 20, 2018 @05:20AM (#16883352)
Isn't practice important?
Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by dominotw on Friday April 20, 2018 @08:17AM (#16884123)
Homework was never to improve educational outcomes it was to figure out who wants that free govt education more.
Re:Parents in poorer countries devote more time to their kid... by cyberjunkie on Friday April 20, 2018 @04:48AM (#16883206)
Are there also studies on the effects of parents' addiction to social media and other forms of screen time?