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Why Do We Have Such Terrible Evidence on Homework Effectiveness?

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Cooper speculates that the students’ estimates are better than the parents’, and I think this makes sense - it’s easier to reduce a correlation by adding noise than to increase it - but in the end we don’t know. According to a Washington Post article, students in two very similar datasets reported very different amounts of time spent on homework - maybe because of the way they asked the question? Both homework proponents ( Harris Cooper) and opponents ( Alfie Kohn) briefly nod to this problem, then take these studies seriously anyway.

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