Zack Jenio
Among some of the most stressful things in life is the fear of having only one submission left on a WebAssign question. Although you might feel like you have the right answer, you remember the last four times you also thought that and were wrong. Not to mention, your score on this assignment will factor into your final grade, which stresses you out even more.
Being a STEM major, I find myself in this position more than I would like, but this should not be the norm for homework. Homework, specifically WebAssign, should be graded for completion rather than accuracy to encourage students to put more effort into assignments.
Homework is very basically defined as “tasks assigned to students by school teachers that are meant to be carried out during non-school hours,” according to Harris Cooper, a professor in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University and a leading researcher for the value of homework. Further research by Cooper has proved and made clear the connection between homework and academic success; therefore, showing the explicit benefits of practicing concepts outside of the classroom.
There is an unrealistic expectation that students will fully understand a concept and how to apply it in the homework immediately. Homework is the time to practice, learn from mistakes and take time to fully understand the application of an idea in the context of problems. Yet when there is an added pressure to be perfect, there is a higher tendency for students to cheat.
A 2003 study found that when students self-reported cheating, 50% of the sample admitted to cheating on homework (i.e., working in groups on an individual assignment). With homework at NC State factoring into the class’ final grade, students may want to ensure as many points as possible in order to assist / cushion their grade, which can prove to be problematic.
As a result, students can turn to cheating by sharing answers or using online sources such as Chegg in order to get all of the homework correct. Yet by turning homework into a completion grade rather than a grade for accuracy, we encourage students to put effort into the practice, and they feel less pressure to cheat and break academic integrity codes in order to earn higher grades.
Understandably, there is a fear that students would simply try to complete the homework despite getting answers wrong in order to get the completion credit. However, students in university are treated as adults, so if a student does not want to try, then it will be detrimental to their grade when taking an exam, because they have not had the actual practice. This fear is identical to students cheating on homework (which happens over half of the time), as they do not understand the content, but they submit the correct answer that they’ve found in order to get the grade and move on.
Another way to improve homework assignments that are graded for completion would be to provide a key or guided solution, so that students can actually work through problems they misunderstood and learn the actual process to find the solution. Then, after they’ve understood the process required for the question, a similar question could be provided to show that the student has understood their mistake and can correctly answer a question surrounding that specific concept. This would turn homework into a time to practice and perfect skills rather than feel like stressful, tedious work that they need to complete.
By turning WebAssign homework assignments into completion rather than accuracy grades, we can ensure that students are putting more effort into understanding the content without the added stress of getting it right. Since homework is a time to practice new skills, students should not be graded on our ability to apply unfamiliar concepts.