Homework : fundamental or redundant?

Abstract

Is physics homework considered an essential part of the learning process and does it really help students improve? These were questions that often came to mind whilst listening to debates about homework. Reading through different articles, I found that many educators disagreed about the importance that should be given to homework and that homework has always been somewhat of a controversial issue. I thus decided to carry out a research study to investigate ideas about homework amongst Maltese teachers and students. Results from this research study have shown that even in Malta there are conflicting ideas about the importance of homework. Many of the interviewed teachers assigned some form of physics homework and corrected it regularly while others believed that homework was useless. On the other hand, most students believed that they should be assigned physics homework and that homework was important in order for them to learn more.