Homework: Exploring Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices in Primary Schools of Southern Punjab

Exploring Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices in Primary Schools

Abstract

Assigning homework to students is generally seen as a worthwhile strategy to engage them with learning and consequently it is practiced in many schools. Although it is perceived to have both positive and negative effects on students, it is the nature and focus of homework tasks that actually decides its effectiveness for students’ learning. The focus of homework tasks may be on practice, preparation and on extensive-creative tasks, from practice to application. Despite the significant role of homework in students’ learning, this area has not much been explored in schools of Southern Punjab, Pakistan. The main purpose of this research study is, therefore, to explore teachers’ beliefs and practices about homework in primary schools of southern Punjab, Pakistan. Alignment with purpose of study, this research adopted qualitative research approach. All public sector primary schools’ teachers in schools of two Tehsils of Multan, namely, Multan City and Multan Saddar were selected as a population. Of these, 125 teachers from 25 primary schools were purposefully selected. Two research tools were used for collection of data. First, 125 teachers were approached to seek responses on a set of five open-ended questions. Second, semi-structured interviews were conducted from 25 teachers, one each from 25 schools. For analysis of data, both thematic analysis and content analysis were used. This study found that while assigning homework to students, teachers are less about the purpose. It was further found teachers believe that the focus of homework in primary schools of Punjab is practice-based, mostly on practice of content as taught in class. A very little focus was, however, observed on preparation- and extensive-creative-based nature of the homework.