Are At Risk The Effect of Parent Participation in Strategies to Improve the Homework Performance of Students Who

ABSTRACT The effect of teaching parents of at-risk students to facilitate a home-based self-management program to improve homework performance and academic achievement was investigated. The parents of 26 sixth- and seventh-grade students from two middle school programs for at-risk youth received training and implemented home-based self-management and reinforcement strategies. Results indicated that overall levels of homework completion and homework quality increased signifi­cantly for those students whose parents consistently implemented the 10 -week homework program. Significant increases in math­ematics achievement also occurred. These results suggest that the practice of homework may be an important element of academic programming for students at risk and students with disabilities and that parents may play a primary role in the homework process. T HE PRACTICE OF HOMEWORK ENJOYS WIDE- spread, although far from unanimous, professional and public support. In addition to government reports touting homework as an important component of effective teaching and quality school programs (U.S. Department of Education, 1987; Utah State Office of Education, 1984), many teachers, administra­tors, parents, and even students place a high value on home­work (Coulter, 1980; England & Flatley, 1985; Featherstone, 1985; Kuerston, 1984; LaConte, 1981; McDermott, Goldman, & Varenne, 1984). Despite the popular belief that homework has positive effects on students, however, the empirical research addressing the efficacy of homework has been described as being "vague, uncertain, sometimes contradictory, and perhaps even thin" (England & Flatley, 1985, p. 21). Most notably, there is disagreement about the effect of homework on aca­demic achievement and school performance (Epstein, Polloway, Foley, & Patton, 1993; Salend & Gajria, 1995). Whereas some researchers extol the benefits of homework for student outcomes (e.g., Anderson, Mead, & Sullivan, 1986; Bradshaw & Amundson, 1985; Foyle & Bailey, 1986; Natriello & McDill, 1986; Rosenberg, 1989; Walberg, Paschal, & Weinstein, 1985), others report homework's relative ineffectiveness in improv­ing achievement and school performance variables (Bents-Hill et al, 1988; Epstein, 1988; Rutherford, 1989). Although there has been a recent increase in literature addressing homework and students with disabilities, there is still relatively little research focusing on the effectiveness of homework for youth at risk and youth with disabilities. This lack of research attention exists despite the long-standing importance of homework for these students, whose typical educational deficits "are predictive of possible difficulties in successfully completing homework assignments" (Epstein et al., 1993, p. 41). Not surprisingly, lack of homework completion has been reported to be a major factor contribut­ing to poor academic performance and school failure of youth at risk and youth with disabilities (Davis, 1984; England & Flatley, 1985; Gajria & Salend, 1995; Quackenbush & Gas-tineau, 1989; Salend & Schliff, 1989). In addition, failure to complete homework assignments is often among referral cri­teria for special school programs aimed at serving the grow­ing numbers of children at risk of school failure within the United States (Bay & Bryan, 1992).