Another cross-national difference was in the role homework played in the lessons. If homework was attended to during the lesson it could happen in two ways: The class might go over and share the results of homework done for today’s lesson; or, the students might be given time to begin working on their assigned homework for tomorrow. In the graph we show the percentage of lessons in which students actually worked on or shared homework.

Japanese students never worked on the next day’s homework during class, and rarely shared homework results. Both German and American students shared homework frequently, but only American students spent time in class actually working on the next day’s homework. When we calculate the total percentage of time during the lesson that was devoted to assigning, working on, or sharing homework we get a similar result: Only two percent of lesson time in Japan involved homework in any way, compared with eight percent in Germany and 11 percent in the United States.

In our teacher questionnaire we asked teachers whether or not they had previously assigned homework that was due for today. Whereas 55 percent of the US and German teachers said that they had assigned such homework, 14 percent of Japanese teachers reported assigning homework.