Directions for Research on Homework

Abstract

(from the chapter) While treatment orientations vary in the amount of importance afforded homework, homework effects will be difficult to find unless they are indeed essential for a positive outcome, regardless of the importance it is theoretically afforded. The search for homework effects, viewed from the larger context of repeated failures to establish the importance of specific techniques that differentiate very diverse treatments, seems rather optimistic. Clinicians and theoreticians may consider homework as essential, but from the perspective of past research, the failure to detect an effect for specific activities like homework is expected. Investigations examining the necessity of specific therapeutic actions that directly or indirectly influence patient outcome have suggested that partitioning out effects for specific actions is difficult. Despite this difficulty, this volume can serve as an important guiding resource to organize future research on homework, such that the nature and limits of its influence can be illuminated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).