Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You want to look at data from these NCES longitudinal studies:

the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS:72), High School and Beyond (HS&B), the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), and the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002).

Do those get to the topics OP mentioned?

Do your research. Yes, there are some time use questions. Yes, there is transcript I formation. Yes, there is a website with information about what these studies do, and you can even read the data.

OP here. Thanks for the many suggestions that I will check out.

Anonymous wrote:You want to look at data from these NCES longitudinal studies:

the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS:72), High School and Beyond (HS&B), the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), and the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002).

Do those get to the topics OP mentioned?

You want to look at data from these NCES longitudinal studies:

the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS:72), High School and Beyond (HS&B), the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), and the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002).

Serious academic research and primary sources take many forms. Don't let the PPs discourage you. Statements from one of the books linked above.

"When we think of historical inquiry, we often imagine a scholar reading the letters, journals, newspaper accounts, and official documents of a given period and then aggregating those diverse forms of personal or collective impressions into the individual impression of the historian."

"To determine how teachers taught, I have used a variety of sources: Photographs of teachers and students in class, Textbooks and test teachers used, Student recollections of their experiences in classrooms, Teacher reports of how they taught, Reports from persons who visited classrooms, Student writings in school newspapers and yearbooks, Research studies of teacher behavior in classrooms, Descriptions of classroom architecture, size of rooms, desk design and placement, building plans, etc."

"Analysis of sources that produced this percentage revealed that they were either photos from local newspapers that school officials had provided or had suggested to reporters that such photos be taken."

"What these scattered photographs, student newspaper items, yearbook vignettes, and official reports how are instances of project work, student participation in classwork (e.g. reports, debates, etc.) within a larger framework of teacher-centered patterns of instruction."

Some of you responders seem like real jerks.

OP, here are a few links to other similar research, all available from Google Scholar. If you vary your search terms, I suspect you can find lots of data that will help you.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=change+in+homework+over+time+decade&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C11&as_sdtp=

http://hss.cmu.edu/history/docs/schlossman/A-Nation-at-Rest.pdf
"We use several national surveys to provide a 50-year perspective on time spent on homework."

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED383498.pdf
"This book investigates teaching practices before, during, and after reform impulses in the 20th century aimed at changing what teachers routinely do. Paterns of stability and change over a 90-year period are developed from evidence from a wide variety of sources, including clasrom photographs, textboks and tests used, student recolections, teacher reports of how they taught, and clasrom observations by parents and administrators."

OP said she wanted to make an "academic contribution".

You don't do that reading newspapers and yearbooks.

OP, it depends on the purpose of your research. I think it sounds interesting. However, if you are just talking about writing an article and getting a "sense" of the issue, I think any information is helpful--even newspapers and yearbooks.

NP here.

You're being very presumptuous about your ability to make a meaningful contribution to academia with your side interest. You are also, apparently, not knowledgeable about the basics of good research design. Your interests are so vague and inarticulate that you don't even know that you don't know how to craft a research able question.

But, there's help for that. Start with NCES. You should also learn about accreditation standards. Educate yourself on qualitative as well as quantitative data analysis (most of the info you want is qual info). Forget the PP who said to look into newspaper articles unless those articles lead to peer reviewed studies. Draft several focus research questions and design a way to answer them. Even if you want to publish a meta study or a lit review or an annotated bibliography.. You need a focus.

Research is hard and publishing meaningful research even harder. Your post does not seem to respect this, so you can't be surprised that you are both confusing and insulting in your hubris.

That said, I personally love working with independent researchers who want to learn. Fire is good. GL.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks, I will check that out.

I'm finding it hard to believe you are anything but a lazy high schooler if you didn't start with NCES.

\


Yup, just another lazy full time professional trying to raise a family, do a little volunteer work, and maybe make an academic contribution on the side in an area of academic interest. If you would like to share you name, I would be glad to acknowledge your warm and supportive contribution to my effort should I ever publish something on this which -- who knows -- if it turned out to be any good could actually benefit your children or grandchildren some day. Thank you again for your thoughtful support.

I don't recall any activity that took that many hours.

DS gave up his job in retail for activities, sports, etc.

As I recall, he could not work past ten p.m. and no more than four--it might have been six--hours on a week day.

When a HS child gets a work permit there are lost of laws to protect the child. The child can't work more than a certain number of hours per day/per week. Child can't have a shift longer than X hours. Child can't work before __ am, or after __ pm. If would be good if these standards were applied to HS extracurriculars/sports.