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Homework during Emergency Remote Education (ERE) due to Covid-19 Pandemic: Teachers’ Perceptions

Marina Kougiourouki*, Zinovia Masali

Department of Primary Education, Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupolis, Greece

Abstract: The rapid spread of the Covid-19 pandemic that suspended the educational process on all levels of education in many countries, together with the need for access to a safe teaching process, has created an emerging and massive turn towards remote education. This new condition surprised teachers, who were obligated to use new technologies to design and implement their teaching along with assigning homework. This research investigates the views of ten Greek teachers of primary education regarding the issue of homework assignment in the framework of remote education (synchronous and asynchronous) due to the aforementioned conditions. More specifically it investigates their views regarding the homework objectives, the amount of homework assigned by teachers and the portion of assignments completed by students, the content and the way of assignment “creation”, and the method of solving, correcting and assessing them. The tool for this research was the semi-structured interview. The research findings show that the teachers continued invariably to assign homework, as they did in a physical classroom, strived to make students practice and kept them in constant touch with the educational process, whilst being lenient regarding its evaluation.

Keywords: homework, emergency remote education (ERE), covid-19, pandemic, teaching, instructional design, parental involvement

Received June 08, 2022; Revised July 12, 2022; Accepted July 21, 2022

Citation: Marina Kougiourouki, Zinovia Masali, Homework during Emergency Remote Education (ERE) due to Covid-19 Pandemic: Teachers’ Perceptions. American Journal of Educational Research, 10 (7). 452-458. January 2022. doi:10.12691/education-10-7-4

1. Introduction

After an already “full” day at school, assigning homework is hard to endure so much for students as for the teachers themselves [1]. However, teachers are used to assigning – a great volume or length of – homework [2,3,4,5,6] to their students, who need additional help to fill in their learning gaps [7]. Students, on their behalf, prefer performing interesting tasks that demand nature-related observation, animals and everyday life [8], while many times they do not find any point in homework and consider it redundant and useless [9,10]. Also, while accomplishing their homework, they often face problems which can be related to their access to information and the necessary tools, but also to the level of difficulty of the homework itself and of understanding the topic [8,11].

The issue of assigning homework has always been a current one and troubles the thought of teachers of all levels. Consequently, it could not be but a present issue during the Covid-19-pandemic-induced remote education and constitute one additional problem that teachers had to face, among others.

During remote education in the Covid-19 pandemic period, when teachers had to muster every means possible in order to create and send to their students their assignments, the internet was the most convenient means of assigning homework to students. However, there were two prerequisites that had to apply: students had to be familiarized with technology, and internet connection had to be sufficient, otherwise assigning homework via internet could create particular difficulties and pressure on the students [11,12,13]. Difficulties, however, could also be created for teachers by this new way of assigning homework, as the need for transition from “paper and pencil” to electronic worksheets added extra workload.

Of course, as every new approach and action can create difficulties, being new and unfamiliar, assigning homework with the aid of new technologies and the internet can initially bring difficulties to the teacher, which – however – gradually turn to advantages for their educational work. Thus, e.g., it can possibly lead to the teachers’ consuming much more time, however in the long run they are compensated as, in this way, they create a digital collection of worksheets. Also, some possible technical problems are reduced in time as both themselves and their students become familiarized with technology [14]. Additionally, in case the teachers create worksheets using some of the web tools, they have the possibility to save time to the benefit of their students, using the automated evaluation and grading system [14,15].

At this point, we find it advisable to refer to two important factors that are generally related to the assignment and completion of homework, either it be implemented using “pencil and paper” or with the aid of new technologies and the internet. The first factor is related to instruction-providing in class by the teacher but also to the time dedicated to the process of assigning and assessing homework [7]. When the homework instructions are incomplete and incoherent, they might become an impediment to its accomplishment, while, when the teacher does not collect and check it, students consider them redundant and meaningless related to school work [10]. The second factor is external to the school and is related to the completion of homework and the parents’ contribution to their accomplishment [7,16,17,18]. The home environment and especially the encouragement and the help that children receive from their parents while doing homework, greatly influences students [19]. The parents, related to homework, act as supervisors [20] and through their observations and remarks, tracing children’s problems is rendered possible, as well as their confrontation [21]. Thus, parental involvement has a positive impact and has been identified with school success, and parents willingly want to participate [22], while students take parents’ help for granted and evaluate it positively [23].

These challenges were faced by teachers and students worldwide. Our discussions with Greek teachers and their concerns on this major issue of the educational process have been a motivation for this present research.

2. Method

Aim of this research is to record the views of teachers of primary education on the assignment of homework in the framework of remote education (synchronous and asynchronous) in the special emergency condition created by the Covid-19 pandemic; specifically, on the purpose for which teachers assigned it, on the content and the means of “creating” it, on the frequency and the way of assignment, on the way of solving and correcting it as well as on the method of evaluating it; finally, on the students’ response to it.

To collect the material under scrutiny, the semi-structured interview was chosen [24,25], by which the researcher is given the possibility to add or remove questions from an already existing total of predetermined questions, to change their order, but also to submit clarifying questions to the research participants, while the participants are given the opportunity to express their views freely [26].

2.1. Participants

Convenience and snowball sampling was used by the researchers in order to recruit teachers to complete the research. The current research included 10 school teachers from Alexandroupolis (a small town in north-east Greece). Most of them were women. Teaching experience ranged from 16 to 36 years of teaching, with three teachers having more than 25 years of experience, four between 21 and 25 years, and three having 20 or fewer years. Two of them hold one more bachelor degree and five of them a master’s degree. All of them have attended a multitude of trainings from various institutions.

2.2. Data Collection

The collection of the research data took place in December 2021. Each teacher had the possibility to decide whether they would participate in the research or not. Each interview lasted 30 minutes on average.

The questions posed were seven (7) and were all open-ended, in order for participants to be able to reply in a pleasant climate of communication between interviewer and interviewee. The material under scrutiny consisted of ten transcripted interviews of primary education teachers of Alexandroupoli.

To process and analyse the research material, the qualitative content analysis method was used [27,28,29], a research technique “for the objective, systematic and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication” [30], that “that provides new insights, increases a researcher’s understanding of particular phenomena, or informs practical actions” [31].

In this particular research, the following stages were implemented: the material to be analyzed was defined, together with the aims sought to be achieved through this analysis, the coding units were specified and the (sub)categorization system was composed, which was subsequently crosschecked based on the research questions.

3. Interview Material Analysis

The testimonies of the teachers who participated in the research show that the involuntary - on their behalf – implementation of remote education, synchronous and asynchronous, did not deprive them of the opportunity to assign homework to their students. On the contrary, our teachers continued uninterrupted to assign homework, which their students completed after the end of the school schedule. In more detail, concerning the rate of assignment of homework, the replies showcase that almost all teachers remained constant and did not change the frequency with which they assigned homework. This means that, even though teaching was implemented online, the rhythm of assigning homework was the same as in F2F teaching. A relevant comment:

“There was nothing more or less than what we had in regular education. Whatever I gave them before, in regular education, this is what I did in remote education. The frequency was the same” (A9).

The first place in frequency of homework assigned is occupied by the subjects of “Language” and “Mathematics”, whereas in other subjects such as e.g. “History”, “Geography” etc, the homework assignment comes second (it is rare). They report relevant to this:

“On a daily basis one exercise in ‘language’ and one in ‘mathematics’ and occasionally within the week one exercise in ‘geography’ or ‘history’” (A6).

Only one teacher reports that the policy that she adopted concerning the assignment of homework during remote education differed in quantity compared to that in physical class, as she claims that it was less in quantity:

“It was much less than what we would have in our regular class” (A10).

There was also one mention from a teacher regarding homework assignment during the weekend. However, the content of this exercise stands out for being pleasant:

“And for the weekend, something pleasant was assigned e.g. there was a ‘pinned’ announcement on e-me with suggestions e.g. a movie to watch or a song to listen to etc” (A3).

Generally speaking, concerning the content of homework assigned, the replies showcase that it was something that the students could execute with ease e.g. answer a question etc:

“I would give them a question e.g. to answer. A little something. A small text e.g. to fill in gaps or anything” (A1),

“… either to copy something, or conjugate a noun, a verb or identify words … this sort of thing …. some small mathematical operations that they had to do to copy them in their notebook” (A10),

“… it was to write some sentences, write a text, various, to answer a question in Physics or History etc” (A3).

The reasons why the teachers participating in our research assigned their students homework during compulsory remote education due to Covid 19, was to give them the opportunity to practice the new knowledge and delve deeper into it; also to have – through their practice – a sense of continuation of the educational process, to prepare and inform students on the next day’s lesson, to develop their critical thinking and their writing skill, but also to receive feedback themselves (the teachers) on the effectiveness of their teaching and on the students’ level of comprehension.

Half of the teachers participating in our research claim that the assignment of homework on their behalf aimed at contributing to the students’ practice and deepening into the subject:

“I assigned homework for them to practice and go deeper … In the beginning I started to assign homework having in mind the consolidation and reinforcement of the whole process” (A8).

Three of the teachers in our research assigned homework to their students in order to create a sense of continuation in the teaching process and keep them alert:

“… in order to keep students alert. To know, to feel rather, that the teaching process continues, even if we’re not at school together” (A7).

Two of the teachers in our research claim that through the assignment of homework they were seeking to receive feedback on the degree of effectiveness of their teaching and of students’ comprehension, so as to adjust their goals accordingly in their next session. They state characteristically:

“Secondly, so that I know that teaching is effective, that students understand certain things. Because, it’s not like the physical classroom, where you can see how they react, how they participate in class. There, their participation wasn’t so obvious. Therefore, through some worksheet I tried to check what they have understood, what they have gained from the lesson” (A2),

“In order to see what the children understood from the everyday teaching, in order to know if I have to persist or move forward” (A3).

Aiming for the students’ information and preparation on the next lesson was the reason for assigning homework, for two of the teachers:

“… I assigned watching some video or some documentary to be updated and gain information related to the next day’s class” (A6) and “to prepare for the next class” (A7).

Finally, one teacher assigned homework to her students during the Covid-19-induced remote education, in order to promote their writing skill and develop their critical thinking:

“Also, I wanted my students to keep in touch with writing and text production, because this is a point that children mostly fall short in. Also, I wanted to check their syntax …. I would place more emphasis on writing, because that was the hardest for them to achieve through Webex… If there was something else, i.e. in ‘history’ … I made them write something making some combination from the book … The next day they would read it to me, keeping their camera on, so that I could see them. I wanted them to reply to that specific question of mine, because I knew that nobody would sit and learn ‘history’. In order for some student to reply to this question, they would need critical thinking” (A6).

The manner of creation of homework by the teachers was not one and only. It could have the form of a worksheet that the teacher composed and initially sent to the students via their parents’ emails, while later, when they familiarized themselves with remote education, the teacher would publish on eclass, as two teachers point out:

“Initially, I sent it via their parents’ emails. The children would do it and send it back to my email. However, later, because we became ourselves more familiar with the eclass platform, we sent it to eclass and they would send it back” (A7).

One teacher reports that he not only assigned homework via eclass, but that he also created homework using the tools that this platform offered:

“Through eclass and with the tools that eclass has, I created something” (A6).

At other times teachers assigned as homework the same exercises of the school book:

“I referred them to the school book and assigned them e.g. to do exercise 9” (A8).

Two of the teachers who participated in our research explain that they did not attach themselves to one or the other way, but combined book exercises with their own original ones:

“It was a combination. It wasn’t only in one way each time. It could be two things together. That is, it could be what I uploaded but it could also be from the book alone” (A1).

The teachers, through their homework assignments, usually asked students to work individually:

“The assignments were all individual work, that is, each child would work alone” (A5), “… I had not moved to groupwork, that is put them together to cooperate” (A4).

Reference to homework that promoted team performance came from one teacher only, who initially said that as a rule she assigned individual homework and chose exercises where students would need to work in teams only in special occasions:

“I gave exercises for them to solve individually, for the most part. The team work was simpler or when we were looking for information on something, or for example when we wanted to present Christmas traditions, Easter traditions, to two or three children that could work” (A7).

The way the students were notified of their homework assignment was by a post or “pin” on the wall of the educational platform of asynchronous remote education “e-me”, an announcement on e-class, an email to the parents, or even the use of “e-me assignment”:

“On a daily basis, after the everyday teaching session, we had an announcement “pinned” on the e-me wall, detailed, containing the work they had to carry out for each subject. Therefore, the children had to enter the e-me every day and keep watch on the announcements” (A3),

“After the end of classes, I would upload an announcement on eclass, our electronic class, where I told them what to do…” (A10),

“… exercises on the e-me “wall”, … via the parents’ email, or the ones that I told them they had to do during synchronous class” (A3).

Finally, a teacher explained that she provided her students with printed material, which she already had readymade and handed over to the parents, a move that presupposes preparation or the existence of a bank of teaching material on behalf of the teacher:

“I was prepared, and because they were first grade, I printed at my own expenses all the material that I already had, for all the units to the end, that is the worksheets that I had prepared to give them throughout the year, and the parents obtained it from the school in a booklet form. When I informed them which exercises they would have for the next day, it was from this booklet” (A9).

Regarding the assignment as well as the supervision of the course of homework accomplishment, one teacher reports a method of her own, which she named “electronic notebook”:

“Also, I had the ‘electronic notebook’ for homework. It was a notebook, like a regular notepad that we have and we note down everything. I would encourage them to participate in this and gave them relevant feedback … I would publish the assignments they had on e-me. Every child would go into their notebook and would do it in his/her own way. However, there have been assignments impossible to describe on the e-me “wall”. In that case, I would enter each and every one of their 21 links/“electronic notebooks” and I would give the instructions” (A3).

And in order to make this clear to all, this specific teacher describes in detail the design and function of the “electronic notebook”:

“That was a google document I had created in the drive of the gmail account I had made only for the school remote classes. So, one link for Eleni, for Kostas, for Mary etc. So, for the 21 kids of the first year and the 21 kids of the second year, a link had been sent to each and every parent saying “You are the “whattisname” parent of the student attending my class. You received in the beginning an email where there was the link of your child’s “electronic notebook”. This link is only visible between your child and myself”. In this “electronic notebook” the child had to do every time the assignments that he/she saw … So the children had “their electronic notebook”, this link … and why did I use a google doc? Because the google doc gives you the opportunity to write comments right next to the homework, and many times, when I entered to check, I saw the kid “inside” at the same moment and they would write questions for me, or I received questions in my email and I would answer them. So, they had simultaneous feedback” (A3).

The teachers’ effort to keep students’ interest toward the educational process alive through assigning homework, was reciprocated by the student’s response, as half of the teachers participating in our research point out:

“We had absolutely no problem. Indeed, their participation was high” (A10).

Four of them particularly stress the fact that the students who accomplished homework during remote classes due to the Covid-19 pandemic, were the same ones who displayed similar attitude in physical class as well:

“I was surprised at how they responded. I can’t say that all 21 did the tasks. No way. In any case, we don’t have that in face to face education in class either. A great percentage, I had approximately 15-16 pieces of homework on a daily basis handed in” (A3),

“… it was almost the same as in physical class. Some students who forgot to bring me homework in physical class, didn’t do so in eclass either” (A4).

Students’ consistency in fulfilling homework duty is partly attributed – by two teachers – to the help that these students receive from their parents at home, especially when certain students really needed that. They comment relevant to that:

“… basically, a very large percentage, 80% I would say, participated. And this was because their parents helped them. This was obvious” (A1),

“Parental involvement to their children’s homework duty fulfilment was something that occurred only in one or two cases, by the parents of two students specifically, because these specific kids really needed it” (A6).

Another teacher attributes students’ inconsistency in completing their assignments to parents and the lenience that they perhaps displayed, lenience that was not characteristic of them when teaching took place in the physical classroom. She comments accordingly:

“Not everyone brought homework and not every time. Most of the times they carried it out but not everyone and not every time. They were positive towards their assignments but sometimes inconsistent. But I want to stress the fact that parents were very lenient. That is, when they come to face to face teaching at school, they somehow check on their children. The children don’t come without having done their homework. Most of the times they are quite diligent. However, during remote education, when I assigned homework, the parents – even though they tried to have internet connection, to buy new pcs to their children – did not check if their children had done the homework they were assigned. On their side, the parents were indulgent” (A6).

The young students would receive the homework that their teachers assigned each time, they would complete it, photograph it and send it back via email or viber. This way, the teachers were able to keep track of the participation and the progress of their students:

“The children did it, shot a picture of it and sent it to viber” (A8), “the students would solve them, scan them or photograph them and the parents would send them to my email” (A9).

Correction together with feedback could be done or received automatically by the teacher, individually or in group, orally or in writing, depending on the possibilities that students and teachers alike possessed.

Two teachers claim that the creation and assignment of homework using the tools that the educational platforms offered them (e-me, eclass etc), gave them at the same time the possibility to display the correct answers directly to the students:

“I used the examination methods that eclass possesses, that is certain forms of multiple choice, right-wrong, such exercises that they could do inside eclass. Consequently, the correction was done automatically by the machine” (A2),

“When I used the e-me application, it could be seen in the total score if there had been a mistake” (A3).

One teacher explains that, when homework was returned by the students completed, then he would comment on ‘e-me assignment’ the total of mistakes and the possible corrections:

“Of course, there is a possibility there, in ‘e-me assignment’, to do this, or the documents, generally the comments on their corrections e.g. pay attention to this or the other etc” (A5).

The same teacher, however, would turn to individual correction, when the homework was sent by the student to the teacher’s individual email or viber. This policy seems to have been adopted by another two teachers participating in our research, and they report:

“… correction was also done individually, when somebody sent it to me on viber or email” (A5),

“I would take a photo of what was wrong, or print it and send it back … or I would send them again a message on viber to check again some exercise where they had made a mistake, highlighting the point where the mistake was” (A8).

The fact that the printing and correction of students’ exercises was particularly time-consuming, gradually led some teachers to oral correction, which was at certain times given generally to the whole of the class:

“If there were more than four kids that had the problem, I invited them during synchronous remote teaching to solve the exercise all together, sometimes using the ‘whiteboard’” (A4), “Or I urged them to read more carefully the theory e.g. ‘please, carefully read the verb suffixes’” (A8),

… and at other times was given individually to the student who made the mistake:

“… many times during face to face class I said: let me make some clarifications in case the notes were not fully perceived. Angeliki, you did this. Kosta, you did that, Thoma, you did the other etc. I would like you to pay attention to this or that point” (A7).

Three teachers say that they published the correct answers, so that students were led to a self-correction, which did not demand time and saved them from the extra effort:

“I would post in eclass the exercise in pdf form and then, in the morning of the next day I had written the answers on the document and had sent it for them to see…I always checked the homework. I communicated with parents to make sure we had done them and they had solved them, because after that, there was self-correction” (A4).

Regarding the evaluation by the teacher, it appeared that there was great lenience compared to physical class teaching. Specifically, seven out of ten teachers state that they were particularly lenient with their evaluation, showing understanding to the problems that young students faced:

“I was lenient in assessing their homework. My evaluation was more sparing than in physical class” (A6),

“I think I was a little more lenient due to the circumstances. I didn’t want to burden children emotionally if they did not manage to do something” (A10).

Only two out of ten teachers confess that regarding evaluation, they displayed exactly the same attitude as in physical class:

“I think my assessment was the same. Besides, at this age, children are helped by their parents a lot” (A4).

Moreover, from the replies of the teachers participating in our research, it is obvious that their evaluation focused on the students’ general performance:

“There was an overall estimation, the participation and the effort and the outcome of the effort, if it was successful or not, the eagerness to participate. All of this counted. And it showed, in the picture that I got but also with the voice and the replies that I got or didn’t get” (A1),

“… by the scores, the response, how much they participated, what answers they gave, how much it appeared that they had studied and had understood” (A3).

4. Discussion

As it resulted from the interviews of ten primary education teachers of a city in Greece, the enforced implementation of remote education during the Covid-19 induced pandemic was accompanied also by homework, the assignment of which to the students continued uninterrupted. Specifically, the teachers continued to assign homework at the same rate as they did when they were in physical classroom with their students [3,4,5], giving more importance to “language” and “mathematics” [2].

By assigning homework in these new particular conditions of teaching in the midst of the pandemic, the teachers participating in our research intended to create for their students the sense of a continuation of the teaching process, to keep them alert, and help them to delve deeper and practice the subject at hand. Besides, as it has been proven in research relevant to homework assignment, both teachers [2,3] and students alike [32] highlight the contribution of homework in their practice and comprehension of the material taught.

Parallel to that, the teachers – through the homework that they assigned to their students–attempted to comprehend the degree of effectiveness of their teaching and adjust accordingly the aims of their next teaching sessions.

These assignments were created by teachers in as many ways as they knew and could handle with more ease and more effectiveness. Sometimes they would assign exercises from the school book, at other times they would compose worksheets that they sent via emails, or via eclass, and at other times they would create them using the tools provided by the educational platforms. The disengagement of teachers from the school book exercises and the use of new technologies and the web contribute to triggering students’ interest and – as a consequence – to their knowledge [33], as students display a positive tendency towards the use of multimedia in homework [34] and feel more free, confident and safe when they use their computer and the internet to do homework [9].

To the homework assigned by the teachers participating in our research during the Covid-19-pandemic-induced remote education, most students responded, as also shown in the research of Hebebci, Bertiz & Alan [13]. However, their response was not universal, as is also shown in the research of Cui, et al. [35]. Besides, not even in physical classroom does the total of students carry out homework tasks, since, as Galloway, Conner, & Pope [6] displayed in their research, they consider them least useful, boring, meaningless and uninteresting and without any use in everyday life. In fact, they use to refer to homework with expressions like “burden”, “trouble”, “waste of time” [10].

The students’ consistency in completing homework is attributed by the teachers to the help that students received from their parents. Especially, parents of a high educational level seem to provide higher levels of support and more time to help their children with their homework, as Goudeau, et al. [18] point out.

However, while there are parents who dedicate sufficient time to supervise their children’s homework, there are also uninvolved parents [16], but also parents who do not get actively involved in their children’s homework because they do not understand the reason for its assignment [17]. Thus, the teachers in our research feel that the responsibility for the indifference of students toward their homework lies with the indifference and the lenience of their parents, behaviours that the parents did not display when the teaching took place in physical class.

However, we should not overlook the fact that some parents did not have the capacity to help their children, as they did not possess the required education [35], while, as it is pointed out by Clausen, Bunte, & Robertson [12] sometimes parents but also caretakers were ignorant regarding the students’ homework. This resulted in parents’ reaching the limits of their endurance and any involvement with their children’s homework during remote education would lead them to exhaustion [36] and to complaints, because, due to the pandemic, they were obliged – among others – to check homework and give teachers feedback [35].

On their behalf, teachers took care to attend to their students’ progress, provide feedback in any way and evaluate their students’ performance in total and with lenience, acknowledging the difficulties that their students – such as themselves – faced in this unprecedented situation.

5. Conclusion

The important position that homework occupies in the teaching process, was made obvious as well in remote education implemented emergently and extensively due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the fact that teachers had to face new challenges, they made sure they used every means available in order to create and assign to their students homework capable of keeping them in touch with learning in a pleasant and creative way.

References

[1]   | Faulkner, J. and Blyth, C., “Homework: is it really worth all the bother?”, Educational Studies, 21 (3), 447-454, 1995.
[2]   | Chatzidimou, D., Homework. An empirical approach, Kyriakidis Brothers Publications, Thessaloniki, 1995. [in Greek].
[3]   | Chatzidimou, D. and Taratori, E., Hausaufgaben. Einstellungen deutscher and greichischer Lehrer, Peter Lang, Frankfurt AM, 1995.

[4]  
Chatzidimou, D., Stravakou, P. and Kougiourouki, M., “Elementary school students’ attitudes regarding homework: an empirical approach’, in D.C. Chatzidimou, K.G. Bikos, P.A. Stravakou and K.D. Xatzidimou (eds.), 5th Panellinio Synedrio Elliniki Paidagogiki kai Ekpaideftiki Erevna, B΄, Kyriakidis Brothers, Thessaloniki, 227-235, 2007. [in Greek].

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