Homework and Academic Achievement in Latin America: A Multilevel Approach

The relationship between homework and academic results has been widely researched. Most of that research has used English-speaking, European or Asian samples, and to date there have been no detailed studies into that relationship in Latin America and the Caribbean. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of quantitative homework characteristics on achievement in science. The sample comprised 61,938 students at 2,955 schools in the 15 Latin American countries (plus the Mexican state of New Leon) which participated in the Third Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (TERCE), carried out by the Latin American Laboratory for Educational Quality (LLECE) in 2013. The mean age was 12.42 years old (±0.94). Within each country, three hierarchical-linear models were applied at two levels: student and school. The individual level considered time spent doing homework and the school level considered the amount and frequency of homework assignment. In addition, ten control variables were included in order to control the net effect of the characteristics of the homework on the result. The results confirmed that homework is widely assigned in the Latin American region. At the individual level, time spent on homework had little effect on academic performance, while in the quantitative homework characteristics it was the frequency of homework assignment which demonstrated a clearer effect rather than the amount of homework assigned.