The data from a survey of high school math and science teachers show that in the district of Sanlee many of these teachers reported assigning daily homework, whereas in the district of Marlee, most science and math teachers reported assigning homework no more than two or three days per week. Despite receiving less frequent homework assignments, Marlee students earn better grades overall and are less likely to be required to repeat a year of school than are students in Sanlee. These results call into question the usefulness of frequent homework assignments. Most likely the Marlee students have more time to concentrate on individual assignments than do the Sanlee students who have homework every day. Therefore teachers in our high schools should assign homework no more than twice a week.
Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.
It is said from a survey that students in Marlee who receive less frequent homework assignments turn out to perform better grades and are less likely to repeat the year of study, and conclude that teacher should assign homework no more than twice a week to achieve better learning outcome. However, the statements are drawn based on unwarranted assumptions which require further evidence and examination.
To begin with, what the reader only knows is that the overall learning performance, in terms of grades and steady study year progress, is better in Marlee. However, there is no evidence to indicate this result is supported by the frequency of homework assignments. In other words, there are multiple reasons contributing to the final learning performance, such as the learning styles, the student backgrounds etc. Without drilling down to other potential reasons and directly claiming the frequency of homework assignment is the sole factor, it already fallaciously draw the causal relationship. Therefore, more evidence relating to other factors are essential before claiming the effectiveness of decreasing the frequency of homework assignment.
Furthermore, what helps the students to learn lies more in the "quality" of the homework instead of the quantity. However, no information on the homework assignment quality is revealed. Therefore, it is possible that the real problem is the poor quality of homework assignment in Sanlee instead of the quantity issue. If that's the case, changing the assignment frequency will not advance students' performance in Sanlee, but reversely harm their learning results. Hence, comparison on the homework assignment quality is another evidence that should be examined.
Apart from the previous discussion, another problematic dimension is that the composition of the students is dissimilar since they locate in two different areas. Nonetheless, the survey wrongly assumes that the students are the same and therefore claim that the frequency of homework assignment is the major factor in influencing the learning performance. What if the students are generally economic-advantaged in Manlee with more learning resources to gain better performance? What I would like to emphasize is that it is premature to compare two distinct groups and reach the conclusion without considering the dissimilarities of the groups.
In summary, the conclusion drawn from the survey is too weak to be convinced in that it incorrectly assumes the causal relationship between the homework assignment frequency and the learning performance. Also, the miss of homework quality as well as the dissimilarities of student further harm its credibility.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 7 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 408 350
No. of Characters: 2221 1500
No. of Different Words: 192 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.494 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.444 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.004 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 182 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 150 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 112 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 64 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.633 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.882 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.36 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.596 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.091 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 332, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: that's
...anlee instead of the quantity issue. If thats the case, changing the assignment frequ...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 399, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'students'' or 'student's'?
Suggestion: students'; student's
...e assignment frequency will not advance students performance in Sanlee, but reversely ha...
^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, furthermore, hence, however, if, nonetheless, so, therefore, well, apart from, in summary, such as, as well as, in other words, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 4.0 12.9520958084 31% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 28.8173652695 69% => OK
Preposition: 58.0 55.5748502994 104% => OK
Nominalization: 22.0 16.3942115768 134% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2286.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 408.0 441.139720559 92% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.60294117647 5.12650576532 109% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.49433085973 4.56307096286 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.16396032596 2.78398813304 114% => OK
Unique words: 200.0 204.123752495 98% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.490196078431 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 705.6 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.22255489022 166% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 19.7664670659 91% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 47.8650365966 57.8364921388 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 127.0 119.503703932 106% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.6666666667 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 8.44444444444 5.70786347227 148% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 5.0 8.20758483034 61% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 6.88822355289 102% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.179711160312 0.218282227539 82% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0629595408218 0.0743258471296 85% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0589270044117 0.0701772020484 84% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.115006398182 0.128457276422 90% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.048451676484 0.0628817314937 77% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.3 14.3799401198 113% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.69 48.3550499002 84% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.1 12.197005988 107% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.5 12.5979740519 123% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.64 8.32208582834 104% => OK
difficult_words: 101.0 98.500998004 103% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 13.0 12.3882235529 105% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.