A study of the effect of graded homework in a preparatory math course for electrical engineers

Large engineering classes require many person-hours to grade homework assignments. An experiment was conducted to try to determine if this effort is beneficial to the students as measured by their test performance. Two sections of the same course were taught by the same instructor. One section was assigned homework that was graded; the other was assigned the same homework but it was not graded. The experiment was repeated in a second semester. The results of the two semesters differ in the significance of the homework assignment. The reasons for this difference are discussed.