How to investigate why students do not do their homework?

Question

I teach freshmen courses. The lessons are in the classroom, but I also use an LMS to receive homework, to communicate grades and comments, and to post additional readings and resources.

It is normal to encounter a few students not doing work, but this term, I found about 80% of one section doing no homework, even easy work. To investigate why so many students are not doing the work, I tried these strategies:

1. I sent private messages to each student informing them that they missed several assignments and that it is their responsibility to inform me of any problems. The students did not reply.

2. I posted a private survey to the LMS to all students, asking for students to describe any problem they were having with the LMS or homework. None of these students completed the survey.

3. Seeing no replies after 5 days, I set aside some of class time for a whole-class discussion on this topic, but this made students nervous. In retrospect, realize this was a poor choice.

I did learn through the discussion that some students did not know how to use the LMS and now that we've spend 20 minutes covering that (again).

After my discussion, more homework is coming in, but still about 50% of the class has a 0%.

• I do not see this problem in my other sections, nor have I had this failure rate in past years.
• A student signed me into their account, so I could confirm that there were no anomalies in the LMS for this section.

I want to identify why this section has so few students submitting work, so that I can make appropriate adjustments to the course, as necessary. How can I investigate this problem further, without making students nervous to explain?

Answer 1

You have been around the block a few times, so I interpret this question to be "What is going on with THESE PARTICULAR students?" And of course I don't know.

I have run into some scenarios at my large public university which may be relevant:

1. Recent admission changes which bring in students from more low-income schools with less experience with self-regulated learning.

2. Changes in course requirements which allow less-experienced students to take the course.

3. Limited timing of a different required remedial class made one of my two sections also all remedial.

4. A shift to making a class more online also allowed students to fall behind more easily.

Whatever the reasons, I would also want to know why this results in homework avoidance and how to help overcome this.

Have you tried having undergraduate tutors ask the students what would help? Your students might feel safer admitting problems to peers.

Answer 2

There are many aspects to this question, which amount to "what are some good teaching techniques?" In fact, I think getting students to do homework assignments is one of the most important parts of teaching. I recommend you look for in person training programs at your intitution's (or a nearby institution's) teaching center. Each institution in this network has such a program: http://www.cirtl.net/.

When I did this, I learned how to design better assignments, lead better class discussions, create more engaging classes, and find out what determines student success. I think most senior faculty would benefit from similar training.

In this case, I suggest creating in-class activities the students cannot do unless they did the homework.

Also, in my experience, all LMS suck. Don't use them except when you have to (typically to keep grades confidential).

Answer 3

Undergrad here,

+Is there any chance an above-average percentage of these students are registered for a pass/fail grading option? They might think "oh I just need a C" and be choosing to ignore the homework, thinking they can just ace the exams. Even good students do this. Perhaps your registration system puts them in one section.

+It could also be that your problem section was the only one left open for people who did not bother to register in a timely manner. Thus, slackers would be overrepresented :). There would also be a shortage of good students that the slackers could copy from. Was there confusion about the availability of your class this term?

+Perhaps there was a miscommunication about class drop procedures. People just quit doing the work and think you will be the one to unregister them? Are these people coming to class? Perhaps the hypothetical hasty-registered "slacker section" have decided to mass quit...but slack off on the unregistering.

Or, like the others have said, something is wrong with your LMS and they might not know which homework is due. If there is a tech issue, it might not necessarily "look broken" and people think you just have not given any homework YET.