why do colleges give so much homework

• Future Students
• Current Students
• Faculty/Staff

News and Media

• News & Media Home
• Research Stories
• School’s In
• In the Media

You are here

More than two hours of homework may be counterproductive, research suggests.

A Stanford education researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.   "Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good," wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .   The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students' views on homework.   Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.   Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.   "The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students' advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being," Pope wrote.   Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.   Their study found that too much homework is associated with:   • Greater stress : 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.   • Reductions in health : In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.   • Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits : Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were "not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills," according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.   A balancing act   The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.   Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as "pointless" or "mindless" in order to keep their grades up.   "This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points," said Pope, who is also a co-founder of Challenge Success , a nonprofit organization affiliated with the GSE that conducts research and works with schools and parents to improve students' educational experiences..   Pope said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.   "Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development," wrote Pope.   High-performing paradox   In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. "Young people are spending more time alone," they wrote, "which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities."   Student perspectives   The researchers say that while their open-ended or "self-reporting" methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for "typical adolescent complaining" – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.   The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Clifton B. Parker is a writer at the Stanford News Service .

More Stories

⟵ Go to all Research Stories

Get the Educator

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

Stanford Graduate School of Education

482 Galvez Mall Stanford, CA 94305-3096 Tel: (650) 723-2109

• Contact Admissions
• GSE Leadership
• Site Feedback
• Web Accessibility
• Career Resources
• Faculty Open Positions
• Explore Courses
• Academic Calendar
• Office of the Registrar
• Cubberley Library
• StanfordWho
• StanfordYou

Improving lives through learning

• Stanford Home
• Maps & Directions
• Search Stanford
• Emergency Info
• Terms of Use
• Non-Discrimination
• Accessibility

© Stanford University , Stanford , California 94305 .

How Much Homework is Too Much?

When redesigning a course or putting together a new course, faculty often struggle with how much homework and readings to assign. Too little homework and students might not be prepared for the class sessions or be able to adequately practice basic skills or produce sufficient in-depth work to properly master the learning goals of the course. Too much and some students may feel overwhelmed and find it difficult to keep up or have to sacrifice work in other courses.

A common rule of thumb is that students should study three hours for each credit hour of the course, but this isn’t definitive. Universities might recommend that students spend anywhere from two or three hours of study or as much as six to nine hours of study or more for each course credit hour. A 2014 study found that, nationwide, college students self reported spending about 17 hours each week on homework, reading and assignments. Studies of high school students show that too much homework can produce diminishing returns on student learning, so finding the right balance can be difficult.

There are no hard and fast rules about the amount of readings and homework that faculty assign. It will vary according to the university, the department, the level of the classes, and even other external factors that impact students in your course. (Duke’s faculty handbook addresses many facets of courses, such as absences, but not the typical amount of homework specifically.)

To consider the perspective of a typical student that might be similar to the situations faced at Duke, Harvard posted a blog entry by one of their students aimed at giving students new to the university about what they could expect. There are lots of readings, of course, but time has to be spent on completing problem sets, sometimes elaborate multimedia or research projects, responding to discussion posts and writing essays. Your class is one of several, and students have to balance the needs of your class with others and with clubs, special projects, volunteer work or other activities they’re involved with as part of their overall experience.

The Rice Center for Teaching Excellence has some online calculators for estimating class workload that can help you get a general understanding of the time it may take for a student to read a particular number of pages of material at different levels or to complete essays or other types of homework.

To narrow down your decision-making about homework when redesigning or creating your own course, you might consider situational factors that may influence the amount of homework that’s appropriate.

Connection with your learning goals

Is the homework clearly connected with the learning goals of your students for a particular class session or week in the course? Students will find homework beneficial and valuable if they feel that it is meaningful . If you think students might see readings or assignments as busy work, think about ways to modify the homework to make a clearer connection with what is happening in class. Resist the temptation to assign something because the students need to know it. Ask yourself if they will actually use it immediately in the course or if the material or exercises should be relegated to supplementary material.

Levels of performance

The type of readings and homework given to first year students will be very different from those given to more experienced individuals in higher-level courses. If you’re unsure if your readings or other work might be too easy (or too complex) for students in your course, ask a colleague in your department or at another university to give feedback on your assignment. If former students in the course (or a similar course) are available, ask them for feedback on a sample reading or assignment.

Common practices

What are the common practices in your department or discipline? Some departments, with particular classes, may have general guidelines or best practices you can keep in mind when assigning homework.

External factors

What type of typical student will be taking your course? If it’s a course preparing for a major or within an area of study, are there other courses with heavy workloads they might be taking at the same time? Are they completing projects, research, or community work that might make it difficult for them to keep up with a heavy homework load for your course?

Students who speak English as a second language, are first generation students, or who may be having to work to support themselves as they take courses may need support to get the most out of homework. Detailed instructions for the homework, along with outlining your learning goals and how the assignment connects the course, can help students understand how the readings and assignments fit into their studies. A reading guide, with questions prompts or background, can help students gain a better understanding of a reading. Resources to look up unfamiliar cultural references or terms can make readings and assignments less overwhelming.

If you would like more ideas about planning homework and assignments for your course or more information and guidance on course design and assessment, contact Duke Learning Innovation to speak with one of our consultants .

• About the Hub
• Announcements
• Faculty Experts Guide
• Subscribe to the newsletter

Explore by Topic

• Arts+Culture
• Politics+Society
• Science+Technology
• Student Life
• University News
• Voices+Opinion
• About Hub at Work
• Gazette Archive
• Benefits+Perks
• Health+Well-Being
• Current Issue
• About the Magazine
• Past Issues
• Support Johns Hopkins Magazine
• Subscribe to the Magazine

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.

Credit: August de Richelieu

Does homework still have value? A Johns Hopkins education expert weighs in

Joyce epstein, co-director of the center on school, family, and community partnerships, discusses why homework is essential, how to maximize its benefit to learners, and what the 'no-homework' approach gets wrong.

By Vicky Hallett

The necessity of homework has been a subject of debate since at least as far back as the 1890s, according to Joyce L. Epstein , co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University. "It's always been the case that parents, kids—and sometimes teachers, too—wonder if this is just busy work," Epstein says.

But after decades of researching how to improve schools, the professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Education remains certain that homework is essential—as long as the teachers have done their homework, too. The National Network of Partnership Schools , which she founded in 1995 to advise schools and districts on ways to improve comprehensive programs of family engagement, has developed hundreds of improved homework ideas through its Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program. For an English class, a student might interview a parent on popular hairstyles from their youth and write about the differences between then and now. Or for science class, a family could identify forms of matter over the dinner table, labeling foods as liquids or solids. These innovative and interactive assignments not only reinforce concepts from the classroom but also foster creativity, spark discussions, and boost student motivation.

"We're not trying to eliminate homework procedures, but expand and enrich them," says Epstein, who is packing this research into a forthcoming book on the purposes and designs of homework. In the meantime, the Hub couldn't wait to ask her some questions:

What kind of homework training do teachers typically get?

Future teachers and administrators really have little formal training on how to design homework before they assign it. This means that most just repeat what their teachers did, or they follow textbook suggestions at the end of units. For example, future teachers are well prepared to teach reading and literacy skills at each grade level, and they continue to learn to improve their teaching of reading in ongoing in-service education. By contrast, most receive little or no training on the purposes and designs of homework in reading or other subjects. It is really important for future teachers to receive systematic training to understand that they have the power, opportunity, and obligation to design homework with a purpose.

Why do students need more interactive homework?

If homework assignments are always the same—10 math problems, six sentences with spelling words—homework can get boring and some kids just stop doing their assignments, especially in the middle and high school years. When we've asked teachers what's the best homework you've ever had or designed, invariably we hear examples of talking with a parent or grandparent or peer to share ideas. To be clear, parents should never be asked to "teach" seventh grade science or any other subject. Rather, teachers set up the homework assignments so that the student is in charge. It's always the student's homework. But a good activity can engage parents in a fun, collaborative way. Our data show that with "good" assignments, more kids finish their work, more kids interact with a family partner, and more parents say, "I learned what's happening in the curriculum." It all works around what the youngsters are learning.

Is family engagement really that important?

At Hopkins, I am part of the Center for Social Organization of Schools , a research center that studies how to improve many aspects of education to help all students do their best in school. One thing my colleagues and I realized was that we needed to look deeply into family and community engagement. There were so few references to this topic when we started that we had to build the field of study. When children go to school, their families "attend" with them whether a teacher can "see" the parents or not. So, family engagement is ever-present in the life of a school.

My daughter's elementary school doesn't assign homework until third grade. What's your take on "no homework" policies?

There are some parents, writers, and commentators who have argued against homework, especially for very young children. They suggest that children should have time to play after school. This, of course is true, but many kindergarten kids are excited to have homework like their older siblings. If they give homework, most teachers of young children make assignments very short—often following an informal rule of 10 minutes per grade level. "No homework" does not guarantee that all students will spend their free time in productive and imaginative play.

Some researchers and critics have consistently misinterpreted research findings. They have argued that homework should be assigned only at the high school level where data point to a strong connection of doing assignments with higher student achievement . However, as we discussed, some students stop doing homework. This leads, statistically, to results showing that doing homework or spending more minutes on homework is linked to higher student achievement. If slow or struggling students are not doing their assignments, they contribute to—or cause—this "result."

Teachers need to design homework that even struggling students want to do because it is interesting. Just about all students at any age level react positively to good assignments and will tell you so.

Did COVID change how schools and parents view homework?

Within 24 hours of the day school doors closed in March 2020, just about every school and district in the country figured out that teachers had to talk to and work with students' parents. This was not the same as homeschooling—teachers were still working hard to provide daily lessons. But if a child was learning at home in the living room, parents were more aware of what they were doing in school. One of the silver linings of COVID was that teachers reported that they gained a better understanding of their students' families. We collected wonderfully creative examples of activities from members of the National Network of Partnership Schools. I'm thinking of one art activity where every child talked with a parent about something that made their family unique. Then they drew their finding on a snowflake and returned it to share in class. In math, students talked with a parent about something the family liked so much that they could represent it 100 times. Conversations about schoolwork at home was the point.

How did you create so many homework activities via the Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program?

We had several projects with educators to help them design interactive assignments, not just "do the next three examples on page 38." Teachers worked in teams to create TIPS activities, and then we turned their work into a standard TIPS format in math, reading/language arts, and science for grades K-8. Any teacher can use or adapt our prototypes to match their curricula.

Overall, we know that if future teachers and practicing educators were prepared to design homework assignments to meet specific purposes—including but not limited to interactive activities—more students would benefit from the important experience of doing their homework. And more parents would, indeed, be partners in education.

Posted in Voices+Opinion

You might also like

News network.

• Johns Hopkins Magazine
• Get Email Updates
• Submit an Announcement
• Submit an Event
• Privacy Statement
• Accessibility

Discover JHU

• About the University
• Schools & Divisions
• Academic Programs
• Plan a Visit
• my.JohnsHopkins.edu
• © 2024 Johns Hopkins University . All rights reserved.
• University Communications
• 3910 Keswick Rd., Suite N2600, Baltimore, MD
• X Facebook LinkedIn YouTube Instagram

Important Addresses

Harvard College

University Hall Cambridge, MA 02138

Harvard College Admissions Office and Griffin Financial Aid Office

86 Brattle Street Cambridge, MA 02138

Social Links

If you are located in the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway (the “European Economic Area”), please click here for additional information about ways that certain Harvard University Schools, Centers, units and controlled entities, including this one, may collect, use, and share information about you.

• Application Tips
• Navigating Campus
• Preparing for College
• How to Complete the FAFSA
• What to Expect After You Apply
• View All Guides
• Parents & Families
• School Counselors
• Información en Español
• Undergraduate Viewbook
• View All Resources

Search and Useful Links

Search the site, search suggestions, "homework" in college.

Since coming to Harvard, I don’t recall even once hearing the word “homework”—which is a pretty strange thing considering the role it played for the first 12 years of my education (spoiler alert: this doesn’t mean that we don’t have assignments and work to do).

However, the type of work that’s assigned in college is different from what I was used to in high school, so I’m here to break it down for you.

Problem Sets

Problem sets, or “psets”, are typically packets of questions that are assigned and due on a regular basis. Most of my pset classes have been math and science courses, although they don’t necessarily have to be. I think the biggest difference between psets in college compared to similar assignments in high school is that they can be really challenging, and many courses expect and encourage students to work together on them—I made some of my best friends while struggling through organic chemistry psets lasts year!

Sometimes you even get stickers.

Rather than lots of shorter assignments, many classes opt for a few essays spaced throughout the semester. Humanities classes (English, history, etc.) are typically essay classes, although many science classes also have you practice scientific writing through grant proposal or review-style papers. If you’re not super comfortable writing academic papers coming into college, not to worry! All freshmen take a writing course (Expos) during the first year to make sure that everyone is on the same foot. There’s a ton of individual feedback, so it can be really beneficial no matter what your level of writing is coming in.

Discussion Posts

Particularly if it’s an essay class, you might be assigned additional questions to respond to on an online forum for the course. It’s a nice way to keep people on track with the reading, and the responses are often used to start discussion in section.

*Most larger courses have weekly “sections” with 12-15 students and a teaching fellow leading discussion—it’s an opportunity to review the material and go more in-depth with the readings.

Reading (sometimes a lot of reading)

One of the bigger adjustments for some students is learning how to get through hundreds of pages of reading per week. Granted, this depends on what type of classes you’re taking—it is possible to tailor your schedule to an amount of reading that’s appropriate for you. I’ve found that my humanities classes have a much higher volume of reading, but that my science courses have denser reading—sometimes a seven page primary lit paper from a science journal takes me the same amount of time to read as forty pages in a novel. If you are struggling to get through all of your assigned reading, or just want to use your time more efficiently, the Bureau of Study Counsel offers “speed reading” courses during the year which are said to be really helpful!

I was found very diligently reading my book.

I have to say, I’ve had some pretty cool project assignments in college. In my multivariable calc class, our final project was to use Mathematica (a math tool) to come up with equations that would form a 3D object, so I made and printed a 3D minion. In a genetics class, we spent the semester analyzing our own DNA in lab, looking for markers that might indicate lactose intolerance, ancestral history, etc. (I wasn’t lactose intolerant, thankfully.) One of my friends is in a Folklore and Mythology class on quilt making, and her final project is to make a quilt. Pretty cool, huh?

My minion!!

Ah yes, not one to forget. On the plus side, there tend to be fewer exams in college than in high school—for classes that do have exams, you would likely only have 1-2 midterms and a final. Studying is often more effective in a group, so it’s another chance to meet people in your class!

Whew! While this is not a complete list, hopefully it gives a sense of the type of work you might be asked to do here. You can choose a schedule of classes that’s a good fit for you—while some people really like taking four essay classes or four pset classes at once, for example, I always try to strike a balance halfway in between. Particularly if you’re taking classes that you’re really interested in, the work doesn’t even seem so bad. :)

Halie Class of Alumni

Student Voices

My favorite course of freshman year.

Janaysa Class of '27

Why I Chose Applied Math

Mayesha Soshi Class of '24 Alumni

My Advice as a Computer Science Concentrator at Harvard

Samia Afrose Class of '25

• Career Advice

Quantity Is Not Rigor

By  Cathy N. Davidson

You have / 5 articles left. Sign up for a free account or log in.

Istockphoto.com/juttumongkhon

Several commentators have argued recently that one problem with remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic is lowered standards. Apparently, we should be worried about professors decreasing their usual homework assignments and therefore abandoning rigor.

Really? Is quantity the same as rigor? Is maintaining the status quo the best educational goal during a crisis? Since we have all been turned upside down by this catastrophe, I suggest we turn the question of rigor on its head, too. Why not use this occasion to examine those standards and ask where they came from, whether they continue to serve us and, if not, what we can do to change them? While we are all working at home, let’s rethink homework.

The old rule of thumb for homework is that a college student should spend two hours studying outside of class for each Carnegie credit hour. A student taking a 16-hour course load should devote roughly 32 hours a week to homework, spending a total of 48 hours each week dedicated to academics. Perhaps that would have been reasonable in 1906, the year that the Carnegie hour was invented, when only a small sector of the population went to college and more than 80 percent of college students attended elite, private, residential institutions.

Now, however, over 80 percent of students attend public institutions. Forty percent of all students work 30 hours a week , and a quarter hold down full-time jobs while attending college full-time. Some 22 percent of today’s students are also parents. At commuter campuses, including community colleges that enroll nearly half of the nation’s students, they also have to spend travel time getting to and from classes. Forty-eight hours of schoolwork simply does not fit into the calculus of our students’ busy lives.

In Introduction to Transformative Teaching and Learning in the Humanities and Social Sciences, a graduate class that I co-teach with LaGuardia Community College professor Eduardo Vianna (an M.D. who also holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology), our students are rethinking every possible aspect of graduate, professional and undergraduate training. In this class, we ask what counts -- and who gets to count. We ask what we teach, why and how and to whom. We ask what it means to introduce students to a field. In our student-led, participatory course, we do not just talk about requirements, but we also ask the far deeper question of what students require for mastery of a field. What kinds of mastery serve students beyond college? Is the goal of higher education to learn from an expert? Or to gain the tools and skills that will allow students to become experts themselves in whatever they hope to accomplish? How does one do that?

As a final project, several of our graduate students are creating syllabi for undergraduate courses they will soon be teaching. One question they start with is “How long should a syllabus actually be?” This is a good question because, if one looks at the many syllabi available online, they often seem created with the unrealistic Carnegie prescriptions for homework in mind. Many are so unrealistic (one could say “padded”) that one has to wonder if they were written only for the eyes of their students or also for scrutiny by supervisors -- chairs and deans. Meanwhile, those supervisors are thinking ahead to the five-year scrutiny by their formal educational accreditation bodies.

How much homework should we assign? There is no one right answer, but it is crucial to spend time thoughtfully focusing on the question. We can begin by asking what we wish students to accomplish outside of class and why. We also need to ask about the level of the class, the amount of preparation students bring to it and the material constraints on their time outside of class. Finally, we need to be honest with ourselves about the actual amount of work we are assigning, and we need to make the hard choices before the class begins. As an undergraduate English major, I was assigned Moby Dick to read in a week; in graduate school, we had a week to devour Being and Time . I am positive no one finished either tome.

A handy tool created at Rice University’s Center for Teaching Excellence helps anyone, students or professors, come up with a more realistic assessment of how much time students spend on their assignments. The Course Workload Estimator allows anyone to enter in data for the reading, writing, exams and other homework assignments for a course. One specifies not only length of an assigned reading, for example, but also the text’s difficulty and the purpose of the assignment (to survey, understand or engage). The tool provides an instructor or a student with an estimate of how much out-of-class time is required to accomplish this work. Extensive supplementary materials, including surveys and other data, explain the assumptions behind this convenient tool. Although hardly definitive, the Course Workload Estimator provides a useful reality check.

What are we actually communicating when we create an unrealistic syllabus? No, a student will not be able to read Thomas Piketty’s 817-page Capital in a week. They might, however, manage the Instaread Summary that clocks in at a lean 34 pages or the 4,900-word Wikipedia entry or a 500-word exam crib sheet prepared by another student and available online. Given the realities of our students’ lives, it is time to admit that when we overassign, we are really rewarding the skim, the summary and the cheat. Is that rigor?

Homework seems like a simple and perhaps even superficial place to begin an analysis of our inherited practices, but it is actually a subtle dog whistle that signals assumptions about the values of our profession. How much is the “rigorous” syllabus telling students who do not have the previous training, insider vocabulary and cultural capital to know how to fake it that they will never, ever catch up -- so why bother? What is the relationship between a daunting syllabus and a student’s willingness to take a course -- or ability to finish one?

I am suggesting that “rigor” can be deployed as a code word that leads to far deeper assumptions about our profession, including its function as an echo chamber that rewards those few students whose values, background, demographics and family educational background match those of their professors. “Rigor” can too easily translate as professorial self-replication.

Someday, this heinous COVID-19 crisis will be over, and then it will be time to pick up the pieces and rebuild. Given the abandon with which programs are being cut right now, one must worry that there will still be enough pieces left to start that process. I fervently hope that, in the current crisis, higher education is not jettisoned, that the future of students isn’t sacrificed to other economic considerations.

At the same time, as we rebuild, I hope that we can also reimagine higher education. Let’s reconsider the meaning, scope and purpose of the work we do as well as the work we assign. Let’s think about how we measure excellence and success. Let’s decouple quantity and quality. Perhaps from this pandemic we might all learn some lessons that we should have learned before.

Stop With the Rural-Bashing on Campuses

Faculty should avoid the Trump-country trap this election season, Lisa R. Pruitt and Emelie K. Peine write.

Share This Article

More from career advice.

Academia Broke Me

Becoming an academic editor gave me my life back, writes Paulina S.

A Career Option Humanities Ph.D.s Should Consider

Jobs in career advising for grad students call on the natural skills of such Ph.D.s and are both fulfilling and in de

How to Give Up Tenure—Twice—and Thrive

Regardless of our fears and challenges, Heather Braun writes, we all can take actions, however small, that will over

• Become a Member
• Sign up for Newsletters
• Learning & Assessment
• Diversity & Equity
• Career Development
• Labor & Unionization
• Shared Governance
• Academic Freedom
• Books & Publishing
• Financial Aid
• Residential Life
• Free Speech
• Physical & Mental Health
• Race & Ethnicity
• Sex & Gender
• Socioeconomics
• Traditional-Age
• Adult & Post-Traditional
• Teaching & Learning
• Artificial Intelligence
• Digital Publishing
• Data Analytics
• Administrative Tech
• Alternative Credentials
• Financial Health
• Cost-Cutting
• Revenue Strategies
• Academic Programs
• Physical Campuses
• Mergers & Collaboration
• Fundraising
• Research Universities
• Regional Public Universities
• Community Colleges
• Private Nonprofit Colleges
• Minority-Serving Institutions
• Religious Colleges
• Women's Colleges
• Specialized Colleges
• For-Profit Colleges
• Executive Leadership
• Trustees & Regents
• State Oversight
• Accreditation
• Politics & Elections
• Supreme Court
• Student Aid Policy
• Science & Research Policy
• State Policy
• Colleges & Localities
• Employee Satisfaction
• Remote & Flexible Work
• Staff Issues
• Study Abroad
• International Students in U.S.
• U.S. Colleges in the World
• Intellectual Affairs
• Seeking a Faculty Job
• Advancing in the Faculty
• Seeking an Administrative Job
• Advancing as an Administrator
• Beyond Transfer
• Call to Action
• Confessions of a Community College Dean
• Higher Ed Gamma
• Higher Ed Policy
• Just Explain It to Me!
• Just Visiting
• Law, Policy—and IT?
• Leadership & StratEDgy
• Leadership in Higher Education
• Learning Innovation
• Online: Trending Now
• Resident Scholar
• University of Venus
• Student Voice
• Academic Life
• Health & Wellness
• The College Experience
• Life After College
• Academic Minute
• Weekly Wisdom
• Reports & Data
• Quick Takes
• Advertising & Marketing
• Consulting Services
• Data & Insights
• Hiring & Jobs
• Event Partnerships

4 /5 Articles remaining this month.

Sign up for a free account or log in.

• Sign Up, It’s FREE

• Have your assignments done by seasoned writers. We work 24/7. Just email us at:
• [email protected]

Too Much Homework in College: Effects and Tips to handle them

College Homework

Homework is part of college life and comes as a booster to students to refine knowledge and skills about certain concepts. However, when colleges give too much homework, it can be counter-productive. We seek to give tips on how to handle assignment burdens in school.

This is because we believe homework is good and can help the learning process. If done in the right way, it will give students a great understanding of the topic.

However, too many assignments affect students’ health and lead to severe cases if left unchecked. It is for this reason that most students hire writers to do their homework and ease the burden.

We can Write your Papers! No Plagiarism

Get that A on your next essay assignment without the hassles. Any topic or subject. 100% Plagiarism-Free Essays.

Why Do Teachers Give So Much Homework?

Teachers use homework to assist the student in improving on that particular topic or subject. A teacher would want to give you a lot of homework to succeed in that particular study area. Giving so much homework comes with various benefits to a student.

a) Better Grades 

First off, homework encourages the discipline of practice. Repetition is another skill that helps students get better at skills. Homework gives students a chance to understand concepts clearly. 

b) Time Management 

Homework is still another method of teaching the students about time management. It forces students to plan their time well and ensure that they do it within the timeframe. Time management is a requirement when you want to develop problem-solving skills. 

c) Better Communication

Besides, teachers give students homework to open a bridge of communication. This homework creates a super connection between a student and a teacher where a teacher will get to know students, especially in an area of struggle. Students will also understand the area of excellence. 

d) Extra Learning Moment 

Again, homework is helpful to a student to allow additional time for learning. 

That is so because the school hours are not enough to make students understand all the concepts they read. It will be a solution to time shortages. 

The teacher creates a homework plan for the students to induce better study habits. This homework will reduce the period you spend on TV or social media platforms that are always unfruitful to your study course. 

Is Too Much Homework in College Good or Bad?

A research study performed by Stanford University in 2013 revealed too many students come with several negative consequences.

It suggested that it would be counter-productive to spend more than two hours on your homework. 

The best approach when issuing homework is to do it in moderation.

Students should also have extra time to handle other life matters, such as sports and watching a favorite movie.

The homework is only suitable for you if a student finds time to handle other life issues well. 

How to Handle Too Much Homework in College

1. avoid being a perfectionist.

You can apply the Pirate principle, which upholds the 80-20 rule. It states that only your 20% input could lead to 80% of your successes.

Avoid making everything perfect as you tackle your college assignments. You are only in school to get better as long as you are working.

When you are handling college homework, you do not always aim to get 100%. When it comes to grading, sometimes 80% could mean an A!

2. Hire an Expert

Indeed handling too much homework at college could also overwhelm you. You may be handling too many assignments on the table whose deadline is near, causing you to strain your schedule. In the process, you may not handle all the homework and meet deadlines. 

As such, it could be reasonable to look for a helping hand. You can hire someone who has a track record of handling similar tasks effectively.

It could be someone you know, and you can get a referral from a friend who understands the industry. If you cannot write your homework , getting an expert writer is one of the best options to score the grade and manage the workload.

3. Eliminate Distractions

Students encounter challenges in doing their homework when they respond to texts from social media platforms and other forms of online engagements. You can overcome such a challenge by creating a workplace. 

Students can opt to visit the library to reduce such distractions. However, you can still find a conducive environment where you can have some peace to focus on your work. 

It is easier to complete your homework if your attention is 100%. When you stop working on your homework midway to respond to other demands, the chances are high that you may not complete it at the right time.

4. Track Your Time

Students should be in a position to account for their time well. You can seek help by using sites or free apps that will assist you in tracking your time.

Such a method is great in helping you to cut down hours that you might be spending fruitful time on something different. 

One should reserve time to read and research for the homework assignment.

Among the benefits of tracking is time to quantify the problem and use it to manage it effectively.

For example, if the classwork can take one hour, you can schedule it to fit in the projection. 

5. Start Early

Once you are out of class, take a break and organize yourself to get your homework ready. Make a list of what you want to complete for each night.

The secret is getting up to start early to reduce the pending quantity of work. If you wait for too long, until late evening, the fatigue will overwhelm you to complete the same assignment. 

6. Set Time to Relax

It is vital to secure some time to do something that you usually enjoy. It could be a home activity or an extracurricular one.

Such gives you a break from letting out any extra energy or frustrations. But do not relax too much. You may end up having to copy other students’ assignments , which is not good.

Negative Effects of Too Much Homework in College

A) sedentary lifestyle.

When students get too much homework, they will lack time to play, affecting their social development. A study revealed that a student who gets better grades spends quality time in play. 

One spends more time while sitting to get lessons from the tutors.

When one gets the homework, it also adds more time to sit while working on the assignments.

A sedentary lifestyle can lead to other health problems, such as obesity and hypertension. 

b) Healthy Problems

If you spend too much time doing homework as a routine, it may lead to several physical health challenges.

First off, it may lead to sleeping problems and digestive issues. It becomes stressful for anyone who is doing homework with headaches. 

Too much homework could lead to stress and other physical health problems. For instance, the student may experience fatigue and body burnout. 

In addition, other physical symptoms include headache, sleep deprivation, exhaustion, and weight loss. 

c) Isolation

Too much homework limits how much a student finds free time to intermingle with other people. It becomes harder for one to balance between social life and doing other activities that are outside studies. Such a mismatch may lead to anxiety. 

Furthermore, too much homework makes the students lack balance in their social lives. They tend to face alienation from society. 

d) Sleep Well

The student should take enough time at night to have quality rest. The standard time for any adult should range between 6 to 8 hours. It is a refreshing experience to have quality time to sleep and organize yourself when your mind is cool the following day. 

e) Create a Home Workgroup

It could be in-person or virtual. Creating a homework group it makes it to be less overwhelming. The student will have a fruitful time researching for the correct materials to use for the given assignment. 

Where the student is struggling, the study group becomes a better platform to help students ask enough questions and get instant feedback from friends. It is also a place where you get inspiration from a fellow student on positively approaching the issue. 

Josh Jasen or JJ as we fondly call him, is a senior academic editor at Grade Bees in charge of the writing department. When not managing complex essays and academic writing tasks, Josh is busy advising students on how to pass assignments. In his spare time, he loves playing football or walking with his dog around the park.

Related posts

using chegg considered cheating

Is using Chegg Cheating? How to not get caught cheating 2023

Chegg vs Course Hero: Which is Better, Accurate and Safer

Take my online class

Take my Online Class for me: Pay the Best for Reliable Grade

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Student Opinion

Should We Get Rid of Homework?

Some educators are pushing to get rid of homework. Would that be a good thing?

By Jeremy Engle and Michael Gonchar

Do you like doing homework? Do you think it has benefited you educationally?

Has homework ever helped you practice a difficult skill — in math, for example — until you mastered it? Has it helped you learn new concepts in history or science? Has it helped to teach you life skills, such as independence and responsibility? Or, have you had a more negative experience with homework? Does it stress you out, numb your brain from busywork or actually make you fall behind in your classes?

Should we get rid of homework?

In “ The Movement to End Homework Is Wrong, ” published in July, the Times Opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang argues that homework may be imperfect, but it still serves an important purpose in school. The essay begins:

Do students really need to do their homework? As a parent and a former teacher, I have been pondering this question for quite a long time. The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value. But I also imagine that some of my students never would have done their basic reading if they hadn’t been trained to complete expected assignments, which would have made the task of teaching an English class nearly impossible. As a parent, I would rather my daughter not get stuck doing the sort of pointless homework I would occasionally assign, but I also think there’s a lot of value in saying, “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” I certainly am not the only person wondering about the value of homework. Recently, the sociologist Jessica McCrory Calarco and the mathematics education scholars Ilana Horn and Grace Chen published a paper, “ You Need to Be More Responsible: The Myth of Meritocracy and Teachers’ Accounts of Homework Inequalities .” They argued that while there’s some evidence that homework might help students learn, it also exacerbates inequalities and reinforces what they call the “meritocratic” narrative that says kids who do well in school do so because of “individual competence, effort and responsibility.” The authors believe this meritocratic narrative is a myth and that homework — math homework in particular — further entrenches the myth in the minds of teachers and their students. Calarco, Horn and Chen write, “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.”

Mr. Kang argues:

But there’s a defense of homework that doesn’t really have much to do with class mobility, equality or any sense of reinforcing the notion of meritocracy. It’s one that became quite clear to me when I was a teacher: Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day. Even if we could perfectly equalize opportunity in school and empower all students not to be encumbered by the weight of their socioeconomic status or ethnicity, I’m not sure what good it would do if the kids didn’t know how to do something relentlessly, over and over again, until they perfected it. Most teachers know that type of progress is very difficult to achieve inside the classroom, regardless of a student’s background, which is why, I imagine, Calarco, Horn and Chen found that most teachers weren’t thinking in a structural inequalities frame. Holistic ideas of education, in which learning is emphasized and students can explore concepts and ideas, are largely for the types of kids who don’t need to worry about class mobility. A defense of rote practice through homework might seem revanchist at this moment, but if we truly believe that schools should teach children lessons that fall outside the meritocracy, I can’t think of one that matters more than the simple satisfaction of mastering something that you were once bad at. That takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

Home > Blog > Tips for Online Students > The Pros and Cons of Homework

School Life Balance , Tips for Online Students

The Pros and Cons of Homework

Updated: July 16, 2024

Published: January 23, 2020

Remember those nights when you’d find yourself staring at a mountain of homework, eyes drooping, wondering if you’d ever see the light at the end of the tunnel? The debate over homework’s role in education is as old as time. Is it a crucial tool for reinforcing learning or just an unnecessary burden?

For college students, this question takes on new dimensions. Juggling homework with the endless amount of classes, part-time jobs, and social lives can feel like walking on thin ice. The pressure to maintain grades, meet deadlines, and still find time for friends and relaxation can be overwhelming. So, is homework a friend or foe?

Photo by  energepic.com  from  Pexels

The homework dilemma.

A large amount of college students report feeling overwhelmed by their academic workload, leading to high levels of stress and anxiety. According to Research.com , 45% of college students in the U.S. experience “more than average” stress, with 36.5% citing stress as a major impediment to their academic performance. This stress often stems directly from the homework load, leading to symptoms like headaches, exhaustion, and difficulty sleeping. The intense pressure to manage homework alongside other responsibilities makes us question the true impact of homework on students’ overall well-being.

And then there’s the digital twist. A whopping 89% of students confessed to using AI tools like ChatGPT for their assignments. While these tools can be a godsend for quick answers and assistance, they can also undermine the personal effort and critical thinking necessary to truly understand the material.

On the brighter side, homework can be a powerful ally. According to Inside Higher Ed , structured assignments can actually help reduce stress by providing a clear learning roadmap and keeping students engaged with the material. But where’s the balance between helpful and harmful? 

With these perspectives in mind, let’s dive into the pros and cons of homework for college students. By understanding both sides, we can find a middle ground that maximizes learning while keeping stress at bay.

The Pros of Homework

When thoughtfully assigned, homework can be a valuable tool in a student’s educational journey . Let’s explore how homework can be a beneficial companion to your studies:

Enhances Critical Thinking

Homework isn’t just busywork; it’s an opportunity to stretch your mental muscles. Those late-night problem sets and essays can actually encourage deeper understanding and application of concepts. Think of homework as a mental gym; each assignment is a new exercise, pushing you to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information in ways that strengthen your critical thinking skills .

Time Management Skills

Do you ever juggle multiple deadlines and wonder how to keep it all together? Regular homework assignments can be a crash course in time management . They teach you to prioritize tasks, manage your schedule, and balance academic responsibilities with personal commitments. The ability to juggle various tasks is a skill that will serve you well beyond your college years.

Reinforcement of Learning

There’s a reason why practice makes perfect. Homework reinforces what you’ve learned in class, helping to cement concepts and theories in your mind. Understanding a concept during a lecture is one thing, but applying it through homework can deepen your comprehension and retention. 

Preparation for Exams

Think of homework as a sound check and warm-up for exams. Regular assignments keep you engaged with the material, making it easier to review and prepare when exam time rolls around. By consistently working through problems and writing essays, you build a solid foundation that can make the difference between cramming and confident exam performance.

Encourages Independent Learning

Homework promotes a sense of responsibility and independence. It pushes you to tackle assignments on your own, encouraging problem-solving and self-discipline. This independence prepares you for the academic challenges ahead and the autonomy required in your professional and personal life.

The Cons of Homework

Despite its potential benefits, homework can also have significant downsides. Let’s examine the challenges and drawbacks of homework:

Impact on Mental Health

Homework can be a double-edged sword when it comes to mental health . While it’s meant to reinforce learning, the sheer volume of assignments can lead to stress and anxiety. The constant pressure to meet deadlines and the fear of falling behind can create a relentless cycle of stress. Many students become overwhelmed, leading to burnout and negatively impacting their overall well-being. 

Limited Time for Other Activities

College isn’t just about hitting the books. It’s also a time for personal growth, exploring new interests, and building social connections. Excessive homework can eat into the time you might otherwise spend on extracurricular activities, hobbies, or simply hanging out with friends. This lack of balance can lead to a less fulfilling college experience. Shouldn’t education be about more than just academics?

Quality Over Quantity

When it comes to homework, more isn’t always better. Piling on assignments can lead to diminished returns on learning. Instead of diving deep into a subject and gaining a thorough understanding, students might rush through tasks just to get them done. This focus on quantity over quality can undermine the educational value of homework. 

Inequity in Education

Homework can sometimes exacerbate educational inequalities. Not all students can access the same resources and support systems at home. While some might have a quiet space and access to the internet, others might struggle with distractions and lack of resources. This disparity can put certain students at a disadvantage, making homework more of a burden than a learning tool. 

Dependence on AI Tools

With the advent of AI tools like ChatGPT , homework has taken on a new dimension. While these tools can provide quick answers and assistance, they also pose the risk of students becoming overly reliant on technology. This dependence can take away from the actual learning process, as students might bypass the critical thinking and effort needed to truly understand the material. Is convenience worth the potential loss in learning?

Finding the Balance

Finding the right balance with homework means tackling assignments that challenge and support you. Instead of drowning in a sea of tasks, focus on quality over quantity. Choose projects that spark your critical thinking and connect to real-world situations. Flexibility is key here. Recognize that your circumstances are unique, and adjusting your approach can help reduce stress and create a more inclusive learning environment. Constructive feedback makes homework more than just a chore; it turns it into a tool for growth and improvement.

It’s also about living a well-rounded college life. Don’t let homework overshadow other important parts of your life, like extracurricular activities or personal downtime. Emphasize independent learning and use technology wisely to prepare for future challenges. By balancing thoughtful assignments with your personal needs, homework can shift from being a burden to becoming a helpful companion on your educational journey, enriching your academic and personal growth.

Homework has its pros and cons, especially for college students. It can enhance critical thinking, time management, and learning, but it also brings stress, impacts mental health, and can become overwhelming. Finding the right balance is key. 

Focus on quality assignments, maintain flexibility, and make sure your homework complements rather than dominates your life. With a thoughtful approach, homework can support your educational journey, fostering both academic success and personal growth.

How can I manage my time effectively to balance homework and other activities?

Create a schedule that allocates specific times for homework, classes, and personal activities. Use planners or digital calendars to keep track of deadlines and prioritize tasks. Don’t forget to include breaks to avoid burnout.

How can I reduce the stress associated with homework?

To manage stress, practice mindfulness techniques like meditation or deep breathing exercises. Break assignments into smaller, manageable tasks and tackle them one at a time. If needed, seek support from classmates, tutors, or mental health professionals.

Is using AI tools for homework cheating?

While AI tools like ChatGPT can be helpful for quick assistance, relying on them too much can hinder your learning process. Use them as a supplement rather than a replacement for your own effort and critical thinking.

How can teachers make homework more equitable?

Teachers can offer flexible deadlines, provide resources for students who lack them, and design assignments that account for different learning styles and home environments. Open communication between students and teachers can also help address individual challenges.

What are some strategies to make homework more meaningful?

Focus on quality over quantity by designing assignments that encourage deep thinking and application of knowledge. Integrate real-world problems to make homework more relevant and engaging. Provide constructive feedback to help students learn and grow from their assignments.

In this article

At UoPeople, our blog writers are thinkers, researchers, and experts dedicated to curating articles relevant to our mission: making higher education accessible to everyone. Read More

Save 35% on selected course fees. Ends 24th September 2024

Don’t Overload Students: Assigning Too Much Work Discourages Learning

H as your to-do list ever been so long that you felt physically drained at the thought of everything that needed to be done?

New   research  has shed some light on the reason behind this feeling and shows that overloading students causes not only academic stress, but also takes a toll on students’ mental and physical health, which, unsurprisingly, hinders learning.

The study, led by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College, shows that although students who spend more time doing homework are sometimes more behaviourally engaged in school, they also tend to be more anxious, and report more physical symptoms due to stress.

“Although the students in our study were averaging more than three hours of homework per night, most did not find this homework engaging, nor did they feel it enhanced their learning,” says Galloway.

“Because homework tends to acts as a stressor in students’ lives, their bodies must find a way to respond or react to this stressor, and although research has shown that some level of stress can be healthy, chronic stress can induce negative physical, mental, and behaviour outcomes,” she explains.

The researchers surveyed over 4,000 students to determine the role that this additional work played as a stressor in their lives.

By asking questions like “How often do you try as hard as you can in school?” and “How often do you complete your school assignments?” they were able to paint a picture of students’ level of behavioural engagement.

The mental and physical well-being assessment consisted of questions like “How often do you feel stressed about your academic experience?” as well as enquiries about stress-related health problems such as headaches, weight gain and sleep difficulties.

Only 6% of students said they found their homework “very useful” in preparing them for learning, tests, papers or projects, and many experienced stress, compromised health and a lack of balance.

Students also voiced their frustration with their workload, saying things like; “There’s never a time to rest, there’s always something more you should be doing;” “It can feel like you are drowning;” and “My body crashes when I’ve done maybe half of my homework.” 

Based on such student feedback, the researchers speculate that homework overload can actually limit a person’s capacity to learn.

“Our study suggests that [students who are overloaded] experience higher levels of stress and more physical problems like sweating, headaches, exhaustion, stomach problems, and/or sleeping difficulties,” notes Galloway.

“In addition, these students report a general lack of balance in their lives, feeling like they need to choose completing their homework over engaging in social, physical, and restorative activities that could support their well-being.” 

Previous research has also shown that assigning too much work can diminish its effectiveness and even make it counter-productive. Clearly, just because students are doing more work, doesn’t mean they are actually learning more.

But what can teachers do make sure that they assign enough work without frustrating and overloading students?

Dr. Galloway notes that any work assigned to students should have a clear purpose and benefit, and should be designed to cultivate learning and development.

She also suggests the following tips for finding the right balance:

• Students and teachers should generally align in their description of the purpose of homework (that is, students should be able to identify the purpose)
• Teachers should not simply check-off homework as “complete” or “incomplete.” Homework should be incorporated or utilized in the lesson to facilitate the learning experience.
• Students and teachers should engage together in co-constructing homework assignments. In such co-construction, students can identify various ways to build upon and expand their learning of a topic or concept.  This also provides opportunities for students to bring their strengths; creativity; cultural ways of learning; and community assets to the learning process.

By Open Colleges

Related blogs.

Explore our collection of informative and educational blog posts to stay updated on the latest industry trends and expert advice.

Top 5 Differences between a Certificate IV in Disability Support vs a Certificate III in Individual Support

Everything you need to know about building a successful accounting career, expert tips to succeed in work placement, how to become a youth worker in australia, understanding superseded courses: what it means for your education, terminology, top qualities of a successful healthcare aide, workers in need: a look at the aging care crisis.

• Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
• Opens in a new window.

Do Schools Give Out Too Much Homework Now? Yes, They Do, and it Needs to Stop

• By Emily Summers
• January 14, 2020

With more than 60% of students from high school and college seeking counseling for a variety of conditions ranging from general anxiety to clinical depression, all of which induced by school and studies, it’s safe to say that our country’s children are stressed out more than they should be. In fact, more and more students in the high school level are starting to report stress levels that rival that of adults working in officers, in some cases even exceeding those stress levels.

But what’s got them so riled up? The answer: Homework. Now, before you go full boomer and say “homework was more difficult back in my day!”, let’s make one thing clear: today’s educational system is far more advanced , complex, and even more difficult than it was a couple of decades ago.

Is There Too Much Homework in High School?

Of course, sometimes homework is necessary, but if it cuts into a child’s social, family, and down time, it borders on the cruel and unnecessary. Children should NOT be subjected to what-is-essentially training to be overworked in the corporate world. But how long does the average high school spend on homework? 3 hours a night. That’s 3 hours a night per class to complete, so it’s no wonder that our high school students are getting less than the National Sleep Foundation’s required 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night, with 68% of high school students reportedly getting less than 7 hours of sleep on the weekdays.

And that’s not even an exaggeration: in between a full day’s worth of school work, extracurricular activities, and homework, a high school student’s life is almost designed to be stressful. Sure, the point of all those activities is to turn them into an educated, well-balanced individual, but at what expense? A modern-day American student might know how to solve for X and throw a pigskin to the end zone, but what good is all of that if they’re haggard all the time and constantly deprived of sleep?

And what of the parents? It’s not like they can just leave their kids to the wolves: most parents (the responsible ones, at least) will want to help their kids with the influx of work they’ll be doing once they hit 9 th grade, as if a full day’s work and commuting wasn’t enough. All to fulfill antiquated ideas of course fulfillments and state-mandated credit requirement.

But rather than focusing on busy work, why not focus on things that actually matter , like fulfilling learning standards while maintaining positive mental health?

Educators across the country need to rethink homework, why they need to give it and what kind of work they should be giving our children.

Is Homework Even Necessary?

With the amount of stress students go through, it’s tempting to curse the person who invented homework . But take note: it’s not all bad.

Homework now can seem like unnecessary busy work instead of actual learning materials, but before we get further into this topic, let’s be clear: some homework is necessary (although researchers are still waiting for conclusive evidence for homework’s necessity).

What researchers can agree on, however, is that any type of school work that is purposeful, appropriately challenging, and aligned with the student’s interest truly is beneficial: not only does it teach the lesson for that subject, it also improves study habits, establishes self-discipline, and develops independent problem-solving skills and critical thinking.

However, if homework is mind-numbingly tedious, without purpose (other than to fulfill a quota), and overwhelming, then it becomes detrimental: not only will it demotivate a student from learning, it can also affect the way they view school, negatively affect their learning retention, and eventually turn them off completely to that subject.

Unfortunately, many schools across the country use homework as a way of creating extra class time beyond what is mandated by the state. Not only is this inefficient, it’s needlessly cruel. If a teacher is using homework as an excuse to make your child do their job for them, you need to contact your child’s school and set up a meeting. Homework should be a tool that supplements lessons, not replace lessons as a whole.

How Can We Make Homework Better?

The National PTA suggests that high school students should have a maximum of 2 hours of homework per night , a far cry from cramming 18 hours’ worth of schoolwork into 4-5 hours after school. We can do better by demanding that schools revisit their requirements for students and reconsider lessening the amount of required homework they give students.

As for the teachers, it’s time to treat homework not as busywork but as actual tools to help students learn more about your subject. It doesn’t have to be fun per se, but it should be inspiring enough for your students to take a more active role in your class the next day. Homework should stoke the fires of creativity and instill a spirit of inquisitiveness; homework shouldn’t be a chore that students dread doing, nor should it be an impossible activity designed to confuse them or punish them.

Homework should include activities that reinforce what they learned throughout the class and not something that combines lessons for the next day with activities designed to test what they’ve learned on their own. Not only is that tedious and inefficient, it’s also a lazy way to teach.

For parents, get a better idea of what your child is going through by taking the time to sit down with them to listen to their concerns . Keep an open mind and avoid being dismissive; this is the best way for your teenage child to open up and is an opportunity for them to practice critical communication skills with people they can trust (i.e. their parents).

About the Author

Emily summers.

10 Careers to Pursue After High School if Youre a People Person

How Summer Camp Fosters Social Skills

6 reasons to read to your child regularly at home

Things to Know About Developmental Disability Services

Is the D Important in Pharmacy? Why Pharm.D or RPh Degrees Shouldn’t Matter

How to Email a Professor: Guide on How to Start and End an Email Conversation

Everything You Need to Know About Getting a Post-Secondary Education

Grammar Corner: What’s The Difference Between Analysis vs Analyses?

The Cult of Homework

America’s devotion to the practice stems in part from the fact that it’s what today’s parents and teachers grew up with themselves.

America has long had a fickle relationship with homework. A century or so ago, progressive reformers argued that it made kids unduly stressed , which later led in some cases to district-level bans on it for all grades under seventh. This anti-homework sentiment faded, though, amid mid-century fears that the U.S. was falling behind the Soviet Union (which led to more homework), only to resurface in the 1960s and ’70s, when a more open culture came to see homework as stifling play and creativity (which led to less). But this didn’t last either: In the ’80s, government researchers blamed America’s schools for its economic troubles and recommended ramping homework up once more.

The 21st century has so far been a homework-heavy era, with American teenagers now averaging about twice as much time spent on homework each day as their predecessors did in the 1990s . Even little kids are asked to bring school home with them. A 2015 study , for instance, found that kindergarteners, who researchers tend to agree shouldn’t have any take-home work, were spending about 25 minutes a night on it.

But not without pushback. As many children, not to mention their parents and teachers, are drained by their daily workload, some schools and districts are rethinking how homework should work—and some teachers are doing away with it entirely. They’re reviewing the research on homework (which, it should be noted, is contested) and concluding that it’s time to revisit the subject.

Read: My daughter’s homework is killing me

Hillsborough, California, an affluent suburb of San Francisco, is one district that has changed its ways. The district, which includes three elementary schools and a middle school, worked with teachers and convened panels of parents in order to come up with a homework policy that would allow students more unscheduled time to spend with their families or to play. In August 2017, it rolled out an updated policy, which emphasized that homework should be “meaningful” and banned due dates that fell on the day after a weekend or a break.

“The first year was a bit bumpy,” says Louann Carlomagno, the district’s superintendent. She says the adjustment was at times hard for the teachers, some of whom had been doing their job in a similar fashion for a quarter of a century. Parents’ expectations were also an issue. Carlomagno says they took some time to “realize that it was okay not to have an hour of homework for a second grader—that was new.”

Most of the way through year two, though, the policy appears to be working more smoothly. “The students do seem to be less stressed based on conversations I’ve had with parents,” Carlomagno says. It also helps that the students performed just as well on the state standardized test last year as they have in the past.

Earlier this year, the district of Somerville, Massachusetts, also rewrote its homework policy, reducing the amount of homework its elementary and middle schoolers may receive. In grades six through eight, for example, homework is capped at an hour a night and can only be assigned two to three nights a week.

Jack Schneider, an education professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell whose daughter attends school in Somerville, is generally pleased with the new policy. But, he says, it’s part of a bigger, worrisome pattern. “The origin for this was general parental dissatisfaction, which not surprisingly was coming from a particular demographic,” Schneider says. “Middle-class white parents tend to be more vocal about concerns about homework … They feel entitled enough to voice their opinions.”

Schneider is all for revisiting taken-for-granted practices like homework, but thinks districts need to take care to be inclusive in that process. “I hear approximately zero middle-class white parents talking about how homework done best in grades K through two actually strengthens the connection between home and school for young people and their families,” he says. Because many of these parents already feel connected to their school community, this benefit of homework can seem redundant. “They don’t need it,” Schneider says, “so they’re not advocating for it.”

That doesn’t mean, necessarily, that homework is more vital in low-income districts. In fact, there are different, but just as compelling, reasons it can be burdensome in these communities as well. Allison Wienhold, who teaches high-school Spanish in the small town of Dunkerton, Iowa, has phased out homework assignments over the past three years. Her thinking: Some of her students, she says, have little time for homework because they’re working 30 hours a week or responsible for looking after younger siblings.

As educators reduce or eliminate the homework they assign, it’s worth asking what amount and what kind of homework is best for students. It turns out that there’s some disagreement about this among researchers, who tend to fall in one of two camps.

In the first camp is Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. Cooper conducted a review of the existing research on homework in the mid-2000s , and found that, up to a point, the amount of homework students reported doing correlates with their performance on in-class tests. This correlation, the review found, was stronger for older students than for younger ones.

This conclusion is generally accepted among educators, in part because it’s compatible with “the 10-minute rule,” a rule of thumb popular among teachers suggesting that the proper amount of homework is approximately 10 minutes per night, per grade level—that is, 10 minutes a night for first graders, 20 minutes a night for second graders, and so on, up to two hours a night for high schoolers.

In Cooper’s eyes, homework isn’t overly burdensome for the typical American kid. He points to a 2014 Brookings Institution report that found “little evidence that the homework load has increased for the average student”; onerous amounts of homework, it determined, are indeed out there, but relatively rare. Moreover, the report noted that most parents think their children get the right amount of homework, and that parents who are worried about under-assigning outnumber those who are worried about over-assigning. Cooper says that those latter worries tend to come from a small number of communities with “concerns about being competitive for the most selective colleges and universities.”

According to Alfie Kohn, squarely in camp two, most of the conclusions listed in the previous three paragraphs are questionable. Kohn, the author of The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing , considers homework to be a “reliable extinguisher of curiosity,” and has several complaints with the evidence that Cooper and others cite in favor of it. Kohn notes, among other things, that Cooper’s 2006 meta-analysis doesn’t establish causation, and that its central correlation is based on children’s (potentially unreliable) self-reporting of how much time they spend doing homework. (Kohn’s prolific writing on the subject alleges numerous other methodological faults.)

In fact, other correlations make a compelling case that homework doesn’t help. Some countries whose students regularly outperform American kids on standardized tests, such as Japan and Denmark, send their kids home with less schoolwork , while students from some countries with higher homework loads than the U.S., such as Thailand and Greece, fare worse on tests. (Of course, international comparisons can be fraught because so many factors, in education systems and in societies at large, might shape students’ success.)

Kohn also takes issue with the way achievement is commonly assessed. “If all you want is to cram kids’ heads with facts for tomorrow’s tests that they’re going to forget by next week, yeah, if you give them more time and make them do the cramming at night, that could raise the scores,” he says. “But if you’re interested in kids who know how to think or enjoy learning, then homework isn’t merely ineffective, but counterproductive.”

His concern is, in a way, a philosophical one. “The practice of homework assumes that only academic growth matters, to the point that having kids work on that most of the school day isn’t enough,” Kohn says. What about homework’s effect on quality time spent with family? On long-term information retention? On critical-thinking skills? On social development? On success later in life? On happiness? The research is quiet on these questions.

Another problem is that research tends to focus on homework’s quantity rather than its quality, because the former is much easier to measure than the latter. While experts generally agree that the substance of an assignment matters greatly (and that a lot of homework is uninspiring busywork), there isn’t a catchall rule for what’s best—the answer is often specific to a certain curriculum or even an individual student.

Given that homework’s benefits are so narrowly defined (and even then, contested), it’s a bit surprising that assigning so much of it is often a classroom default, and that more isn’t done to make the homework that is assigned more enriching. A number of things are preserving this state of affairs—things that have little to do with whether homework helps students learn.

Jack Schneider, the Massachusetts parent and professor, thinks it’s important to consider the generational inertia of the practice. “The vast majority of parents of public-school students themselves are graduates of the public education system,” he says. “Therefore, their views of what is legitimate have been shaped already by the system that they would ostensibly be critiquing.” In other words, many parents’ own history with homework might lead them to expect the same for their children, and anything less is often taken as an indicator that a school or a teacher isn’t rigorous enough. (This dovetails with—and complicates—the finding that most parents think their children have the right amount of homework.)

Barbara Stengel, an education professor at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, brought up two developments in the educational system that might be keeping homework rote and unexciting. The first is the importance placed in the past few decades on standardized testing, which looms over many public-school classroom decisions and frequently discourages teachers from trying out more creative homework assignments. “They could do it, but they’re afraid to do it, because they’re getting pressure every day about test scores,” Stengel says.

Second, she notes that the profession of teaching, with its relatively low wages and lack of autonomy, struggles to attract and support some of the people who might reimagine homework, as well as other aspects of education. “Part of why we get less interesting homework is because some of the people who would really have pushed the limits of that are no longer in teaching,” she says.

“In general, we have no imagination when it comes to homework,” Stengel says. She wishes teachers had the time and resources to remake homework into something that actually engages students. “If we had kids reading—anything, the sports page, anything that they’re able to read—that’s the best single thing. If we had kids going to the zoo, if we had kids going to parks after school, if we had them doing all of those things, their test scores would improve. But they’re not. They’re going home and doing homework that is not expanding what they think about.”

“Exploratory” is one word Mike Simpson used when describing the types of homework he’d like his students to undertake. Simpson is the head of the Stone Independent School, a tiny private high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that opened in 2017. “We were lucky to start a school a year and a half ago,” Simpson says, “so it’s been easy to say we aren’t going to assign worksheets, we aren’t going assign regurgitative problem sets.” For instance, a half-dozen students recently built a 25-foot trebuchet on campus.

Simpson says he thinks it’s a shame that the things students have to do at home are often the least fulfilling parts of schooling: “When our students can’t make the connection between the work they’re doing at 11 o’clock at night on a Tuesday to the way they want their lives to be, I think we begin to lose the plot.”

When I talked with other teachers who did homework makeovers in their classrooms, I heard few regrets. Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher in Joshua, Texas, stopped assigning take-home packets of worksheets three years ago, and instead started asking her students to do 20 minutes of pleasure reading a night. She says she’s pleased with the results, but she’s noticed something funny. “Some kids,” she says, “really do like homework.” She’s started putting out a bucket of it for students to draw from voluntarily—whether because they want an additional challenge or something to pass the time at home.

Chris Bronke, a high-school English teacher in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove, told me something similar. This school year, he eliminated homework for his class of freshmen, and now mostly lets students study on their own or in small groups during class time. It’s usually up to them what they work on each day, and Bronke has been impressed by how they’ve managed their time.

In fact, some of them willingly spend time on assignments at home, whether because they’re particularly engaged, because they prefer to do some deeper thinking outside school, or because they needed to spend time in class that day preparing for, say, a biology test the following period. “They’re making meaningful decisions about their time that I don’t think education really ever gives students the experience, nor the practice, of doing,” Bronke said.

The typical prescription offered by those overwhelmed with homework is to assign less of it—to subtract. But perhaps a more useful approach, for many classrooms, would be to create homework only when teachers and students believe it’s actually needed to further the learning that takes place in class—to start with nothing, and add as necessary.

About the Author

More Stories

Reporting on Parenthood Has Made Me Nervous About Having Kids

The Economic Principle That Helps Me Order at Restaurants

Along with Stanford news and stories, show me:

• Student information
• Faculty/Staff information

We want to provide announcements, events, leadership messages and resources that are relevant to you. Your selection is stored in a browser cookie which you can remove at any time using “Clear all personalization” below.

Education scholar Denise Pope has found that too much homework has negative effects on student well-being and behavioral engagement. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

A Stanford researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.

“Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good,” wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .

The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students’ views on homework.

Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.

Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.

“The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students’ advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being,” Pope wrote.

Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.

Their study found that too much homework is associated with:

* Greater stress: 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.

* Reductions in health: In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.

* Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits: Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were “not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills,” according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.

A balancing act

The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.

Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as “pointless” or “mindless” in order to keep their grades up.

“This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points,” Pope said.

She said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.

“Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development,” wrote Pope.

High-performing paradox

In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. “Young people are spending more time alone,” they wrote, “which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities.”

Student perspectives

The researchers say that while their open-ended or “self-reporting” methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for “typical adolescent complaining” – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.

The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Media Contacts

Denise Pope, Stanford Graduate School of Education: (650) 725-7412, [email protected] Clifton B. Parker, Stanford News Service: (650) 725-0224, [email protected]

What’s the Right Amount of Homework?

Decades of research show that homework has some benefits, especially for students in middle and high school—but there are risks to assigning too much.

Your content has been saved!

Many teachers and parents believe that homework helps students build study skills and review concepts learned in class. Others see homework as disruptive and unnecessary, leading to burnout and turning kids off to school. Decades of research show that the issue is more nuanced and complex than most people think: Homework is beneficial, but only to a degree. Students in high school gain the most, while younger kids benefit much less.

The National PTA and the National Education Association support the “ 10-minute homework guideline ”—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students’ needs, not the amount of time spent on it.

The guideline doesn’t account for students who may need to spend more—or less—time on assignments. In class, teachers can make adjustments to support struggling students, but at home, an assignment that takes one student 30 minutes to complete may take another twice as much time—often for reasons beyond their control. And homework can widen the achievement gap, putting students from low-income households and students with learning disabilities at a disadvantage.

However, the 10-minute guideline is useful in setting a limit: When kids spend too much time on homework, there are real consequences to consider.

Small Benefits for Elementary Students

As young children begin school, the focus should be on cultivating a love of learning, and assigning too much homework can undermine that goal. And young students often don’t have the study skills to benefit fully from homework, so it may be a poor use of time (Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). A more effective activity may be nightly reading, especially if parents are involved. The benefits of reading are clear: If students aren’t proficient readers by the end of third grade, they’re less likely to succeed academically and graduate from high school (Fiester, 2013 ).

For second-grade teacher Jacqueline Fiorentino, the minor benefits of homework did not outweigh the potential drawback of turning young children against school at an early age, so she experimented with dropping mandatory homework. “Something surprising happened: They started doing more work at home,” Fiorentino writes . “This inspiring group of 8-year-olds used their newfound free time to explore subjects and topics of interest to them.” She encouraged her students to read at home and offered optional homework to extend classroom lessons and help them review material.

Moderate Benefits for Middle School Students

As students mature and develop the study skills necessary to delve deeply into a topic—and to retain what they learn—they also benefit more from homework. Nightly assignments can help prepare them for scholarly work, and research shows that homework can have moderate benefits for middle school students (Cooper et al., 2006 ). Recent research also shows that online math homework, which can be designed to adapt to students’ levels of understanding, can significantly boost test scores (Roschelle et al., 2016 ).

There are risks to assigning too much, however: A 2015 study found that when middle school students were assigned more than 90 to 100 minutes of daily homework, their math and science test scores began to decline (Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muñiz, 2015 ). Crossing that upper limit can drain student motivation and focus. The researchers recommend that “homework should present a certain level of challenge or difficulty, without being so challenging that it discourages effort.” Teachers should avoid low-effort, repetitive assignments, and assign homework “with the aim of instilling work habits and promoting autonomous, self-directed learning.”

In other words, it’s the quality of homework that matters, not the quantity. Brian Sztabnik, a veteran middle and high school English teacher, suggests that teachers take a step back and ask themselves these five questions :

• How long will it take to complete?
• Have all learners been considered?
• Will an assignment encourage future success?
• Will an assignment place material in a context the classroom cannot?
• Does an assignment offer support when a teacher is not there?

More Benefits for High School Students, but Risks as Well

By the time they reach high school, students should be well on their way to becoming independent learners, so homework does provide a boost to learning at this age, as long as it isn’t overwhelming (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). When students spend too much time on homework—more than two hours each night—it takes up valuable time to rest and spend time with family and friends. A 2013 study found that high school students can experience serious mental and physical health problems, from higher stress levels to sleep deprivation, when assigned too much homework (Galloway, Conner, & Pope, 2013 ).

Homework in high school should always relate to the lesson and be doable without any assistance, and feedback should be clear and explicit.

Teachers should also keep in mind that not all students have equal opportunities to finish their homework at home, so incomplete homework may not be a true reflection of their learning—it may be more a result of issues they face outside of school. They may be hindered by issues such as lack of a quiet space at home, resources such as a computer or broadband connectivity, or parental support (OECD, 2014 ). In such cases, giving low homework scores may be unfair.

Since the quantities of time discussed here are totals, teachers in middle and high school should be aware of how much homework other teachers are assigning. It may seem reasonable to assign 30 minutes of daily homework, but across six subjects, that’s three hours—far above a reasonable amount even for a high school senior. Psychologist Maurice Elias sees this as a common mistake: Individual teachers create homework policies that in aggregate can overwhelm students. He suggests that teachers work together to develop a school-wide homework policy and make it a key topic of back-to-school night and the first parent-teacher conferences of the school year.

Parents Play a Key Role

Homework can be a powerful tool to help parents become more involved in their child’s learning (Walker et al., 2004 ). It can provide insights into a child’s strengths and interests, and can also encourage conversations about a child’s life at school. If a parent has positive attitudes toward homework, their children are more likely to share those same values, promoting academic success.

But it’s also possible for parents to be overbearing, putting too much emphasis on test scores or grades, which can be disruptive for children (Madjar, Shklar, & Moshe, 2015 ). Parents should avoid being overly intrusive or controlling—students report feeling less motivated to learn when they don’t have enough space and autonomy to do their homework (Orkin, May, & Wolf, 2017 ; Patall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008 ; Silinskas & Kikas, 2017 ). So while homework can encourage parents to be more involved with their kids, it’s important to not make it a source of conflict.

Is Homework Beneficial: Exploring the Pros, Cons, and Current Debates

Homework has been a cornerstone of education for generations. It has sparked endless debates among educators, parents, and students. Some see it as a vital tool for children’s learning. Others view it as an unnecessary burden that can cause stress and burnout. Still, most teachers assign homework. They believe additional tasks improve student achievement. As educational methods evolve, we must ask: does homework help students? Does it assist in learning and good study habits? Or does it just add to the pressures of a demanding school establishment? Let’s delve into the pros and cons of homework students receive daily to understand its role in modern education.

Table of Content

Tracing the Roots: A Historical Perspective on Homework

Homework has a long, varied history. It goes back centuries to the start of formal education. In ancient civilizations, only the upper classes received an education. Learning often took place at home, under a tutor or family member. In the 19th century, public education systems developed. Then, homework became a standard practice. It aimed to reinforce school lessons and instill discipline in students.

In the early 20th century, homework faced backlash in the U.S. Some educators and parents argued it stressed kids and cut into family time. During this time, progressive education movements gained momentum. They advocated for less rote memorization and more hands-on learning. However, the Cold War changed views on homework. The 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik spurred the U.S. to prioritize math and science education. Homework was then seen as essential for academic competitiveness and national security. Indeed, teachers see till now how homework improves student achievement.

Today, the debate continues. We are reassessing homework’s role in a changing education system. We must balance academic rigor with students’ well-being. Understanding the history of homework helps us see its deep roots. It also explains why it is a contentious issue in education. The National Parent-Teacher Association oversees the quality of the educational process.

Homework has long been a staple in education. It bridges school and home, reinforcing learning and building skills. However, homework’s role in education is more complex than just extra student practice.

Psychological Impacts

One often overlooked aspect of homework is its influence on students’ psychics. Moderate homework can build discipline and responsibility. However, too much of it can cause stress and anxiety. Younger students may lack the skills to handle heavy homework, which can harm their mental health and love of learning. Educators and parents must recognize these stressors. They should adjust homework policies to support, not hinder, a child’s education.

The Role of Socioeconomic Status

Socioeconomic status plays a crucial role in how homework affects students. For affluent families, homework may be easy. They have a good environment and access to resources like books, the Internet, and quiet study spaces. In contrast, lower-income students might face challenges. They may lack access to the necessary resources. They might live in a noisy, crowded home. They may also have to work part-time or care for siblings. These disparities can make homework harder and widen the achievement gap. For this reason, schools must consider these factors when assigning homework. They should also support students to ensure a fair chance to succeed.

The Influence of Technology on Homework

Technology has significantly changed how homework is assigned and completed in today’s digital age. Many educators use online platforms to assign, collect, and grade homework, which can make learning more interactive and engaging. However, this shift also raises concerns about digital equity. Some students lack access to computers or reliable Internet at home, hindering their ability to complete home tasks. Additionally, there is a debate about screen time’s impact on students’ health. It suggests that digital homework should be balanced with offline assignments.

Cultural Perspectives on Homework

Cultural attitudes towards homework vary significantly around the world. In some countries, homework is vital to education. It shows a strong focus on academic success and discipline. Otherwise, some nations want to reduce homework. They seek a better balance with time for play, creativity, and family. Educators in diverse communities must understand these cultural differences. It’s key to developing homework policies that respect all students and families.

Strengthening Learning and Developing Skills

Homework has various benefits:

• It can greatly improve a student’s education and growth.
• It helps students retain skills, build life skills, and boost parental involvement.
• One of the most notable advantages is its role in reinforcing classroom learning.
• Homework helps students remember what they learned in school by revisiting those concepts.

Repeated exposure is crucial for mastering subjects. It’s especially true in math and language arts, where skills are built incrementally if you attend college. As a result, HW tasks help to develop children’s academic strengths.

Moreover, homework fosters essential skills that extend beyond academics. Students develop many skills by completing assignments outside of class. These include time management, self-discipline, and responsibility. Students learn to organize, prioritize, and work independently by dedicating time to study and homework. These skills are vital for academic success in school and work.

Also, homework lets parents engage with their child’s education. When parents help with assignments to high school boys and girls, they learn what their kids are studying. This can improve communication and collaboration with teachers. This helps create a supportive home learning environment. It reinforces that education is a shared responsibility among students, teachers, and families.

When students feel confident, they have good college attendance. Together, these create a better education. If you need help with HW assignments, feel free to address Edubrain for homework answers .

The Drawbacks of Homework

Homework aims to benefit students. However, it has downsides, and some teachers prefer to eliminate homework. This has sparked debate among educators, parents, and students. One of the most significant concerns is the stress and burnout that homework can cause. As academic demands rise, students feel overwhelmed by too many assignments and marks in a high school journal.

This causes anxiety and harms their mental health. This stress can hinder their ability to socialize, relax, and join activities. All are crucial for healthy development and well-being.

Another major drawback is the role homework can play in exacerbating educational inequalities. Not all students have the same access to resources and support outside of school. For instance, low-income students may lack a quiet space to study, have limited access to educational materials for homework, or face extra responsibilities at home. These factors can make it hard to complete homework. This gap can widen the academic achievement gap, hurting struggling students. These students need to finish homework fast, so they need help.

Also, there is debate about homework’s effectiveness in improving learning. Some research suggests that too much homework can backfire. This is especially true for elementary school students.

They may lack the skills or attention span to benefit from long study sessions during the school day and outside of school. In such cases, homework may not help learning. It can instead cause frustration and disengagement. Homework and academic success influence attending college.

Here’s a comparative table outlining the pros and cons of homework:

This table shows the pros and cons of schoolwork. It shows the need for a balanced approach to HW tasks, weighing its benefits and drawbacks.

The Complex Homework’s Impact on Learning

Research on the effectiveness of homework reveals a complex and often contradictory picture. Many studies have explored how homework affects students. Results vary by age, subject, and assignment quality.

Homework for the Youngest

Research generally suggests that homework has limited benefits for younger students. It reveals no academic gains for elementary students. Too much homework now can hurt kids’ love of learning, raise stress, and lower their enthusiasm for school. Experts agree that homework should be minimal for young kids. It should foster a love of learning, not drill-specific skills.

Homework in Middle and High School Periods

As students move to middle and high school, additional homework helps improve their grades. Research shows that moderate homework can boost learning and grades. This is especially true for math and science. However, this positive correlation plateaus when the amount of homework is excessive. Studies show that high school students swamped with homework may suffer. The stress can harm their mental health and well-being.

Homework Develops Kid as a Person

Research also shows that homework helps develop skills beyond academics. It improves time management, self-discipline, and independent problem-solving, which are crucial for success in higher education and the workforce. However, the effectiveness of homework in fostering these skills depends on the nature of the assignments. Homework that is meaningful and well-designed is better than busywork. It is more likely to help students if it aligns with classroom instruction. Busy work just wastes time and adds no value.

Overall, research findings underscore the importance of a balanced approach to homework. Homework can help learn and build skills. Still, its benefits depend on its quality and quantity. It also helps prepare for standardized tests. Finding the right balance is key to maximizing its positive impact on students’ education and well-being. Students can use different resources for assignments.

For example, they can Google “ how to use AI for homework ” and use AI to improve academic achievement.

Rethinking the Role of Homework in Modern Education

Homework’s role in education is a hot debate. Views and practices are shifting, reflecting changes in educational philosophies and priorities. A recent movement is growing among educators, parents, and policymakers. They want to reassess the traditional approach to completing homework. Concerns over student well-being and homework’s effectiveness in promoting learning drive this.

One major trend is the push toward a more personalized approach to homework. Some schools are testing differentiated homework policies. They know each student has unique needs, abilities, and home environments. This approach tailors homework to each student’s learning style and pace. It aims to make it more relevant and manageable. Personalized homework wants to engage middle school students and encourage ownership of their learning. Still, it should not overwhelm them with tasks that may not suit their needs.

Another trend is to assign less homework, particularly in elementary schools. Some educators and schools are adopting a “no homework” policy for young students, and others are reducing homework. This shift is based on research. It suggests that less excessive homework in the early years can foster a positive attitude towards school and prevent burnout. It also allows time for play, family, and activities, essential for holistic development.

In addition, there is a growing emphasis on the quality rather than the quantity of homework. Educators are urged to assign meaningful homework. It should reinforce learning and promote critical thinking, not memorization or busy work. Pupils should not just finish homework fast ; they should understand what and why they did it. This trend supports many education goals, including building problem-solving skills and a love of learning.

Technological advancements are also influencing current debates about homework. Digital tools and online resources offer new opportunities for engaging, interactive assignments. They let high school students access a wealth of information and learn in more dynamic ways. However, this shift raises concerns about screen time and access to technology. It also highlights the need for guidance on using digital resources effectively.

Overall, the current debates and trends in homework reflect a broader reevaluation of its role in education. Excessive homework will be a hot topic as schools adapt to students’ diverse needs. Discussions will focus on best supporting elementary school students’ learning and well-being.

Conclusion: Striking the Right Balance in Homework Practices

The debate over homework’s value is ongoing. It reflects varying views on its effect on student learning, social skills and well-being. Homework can reinforce learning and build life skills. However, it can also cause stress, increase inequality, and fail to boost grades. As education changes, we must rethink the role of homework. It should support, not hinder, student success.

Recommendations for Effective Homework Practices:

• Quality over Quantity: Focus on the quality of assignments rather than the amount. Homework should be meaningful, purposeful, and aligned with what elementary school students are learning in the classroom. It should promote critical thinking and problem-solving, not just drill facts or practice repetitive tasks.
• Age-Appropriate Assignments: Tailor homework to the student’s developmental stage. Younger children should have little homework. It should foster a love of learning. Older students can handle increased homework and can take home assignments. Homework should build on classroom lessons and prepare them for college and jobs.
• Personalized Homework: Consider each student’s unique needs, abilities, and circumstances. Personalized homework can help here. It can engage all students, no matter their background, with the material in a meaningful, manageable way.
• Encourage a Balanced Approach: Recognize the importance of balance in students’ lives. Homework should not overwhelm elementary students. It should not cut into family time, extracurriculars, or rest. These are critical for their development.
• Utilize Technology Wisely: Use digital tools to create engaging, interactive assignments and effective homework, such as AI science solver . But limit screen time. Ensure all students have equal access to the needed resources.

References:

For a deeper look at the research on homework, see these sources:

• Cooper, H. (2006). The Battle Over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents. Corwin Press.
• Kohn, A. (2006). The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing. Da Capo Press.
• OECD (2014). PISA 2012 Results: What Students Know and Can Do. Volume I, Revised edition, February 2014.
• Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (2007). The Case For and Against Homework. Educational Leadership, 64(6), 74-79.

By carefully considering these recommendations and drawing from a wide range of research, educators and parents can work together to create homework practices that enhance learning, support well-being, and foster a positive educational experience for all students.

Latest Articles

Organic chemistry often has a reputation for being one of the most challenging subjects in the field of science. For...

Homework has been a cornerstone of education for generations. It has sparked endless debates among educators, parents, and students. Some...

In the realm of mathematics education, both calculus and statistics play pivotal roles. Calculus is the cornerstone of advanced mathematics,...