Homework as an outcome assessment: relationships between homework and test performance

Homework imposes a significant load on undergraduate engineering students and faculty, and typically represents 10 to 30 percent of a student’s final course grade. One of the fundamental purposes of homework is to help students master the course material, mastery ultimately assessed through quizzes, tests and a final examination. To understand whether homework grades are a significant factor in determining student performance on tests, a study was conducted to examine the correlation between individual student scores on homework, quizzes, tests and final examination. Data from four courses taught by three different instructors showed very weak correlation between homework and quiz, test or final examination scores, respectively; much stronger correlations were found between quiz, tests and final examinations. Multiple linear regressions were developed for three courses, with quiz and test scores found to be the only statistically significant predictors of final examination performance (homework was found not to be a statistically significant predictor). Study results indicate that graded homework may potentially not be an effective means of enhancing student performance on tests. Areas of potential future research extensions are discussed