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Government policy and academic research both talk about transforming learning through networked technologies – sharing newly available information about the learning context with new partners to support lifelong learning activities, and giving learners increased power and autonomy. This thesis examines how such learning opportunities might be supported. In order to ground these learning opportunities in current educational activity it studies homework, which is an example of a learning activity that spans multiple contexts and the current roll-out point of networked technologies in UK schools. This thesis uses an ecological approach to studying homework practices and activities, and the views, needs and roles of stakeholders, working with ICT coordinators, children, and families. Its core findings are twofold, and centre on the opening up and closing down of homework to involvement within the homework community. The first core finding is that children benefit from actively structuring their homework activities to involve or exclude other family members, and that the networked technologies which teachers plan to use in homework fail to mediate these processes successfully, unlike traditional homework technologies. The second core finding is that details of homework activities transmitted across a network can include too much information about a child or a family’s wider activities, violating privacy and leading families to reject technologies. This thesis identifies design tactics which can help children and their families negotiate how and when information is shared, and provides evidence that these design solutions can be implemented successfully within homework, if designed to fit within the ecology of the home. It discusses the circumstances in which these tactics could be useful in supporting lifelong learning, and establishes the importance of considering how families will integrate any educational activity or technology within their everyday activities.

The aim of this research is to explore the views of pupils, parents and teachers about homework at Maylandsea Community Primary School. Specifically it is designed to investigate their opinions about the value and purpose of homework, about what sort of homework they think may be most suitable for primary aged children, about the different roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in the homework process and about ways in which homework activities might promote children’s involvement and their enjoyment of learning. These collected views were then used to prepare a framework to provide guidance, clarification and exposition in order to assist members of the school community. This research is designed to address the paucity of understanding about homework in a primary school and to discover if and why parents, pupils and teachers think that homework is valuable and worthwhile. This study is located within a qualitative, epistemological paradigm and it employs a social constructivist research methodology. The researcher adopts the stance that homework is a socially constructed, socially described and socially conceptualised activity. This is insider research and the researcher is also the school’s headteacher. There is an acknowledgement that action research models and participatory enquiry approaches have influenced the research design but have not defined it. This research is a single case study located within one semi-rural primary school in Essex. This study finds that parents, pupils and teachers recognise that homework has an important role to play in helping primary age children to learn, in developing positive learning habits and in promoting good personal and social skills. It discovers that there is confusion about parents’ roles in supporting homework. It demonstrates that homework should be made meaningful for families and engaging for pupils and that the foundation for successful homework lies within the quality of the tripartite relationships between teachers, children and parents. This thesis offers a new framework to support teachers and families and it concludes that, whilst existing literature is ambivalent in terms of the value, purpose and effectiveness of homework, stakeholders at this primary school consider it to have positive benefits both for learning and for the personal development of young children. However, these benefits are most evident when the homework tasks are interesting, varied, personalised and relevant to learners’ needs. Families are supportive of homework when they can appreciate that it is meaningful to them and their children.

Text in Afrikaans, summary in English / The object of the study was to determine if the use of different types of music would have an influence on the study effectiveness of the high school pupils. The music was used by the educational psychologist together with study methods. An empirical study was done in which three groups of students were used. The first group had no music, the second group had pop music and the last group had baroque music in their study session. The empirical study showed that music and then specifically baroque music had an influence on the study effectiveness of pupils. A program was compiled in which guidelines were given for study, the program is now used in a study program for high school students. Recommendations were made for the use of music with study methods for the Educational Psychologist, teachers and pupils / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Voorligting)

Text in Afrikaans, summary in English / The object of the study was to determine if the use of different types of music would have an influence on the study effectiveness of the high school pupils. The music was used by the educational psychologist together with study methods. An empirical study was done in which three groups of students were used. The first group had no music, the second group had pop music and the last group had baroque music in their study session. The empirical study showed that music and then specifically baroque music had an influence on the study effectiveness of pupils. A program was compiled in which guidelines were given for study, the program is now used in a study program for high school students. Recommendations were made for the use of music with study methods for the Educational Psychologist, teachers and pupils / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Voorligting)

This research focuses on aspects of parental involvement in homework and the differing power relations which homework uncovered within the family. It is concerned with the deeper implications of homework through exploring the attitudes, behaviours and beliefs of teachers and/or parents and/or pupils and to consider who really is in control of the homework process, the perceived and actual roles of the participants, the resistances to homework and the possible changing social factors which impinge on homework. This thesis offers a unique contribution to the homework discourses as it uses a qualitative approach, drawing on an extended version of the French and Raven (1959) conceptualisation of power as a means of interrogating the data, by labelling certain attitudes, behaviours and beliefs, to seek explanations of the patterns of power. These patterns of power are exposed through the family’s story of their engagement, or not, in the homework process. The notion of engaging pupils in the learning process is at the heart of many of the recent educational initiatives, arising from the National debate on Education (2002). At the heart of these new initiatives is the notion of learners being actively involved in the learning process, in and out of the classroom to encourage them to take responsibility for their learning. A number of implications for pupils, parents, teachers and the government are considered. These particularly relate to the effective practices of teachers and parents as a means of preventing the pupils from controlling the homework process and to the government to consider appropriate and effective means of ensuring that all concerned are engaged in conducting homework which is interesting, stimulating and motivating.