how does homework actually affect students

Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

A conversation with a Wheelock researcher, a BU student, and a fourth-grade teacher

“Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives,” says Wheelock’s Janine Bempechat. “It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.” Photo by iStock/Glenn Cook Photography

Do your homework.

If only it were that simple.

Educators have debated the merits of homework since the late 19th century. In recent years, amid concerns of some parents and teachers that children are being stressed out by too much homework, things have only gotten more fraught.

“Homework is complicated,” says developmental psychologist Janine Bempechat, a Wheelock College of Education & Human Development clinical professor. The author of the essay “ The Case for (Quality) Homework—Why It Improves Learning and How Parents Can Help ” in the winter 2019 issue of Education Next , Bempechat has studied how the debate about homework is influencing teacher preparation, parent and student beliefs about learning, and school policies.

She worries especially about socioeconomically disadvantaged students from low-performing schools who, according to research by Bempechat and others, get little or no homework.

BU Today  sat down with Bempechat and Erin Bruce (Wheelock’17,’18), a new fourth-grade teacher at a suburban Boston school, and future teacher freshman Emma Ardizzone (Wheelock) to talk about what quality homework looks like, how it can help children learn, and how schools can equip teachers to design it, evaluate it, and facilitate parents’ role in it.

BU Today: Parents and educators who are against homework in elementary school say there is no research definitively linking it to academic performance for kids in the early grades. You’ve said that they’re missing the point.

Bempechat : I think teachers assign homework in elementary school as a way to help kids develop skills they’ll need when they’re older—to begin to instill a sense of responsibility and to learn planning and organizational skills. That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success. If we greatly reduce or eliminate homework in elementary school, we deprive kids and parents of opportunities to instill these important learning habits and skills.

We do know that beginning in late middle school, and continuing through high school, there is a strong and positive correlation between homework completion and academic success.

That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success.

You talk about the importance of quality homework. What is that?

Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives. It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.

What are your concerns about homework and low-income children?

The argument that some people make—that homework “punishes the poor” because lower-income parents may not be as well-equipped as affluent parents to help their children with homework—is very troubling to me. There are no parents who don’t care about their children’s learning. Parents don’t actually have to help with homework completion in order for kids to do well. They can help in other ways—by helping children organize a study space, providing snacks, being there as a support, helping children work in groups with siblings or friends.

Isn’t the discussion about getting rid of homework happening mostly in affluent communities?

Yes, and the stories we hear of kids being stressed out from too much homework—four or five hours of homework a night—are real. That’s problematic for physical and mental health and overall well-being. But the research shows that higher-income students get a lot more homework than lower-income kids.

Teachers may not have as high expectations for lower-income children. Schools should bear responsibility for providing supports for kids to be able to get their homework done—after-school clubs, community support, peer group support. It does kids a disservice when our expectations are lower for them.

The conversation around homework is to some extent a social class and social justice issue. If we eliminate homework for all children because affluent children have too much, we’re really doing a disservice to low-income children. They need the challenge, and every student can rise to the challenge with enough supports in place.

What did you learn by studying how education schools are preparing future teachers to handle homework?

My colleague, Margarita Jimenez-Silva, at the University of California, Davis, School of Education, and I interviewed faculty members at education schools, as well as supervising teachers, to find out how students are being prepared. And it seemed that they weren’t. There didn’t seem to be any readings on the research, or conversations on what high-quality homework is and how to design it.

Erin, what kind of training did you get in handling homework?

Bruce : I had phenomenal professors at Wheelock, but homework just didn’t come up. I did lots of student teaching. I’ve been in classrooms where the teachers didn’t assign any homework, and I’ve been in rooms where they assigned hours of homework a night. But I never even considered homework as something that was my decision. I just thought it was something I’d pull out of a book and it’d be done.

I started giving homework on the first night of school this year. My first assignment was to go home and draw a picture of the room where you do your homework. I want to know if it’s at a table and if there are chairs around it and if mom’s cooking dinner while you’re doing homework.

The second night I asked them to talk to a grown-up about how are you going to be able to get your homework done during the week. The kids really enjoyed it. There’s a running joke that I’m teaching life skills.

Friday nights, I read all my kids’ responses to me on their homework from the week and it’s wonderful. They pour their hearts out. It’s like we’re having a conversation on my couch Friday night.

It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Bempechat : I can’t imagine that most new teachers would have the intuition Erin had in designing homework the way she did.

Ardizzone : Conversations with kids about homework, feeling you’re being listened to—that’s such a big part of wanting to do homework….I grew up in Westchester County. It was a pretty demanding school district. My junior year English teacher—I loved her—she would give us feedback, have meetings with all of us. She’d say, “If you have any questions, if you have anything you want to talk about, you can talk to me, here are my office hours.” It felt like she actually cared.

Bempechat : It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Ardizzone : But can’t it lead to parents being overbearing and too involved in their children’s lives as students?

Bempechat : There’s good help and there’s bad help. The bad help is what you’re describing—when parents hover inappropriately, when they micromanage, when they see their children confused and struggling and tell them what to do.

Good help is when parents recognize there’s a struggle going on and instead ask informative questions: “Where do you think you went wrong?” They give hints, or pointers, rather than saying, “You missed this,” or “You didn’t read that.”

Bruce : I hope something comes of this. I hope BU or Wheelock can think of some way to make this a more pressing issue. As a first-year teacher, it was not something I even thought about on the first day of school—until a kid raised his hand and said, “Do we have homework?” It would have been wonderful if I’d had a plan from day one.

Explore Related Topics:

• Share this story

Senior Contributing Editor

Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald , Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times , where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Profile

She can be reached at [email protected] .

Comments & Discussion

Boston University moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (EST) and can only accept comments written in English. Statistics or facts must include a citation or a link to the citation.

There are 81 comments on Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

Insightful! The values about homework in elementary schools are well aligned with my intuition as a parent.

when i finish my work i do my homework and i sometimes forget what to do because i did not get enough sleep

same omg it does not help me it is stressful and if I have it in more than one class I hate it.

Same I think my parent wants to help me but, she doesn’t care if I get bad grades so I just try my best and my grades are great.

I think that last question about Good help from parents is not know to all parents, we do as our parents did or how we best think it can be done, so maybe coaching parents or giving them resources on how to help with homework would be very beneficial for the parent on how to help and for the teacher to have consistency and improve homework results, and of course for the child. I do see how homework helps reaffirm the knowledge obtained in the classroom, I also have the ability to see progress and it is a time I share with my kids

The answer to the headline question is a no-brainer – a more pressing problem is why there is a difference in how students from different cultures succeed. Perfect example is the student population at BU – why is there a majority population of Asian students and only about 3% black students at BU? In fact at some universities there are law suits by Asians to stop discrimination and quotas against admitting Asian students because the real truth is that as a group they are demonstrating better qualifications for admittance, while at the same time there are quotas and reduced requirements for black students to boost their portion of the student population because as a group they do more poorly in meeting admissions standards – and it is not about the Benjamins. The real problem is that in our PC society no one has the gazuntas to explore this issue as it may reveal that all people are not created equal after all. Or is it just environmental cultural differences??????

I get you have a concern about the issue but that is not even what the point of this article is about. If you have an issue please take this to the site we have and only post your opinion about the actual topic

This is not at all what the article is talking about.

This literally has nothing to do with the article brought up. You should really take your opinions somewhere else before you speak about something that doesn’t make sense.

we have the same name

so they have the same name what of it?

lol you tell her

totally agree

What does that have to do with homework, that is not what the article talks about AT ALL.

Yes, I think homework plays an important role in the development of student life. Through homework, students have to face challenges on a daily basis and they try to solve them quickly.I am an intense online tutor at 24x7homeworkhelp and I give homework to my students at that level in which they handle it easily.

More than two-thirds of students said they used alcohol and drugs, primarily marijuana, to cope with stress.

You know what’s funny? I got this assignment to write an argument for homework about homework and this article was really helpful and understandable, and I also agree with this article’s point of view.

I also got the same task as you! I was looking for some good resources and I found this! I really found this article useful and easy to understand, just like you! ^^

i think that homework is the best thing that a child can have on the school because it help them with their thinking and memory.

I am a child myself and i think homework is a terrific pass time because i can’t play video games during the week. It also helps me set goals.

Homework is not harmful ,but it will if there is too much

I feel like, from a minors point of view that we shouldn’t get homework. Not only is the homework stressful, but it takes us away from relaxing and being social. For example, me and my friends was supposed to hang at the mall last week but we had to postpone it since we all had some sort of work to do. Our minds shouldn’t be focused on finishing an assignment that in realty, doesn’t matter. I completely understand that we should have homework. I have to write a paper on the unimportance of homework so thanks.

homework isn’t that bad

Are you a student? if not then i don’t really think you know how much and how severe todays homework really is

i am a student and i do not enjoy homework because i practice my sport 4 out of the five days we have school for 4 hours and that’s not even counting the commute time or the fact i still have to shower and eat dinner when i get home. its draining!

i totally agree with you. these people are such boomers

why just why

they do make a really good point, i think that there should be a limit though. hours and hours of homework can be really stressful, and the extra work isn’t making a difference to our learning, but i do believe homework should be optional and extra credit. that would make it for students to not have the leaning stress of a assignment and if you have a low grade you you can catch up.

Studies show that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicates that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” On both standardized tests and grades, students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school.

So how are your measuring student achievement? That’s the real question. The argument that doing homework is simply a tool for teaching responsibility isn’t enough for me. We can teach responsibility in a number of ways. Also the poor argument that parents don’t need to help with homework, and that students can do it on their own, is wishful thinking at best. It completely ignores neurodiverse students. Students in poverty aren’t magically going to find a space to do homework, a friend’s or siblings to help them do it, and snacks to eat. I feel like the author of this piece has never set foot in a classroom of students.

THIS. This article is pathetic coming from a university. So intellectually dishonest, refusing to address the havoc of capitalism and poverty plays on academic success in life. How can they in one sentence use poor kids in an argument and never once address that poor children have access to damn near 0 of the resources affluent kids have? Draw me a picture and let’s talk about feelings lmao what a joke is that gonna put food in their belly so they can have the calories to burn in order to use their brain to study? What about quiet their 7 other siblings that they share a single bedroom with for hours? Is it gonna force the single mom to magically be at home and at work at the same time to cook food while you study and be there to throw an encouraging word?

Also the “parents don’t need to be a parent and be able to guide their kid at all academically they just need to exist in the next room” is wild. Its one thing if a parent straight up is not equipped but to say kids can just figured it out is…. wow coming from an educator What’s next the teacher doesn’t need to teach cause the kid can just follow the packet and figure it out?

Well then get a tutor right? Oh wait you are poor only affluent kids can afford a tutor for their hours of homework a day were they on average have none of the worries a poor child does. Does this address that poor children are more likely to also suffer abuse and mental illness? Like mentioned what about kids that can’t learn or comprehend the forced standardized way? Just let em fail? These children regularly are not in “special education”(some of those are a joke in their own and full of neglect and abuse) programs cause most aren’t even acknowledged as having disabilities or disorders.

But yes all and all those pesky poor kids just aren’t being worked hard enough lol pretty sure poor children’s existence just in childhood is more work, stress, and responsibility alone than an affluent child’s entire life cycle. Love they never once talked about the quality of education in the classroom being so bad between the poor and affluent it can qualify as segregation, just basically blamed poor people for being lazy, good job capitalism for failing us once again!

why the hell?

you should feel bad for saying this, this article can be helpful for people who has to write a essay about it

This is more of a political rant than it is about homework

I know a teacher who has told his students their homework is to find something they are interested in, pursue it and then come share what they learn. The student responses are quite compelling. One girl taught herself German so she could talk to her grandfather. One boy did a research project on Nelson Mandela because the teacher had mentioned him in class. Another boy, a both on the autism spectrum, fixed his family’s computer. The list goes on. This is fourth grade. I think students are highly motivated to learn, when we step aside and encourage them.

The whole point of homework is to give the students a chance to use the material that they have been presented with in class. If they never have the opportunity to use that information, and discover that it is actually useful, it will be in one ear and out the other. As a science teacher, it is critical that the students are challenged to use the material they have been presented with, which gives them the opportunity to actually think about it rather than regurgitate “facts”. Well designed homework forces the student to think conceptually, as opposed to regurgitation, which is never a pretty sight

Wonderful discussion. and yes, homework helps in learning and building skills in students.

not true it just causes kids to stress

Homework can be both beneficial and unuseful, if you will. There are students who are gifted in all subjects in school and ones with disabilities. Why should the students who are gifted get the lucky break, whereas the people who have disabilities suffer? The people who were born with this “gift” go through school with ease whereas people with disabilities struggle with the work given to them. I speak from experience because I am one of those students: the ones with disabilities. Homework doesn’t benefit “us”, it only tears us down and put us in an abyss of confusion and stress and hopelessness because we can’t learn as fast as others. Or we can’t handle the amount of work given whereas the gifted students go through it with ease. It just brings us down and makes us feel lost; because no mater what, it feels like we are destined to fail. It feels like we weren’t “cut out” for success.

homework does help

here is the thing though, if a child is shoved in the face with a whole ton of homework that isn’t really even considered homework it is assignments, it’s not helpful. the teacher should make homework more of a fun learning experience rather than something that is dreaded

This article was wonderful, I am going to ask my teachers about extra, or at all giving homework.

I agree. Especially when you have homework before an exam. Which is distasteful as you’ll need that time to study. It doesn’t make any sense, nor does us doing homework really matters as It’s just facts thrown at us.

Homework is too severe and is just too much for students, schools need to decrease the amount of homework. When teachers assign homework they forget that the students have other classes that give them the same amount of homework each day. Students need to work on social skills and life skills.

I disagree.

Beyond achievement, proponents of homework argue that it can have many other beneficial effects. They claim it can help students develop good study habits so they are ready to grow as their cognitive capacities mature. It can help students recognize that learning can occur at home as well as at school. Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits. And it can give parents an opportunity to see what’s going on at school and let them express positive attitudes toward achievement.

Homework is helpful because homework helps us by teaching us how to learn a specific topic.

As a student myself, I can say that I have almost never gotten the full 9 hours of recommended sleep time, because of homework. (Now I’m writing an essay on it in the middle of the night D=)

I am a 10 year old kid doing a report about “Is homework good or bad” for homework before i was going to do homework is bad but the sources from this site changed my mind!

Homeowkr is god for stusenrs

I agree with hunter because homework can be so stressful especially with this whole covid thing no one has time for homework and every one just wants to get back to there normal lives it is especially stressful when you go on a 2 week vaca 3 weeks into the new school year and and then less then a week after you come back from the vaca you are out for over a month because of covid and you have no way to get the assignment done and turned in

As great as homework is said to be in the is article, I feel like the viewpoint of the students was left out. Every where I go on the internet researching about this topic it almost always has interviews from teachers, professors, and the like. However isn’t that a little biased? Of course teachers are going to be for homework, they’re not the ones that have to stay up past midnight completing the homework from not just one class, but all of them. I just feel like this site is one-sided and you should include what the students of today think of spending four hours every night completing 6-8 classes worth of work.

Are we talking about homework or practice? Those are two very different things and can result in different outcomes.

Homework is a graded assignment. I do not know of research showing the benefits of graded assignments going home.

Practice; however, can be extremely beneficial, especially if there is some sort of feedback (not a grade but feedback). That feedback can come from the teacher, another student or even an automated grading program.

As a former band director, I assigned daily practice. I never once thought it would be appropriate for me to require the students to turn in a recording of their practice for me to grade. Instead, I had in-class assignments/assessments that were graded and directly related to the practice assigned.

I would really like to read articles on “homework” that truly distinguish between the two.

oof i feel bad good luck!

thank you guys for the artical because I have to finish an assingment. yes i did cite it but just thanks

thx for the article guys.

Homework is good

I think homework is helpful AND harmful. Sometimes u can’t get sleep bc of homework but it helps u practice for school too so idk.

I agree with this Article. And does anyone know when this was published. I would like to know.

It was published FEb 19, 2019.

Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college.

i think homework can help kids but at the same time not help kids

This article is so out of touch with majority of homes it would be laughable if it wasn’t so incredibly sad.

There is no value to homework all it does is add stress to already stressed homes. Parents or adults magically having the time or energy to shepherd kids through homework is dome sort of 1950’s fantasy.

What lala land do these teachers live in?

Homework gives noting to the kid

Homework is Bad

homework is bad.

why do kids even have homework?

Comments are closed.

Latest from Bostonia

Podcast looks at a forgotten chapter of the civil rights struggle, two bu alums take on same roles in leopoldstadt, huntington theatre company’s latest production, this sha alum handles fenway park’s celebrity artists, bu alum chompon boonnak runs mahaniyom, one of greater boston’s hottest thai restaurants, champion of indie films, china scholar merle goldman dies, cfa alum jonathan knight is head of games for the new york times, is our democracy at risk americans think so. bu experts talk about why—and the way forward, a commitment to early childhood education, reading list: alum bonnie hammer publishes 15 lies women are told at work —plus fiction, poetry, and short stories, one good deed: jason hurdich (cas’97) is uniting the deaf community, one cup at a time, space force general b. chance saltzman is a bu alum, pups wearing custom-designed veterinary collars get star treatment in alum’s new coffee-table book, using glamour for good: alum’s nonprofit organization brings clothes and beauty products to those in need, gallery: shea justice (cfa’93), oscar-nominated actor hong chau (com’01) stars in new action-comedy the instigators, alum’s new book recounts the battle for inclusion in boy scouts, feedback: readers weigh in on a bu superager, the passing of otto lerbinger, and alum’s book fat church, law alum steven m. wise, who fought for animal rights, dies, opening doors: ellice patterson (questrom’17).

• 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 .

Is homework a necessary evil?

After decades of debate, researchers are still sorting out the truth about homework’s pros and cons. One point they can agree on: Quality assignments matter.

By Kirsten Weir

March 2016, Vol 47, No. 3

Print version: page 36

• Schools and Classrooms

Homework battles have raged for decades. For as long as kids have been whining about doing their homework, parents and education reformers have complained that homework's benefits are dubious. Meanwhile many teachers argue that take-home lessons are key to helping students learn. Now, as schools are shifting to the new (and hotly debated) Common Core curriculum standards, educators, administrators and researchers are turning a fresh eye toward the question of homework's value.

But when it comes to deciphering the research literature on the subject, homework is anything but an open book.

The 10-minute rule

In many ways, homework seems like common sense. Spend more time practicing multiplication or studying Spanish vocabulary and you should get better at math or Spanish. But it may not be that simple.

Homework can indeed produce academic benefits, such as increased understanding and retention of the material, says Duke University social psychologist Harris Cooper, PhD, one of the nation's leading homework researchers. But not all students benefit. In a review of studies published from 1987 to 2003, Cooper and his colleagues found that homework was linked to better test scores in high school and, to a lesser degree, in middle school. Yet they found only faint evidence that homework provided academic benefit in elementary school ( Review of Educational Research , 2006).

Then again, test scores aren't everything. Homework proponents also cite the nonacademic advantages it might confer, such as the development of personal responsibility, good study habits and time-management skills. But as to hard evidence of those benefits, "the jury is still out," says Mollie Galloway, PhD, associate professor of educational leadership at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. "I think there's a focus on assigning homework because [teachers] think it has these positive outcomes for study skills and habits. But we don't know for sure that's the case."

Even when homework is helpful, there can be too much of a good thing. "There is a limit to how much kids can benefit from home study," Cooper says. He agrees with an oft-cited rule of thumb that students should do no more than 10 minutes a night per grade level — from about 10 minutes in first grade up to a maximum of about two hours in high school. Both the National Education Association and National Parent Teacher Association support that limit.

Beyond that point, kids don't absorb much useful information, Cooper says. In fact, too much homework can do more harm than good. Researchers have cited drawbacks, including boredom and burnout toward academic material, less time for family and extracurricular activities, lack of sleep and increased stress.

In a recent study of Spanish students, Rubén Fernández-Alonso, PhD, and colleagues found that students who were regularly assigned math and science homework scored higher on standardized tests. But when kids reported having more than 90 to 100 minutes of homework per day, scores declined ( Journal of Educational Psychology , 2015).

"At all grade levels, doing other things after school can have positive effects," Cooper says. "To the extent that homework denies access to other leisure and community activities, it's not serving the child's best interest."

Children of all ages need down time in order to thrive, says Denise Pope, PhD, a professor of education at Stanford University and a co-founder of Challenge Success, a program that partners with secondary schools to implement policies that improve students' academic engagement and well-being.

"Little kids and big kids need unstructured time for play each day," she says. Certainly, time for physical activity is important for kids' health and well-being. But even time spent on social media can help give busy kids' brains a break, she says.

All over the map

But are teachers sticking to the 10-minute rule? Studies attempting to quantify time spent on homework are all over the map, in part because of wide variations in methodology, Pope says.

A 2014 report by the Brookings Institution examined the question of homework, comparing data from a variety of sources. That report cited findings from a 2012 survey of first-year college students in which 38.4 percent reported spending six hours or more per week on homework during their last year of high school. That was down from 49.5 percent in 1986 ( The Brown Center Report on American Education , 2014).

The Brookings report also explored survey data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which asked 9-, 13- and 17-year-old students how much homework they'd done the previous night. They found that between 1984 and 2012, there was a slight increase in homework for 9-year-olds, but homework amounts for 13- and 17-year-olds stayed roughly the same, or even decreased slightly.

Yet other evidence suggests that some kids might be taking home much more work than they can handle. Robert Pressman, PhD, and colleagues recently investigated the 10-minute rule among more than 1,100 students, and found that elementary-school kids were receiving up to three times as much homework as recommended. As homework load increased, so did family stress, the researchers found ( American Journal of Family Therapy , 2015).

Many high school students also seem to be exceeding the recommended amounts of homework. Pope and Galloway recently surveyed more than 4,300 students from 10 high-achieving high schools. Students reported bringing home an average of just over three hours of homework nightly ( Journal of Experiential Education , 2013).

On the positive side, students who spent more time on homework in that study did report being more behaviorally engaged in school — for instance, giving more effort and paying more attention in class, Galloway says. But they were not more invested in the homework itself. They also reported greater academic stress and less time to balance family, friends and extracurricular activities. They experienced more physical health problems as well, such as headaches, stomach troubles and sleep deprivation. "Three hours per night is too much," Galloway says.

In the high-achieving schools Pope and Galloway studied, more than 90 percent of the students go on to college. There's often intense pressure to succeed academically, from both parents and peers. On top of that, kids in these communities are often overloaded with extracurricular activities, including sports and clubs. "They're very busy," Pope says. "Some kids have up to 40 hours a week — a full-time job's worth — of extracurricular activities." And homework is yet one more commitment on top of all the others.

"Homework has perennially acted as a source of stress for students, so that piece of it is not new," Galloway says. "But especially in upper-middle-class communities, where the focus is on getting ahead, I think the pressure on students has been ratcheted up."

Yet homework can be a problem at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum as well. Kids from wealthier homes are more likely to have resources such as computers, Internet connections, dedicated areas to do schoolwork and parents who tend to be more educated and more available to help them with tricky assignments. Kids from disadvantaged homes are more likely to work at afterschool jobs, or to be home without supervision in the evenings while their parents work multiple jobs, says Lea Theodore, PhD, a professor of school psychology at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. They are less likely to have computers or a quiet place to do homework in peace.

"Homework can highlight those inequities," she says.

Quantity vs. quality

One point researchers agree on is that for all students, homework quality matters. But too many kids are feeling a lack of engagement with their take-home assignments, many experts say. In Pope and Galloway's research, only 20 percent to 30 percent of students said they felt their homework was useful or meaningful.

"Students are assigned a lot of busywork. They're naming it as a primary stressor, but they don't feel it's supporting their learning," Galloway says.

"Homework that's busywork is not good for anyone," Cooper agrees. Still, he says, different subjects call for different kinds of assignments. "Things like vocabulary and spelling are learned through practice. Other kinds of courses require more integration of material and drawing on different skills."

But critics say those skills can be developed with many fewer hours of homework each week. Why assign 50 math problems, Pope asks, when 10 would be just as constructive? One Advanced Placement biology teacher she worked with through Challenge Success experimented with cutting his homework assignments by a third, and then by half. "Test scores didn't go down," she says. "You can have a rigorous course and not have a crazy homework load."

Still, changing the culture of homework won't be easy. Teachers-to-be get little instruction in homework during their training, Pope says. And despite some vocal parents arguing that kids bring home too much homework, many others get nervous if they think their child doesn't have enough. "Teachers feel pressured to give homework because parents expect it to come home," says Galloway. "When it doesn't, there's this idea that the school might not be doing its job."

Galloway argues teachers and school administrators need to set clear goals when it comes to homework — and parents and students should be in on the discussion, too. "It should be a broader conversation within the community, asking what's the purpose of homework? Why are we giving it? Who is it serving? Who is it not serving?"

Until schools and communities agree to take a hard look at those questions, those backpacks full of take-home assignments will probably keep stirring up more feelings than facts.

Further reading

• Cooper, H., Robinson, J. C., & Patall, E. A. (2006). Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research, 1987-2003. Review of Educational Research, 76 (1), 1–62. doi: 10.3102/00346543076001001
• Galloway, M., Connor, J., & Pope, D. (2013). Nonacademic effects of homework in privileged, high-performing high schools. The Journal of Experimental Education, 81 (4), 490–510. doi: 10.1080/00220973.2012.745469
• Pope, D., Brown, M., & Miles, S. (2015). Overloaded and underprepared: Strategies for stronger schools and healthy, successful kids . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Letters to the Editor

• Send us a letter

Does homework really work?

by: Leslie Crawford | Updated: December 12, 2023

Print article

You know the drill. It’s 10:15 p.m., and the cardboard-and-toothpick Golden Gate Bridge is collapsing. The pages of polynomials have been abandoned. The paper on the Battle of Waterloo seems to have frozen in time with Napoleon lingering eternally over his breakfast at Le Caillou. Then come the tears and tantrums — while we parents wonder, Does the gain merit all this pain? Is this just too much homework?

However the drama unfolds night after night, year after year, most parents hold on to the hope that homework (after soccer games, dinner, flute practice, and, oh yes, that childhood pastime of yore known as playing) advances their children academically.

But what does homework really do for kids? Is the forest’s worth of book reports and math and spelling sheets the average American student completes in their 12 years of primary schooling making a difference? Or is it just busywork?

Homework haterz

Whether or not homework helps, or even hurts, depends on who you ask. If you ask my 12-year-old son, Sam, he’ll say, “Homework doesn’t help anything. It makes kids stressed-out and tired and makes them hate school more.”

Nothing more than common kid bellyaching?

Maybe, but in the fractious field of homework studies, it’s worth noting that Sam’s sentiments nicely synopsize one side of the ivory tower debate. Books like The End of Homework , The Homework Myth , and The Case Against Homework the film Race to Nowhere , and the anguished parent essay “ My Daughter’s Homework is Killing Me ” make the case that homework, by taking away precious family time and putting kids under unneeded pressure, is an ineffective way to help children become better learners and thinkers.

One Canadian couple took their homework apostasy all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. After arguing that there was no evidence that it improved academic performance, they won a ruling that exempted their two children from all homework.

So what’s the real relationship between homework and academic achievement?

How much is too much?

To answer this question, researchers have been doing their homework on homework, conducting and examining hundreds of studies. Chris Drew Ph.D., founder and editor at The Helpful Professor recently compiled multiple statistics revealing the folly of today’s after-school busy work. Does any of the data he listed below ring true for you?

• 45 percent of parents think homework is too easy for their child, primarily because it is geared to the lowest standard under the Common Core State Standards .

• 74 percent of students say homework is a source of stress , defined as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss, and stomach problems.

• Students in high-performing high schools spend an average of 3.1 hours a night on homework , even though 1 to 2 hours is the optimal duration, according to a peer-reviewed study .

Not included in the list above is the fact many kids have to abandon activities they love — like sports and clubs — because homework deprives them of the needed time to enjoy themselves with other pursuits.

Conversely, The Helpful Professor does list a few pros of homework, noting it teaches discipline and time management, and helps parents know what’s being taught in the class.

The oft-bandied rule on homework quantity — 10 minutes a night per grade (starting from between 10 to 20 minutes in first grade) — is listed on the National Education Association’s website and the National Parent Teacher Association’s website , but few schools follow this rule.

Do you think your child is doing excessive homework? Harris Cooper Ph.D., author of a meta-study on homework , recommends talking with the teacher. “Often there is a miscommunication about the goals of homework assignments,” he says. “What appears to be problematic for kids, why they are doing an assignment, can be cleared up with a conversation.” Also, Cooper suggests taking a careful look at how your child is doing the assignments. It may seem like they’re taking two hours, but maybe your child is wandering off frequently to get a snack or getting distracted.

Less is often more

If your child is dutifully doing their work but still burning the midnight oil, it’s worth intervening to make sure your child gets enough sleep. A 2012 study of 535 high school students found that proper sleep may be far more essential to brain and body development.

For elementary school-age children, Cooper’s research at Duke University shows there is no measurable academic advantage to homework. For middle-schoolers, Cooper found there is a direct correlation between homework and achievement if assignments last between one to two hours per night. After two hours, however, achievement doesn’t improve. For high schoolers, Cooper’s research suggests that two hours per night is optimal. If teens have more than two hours of homework a night, their academic success flatlines. But less is not better. The average high school student doing homework outperformed 69 percent of the students in a class with no homework.

Many schools are starting to act on this research. A Florida superintendent abolished homework in her 42,000 student district, replacing it with 20 minutes of nightly reading. She attributed her decision to “ solid research about what works best in improving academic achievement in students .”

More family time

A 2020 survey by Crayola Experience reports 82 percent of children complain they don’t have enough quality time with their parents. Homework deserves much of the blame. “Kids should have a chance to just be kids and do things they enjoy, particularly after spending six hours a day in school,” says Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth . “It’s absurd to insist that children must be engaged in constructive activities right up until their heads hit the pillow.”

By far, the best replacement for homework — for both parents and children — is bonding, relaxing time together.

Homes Nearby

Homes for rent and sale near schools

How families of color can fight for fair discipline in school

Dealing with teacher bias

The most important school data families of color need to consider

Yes! Sign me up for updates relevant to my child's grade.

Please enter a valid email address

Thank you for signing up!

Server Issue: Please try again later. Sorry for the inconvenience

Investigating the Effects of Homework on Student Learning and Academic Performance

• The Journal of Experimental Education

• Department of Education

Discover the world's research

• 25+ million members
• 160+ million publication pages
• 2.3+ billion citations

• Jorgianne Civey Robinson

• Joyce L. Epstein
• Frances L. Van Voorhis

• Recruit researchers
• Join for free
• Login Email Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google Welcome back! Please log in. Email · Hint Tip: Most researchers use their institutional email address as their ResearchGate login Password Forgot password? Keep me logged in Log in or Continue with Google No account? Sign up

• 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

More From Forbes

Why homework doesn't seem to boost learning--and how it could.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

Some schools are eliminating homework, citing research showing it doesn’t do much to boost achievement. But maybe teachers just need to assign a different kind of homework.

In 2016, a second-grade teacher in Texas delighted her students—and at least some of their parents—by announcing she would no longer assign homework. “Research has been unable to prove that homework improves student performance,” she explained.

The following year, the superintendent of a Florida school district serving 42,000 students eliminated homework for all elementary students and replaced it with twenty minutes of nightly reading, saying she was basing her decision on “solid research about what works best in improving academic achievement in students.”

Many other elementary schools seem to have quietly adopted similar policies. Critics have objected that even if homework doesn’t increase grades or test scores, it has other benefits, like fostering good study habits and providing parents with a window into what kids are doing in school.

Those arguments have merit, but why doesn’t homework boost academic achievement? The research cited by educators just doesn’t seem to make sense. If a child wants to learn to play the violin, it’s obvious she needs to practice at home between lessons (at least, it’s obvious to an adult). And psychologists have identified a range of strategies that help students learn, many of which seem ideally suited for homework assignments.

For example, there’s something called “ retrieval practice ,” which means trying to recall information you’ve already learned. The optimal time to engage in retrieval practice is not immediately after you’ve acquired information but after you’ve forgotten it a bit—like, perhaps, after school. A homework assignment could require students to answer questions about what was covered in class that day without consulting their notes. Research has found that retrieval practice and similar learning strategies are far more powerful than simply rereading or reviewing material.

One possible explanation for the general lack of a boost from homework is that few teachers know about this research. And most have gotten little training in how and why to assign homework. These are things that schools of education and teacher-prep programs typically don’t teach . So it’s quite possible that much of the homework teachers assign just isn’t particularly effective for many students.

Even if teachers do manage to assign effective homework, it may not show up on the measures of achievement used by researchers—for example, standardized reading test scores. Those tests are designed to measure general reading comprehension skills, not to assess how much students have learned in specific classes. Good homework assignments might have helped a student learn a lot about, say, Ancient Egypt. But if the reading passages on a test cover topics like life in the Arctic or the habits of the dormouse, that student’s test score may well not reflect what she’s learned.

The research relied on by those who oppose homework has actually found it has a modest positive effect at the middle and high school levels—just not in elementary school. But for the most part, the studies haven’t looked at whether it matters what kind of homework is assigned or whether there are different effects for different demographic student groups. Focusing on those distinctions could be illuminating.

A study that looked specifically at math homework , for example, found it boosted achievement more in elementary school than in middle school—just the opposite of the findings on homework in general. And while one study found that parental help with homework generally doesn’t boost students’ achievement—and can even have a negative effect— another concluded that economically disadvantaged students whose parents help with homework improve their performance significantly.

That seems to run counter to another frequent objection to homework, which is that it privileges kids who are already advantaged. Well-educated parents are better able to provide help, the argument goes, and it’s easier for affluent parents to provide a quiet space for kids to work in—along with a computer and internet access . While those things may be true, not assigning homework—or assigning ineffective homework—can end up privileging advantaged students even more.

Students from less educated families are most in need of the boost that effective homework can provide, because they’re less likely to acquire academic knowledge and vocabulary at home. And homework can provide a way for lower-income parents—who often don’t have time to volunteer in class or participate in parents’ organizations—to forge connections to their children’s schools. Rather than giving up on homework because of social inequities, schools could help parents support homework in ways that don’t depend on their own knowledge—for example, by recruiting others to help, as some low-income demographic groups have been able to do . Schools could also provide quiet study areas at the end of the day, and teachers could assign homework that doesn’t rely on technology.

Another argument against homework is that it causes students to feel overburdened and stressed.  While that may be true at schools serving affluent populations, students at low-performing ones often don’t get much homework at all—even in high school. One study found that lower-income ninth-graders “consistently described receiving minimal homework—perhaps one or two worksheets or textbook pages, the occasional project, and 30 minutes of reading per night.” And if they didn’t complete assignments, there were few consequences. I discovered this myself when trying to tutor students in writing at a high-poverty high school. After I expressed surprise that none of the kids I was working with had completed a brief writing assignment, a teacher told me, “Oh yeah—I should have told you. Our students don’t really do homework.”

If and when disadvantaged students get to college, their relative lack of study skills and good homework habits can present a serious handicap. After noticing that black and Hispanic students were failing her course in disproportionate numbers, a professor at the University of North Carolina decided to make some changes , including giving homework assignments that required students to quiz themselves without consulting their notes. Performance improved across the board, but especially for students of color and the disadvantaged. The gap between black and white students was cut in half, and the gaps between Hispanic and white students—along with that between first-generation college students and others—closed completely.

There’s no reason this kind of support should wait until students get to college. To be most effective—both in terms of instilling good study habits and building students’ knowledge—homework assignments that boost learning should start in elementary school.

Some argue that young children just need time to chill after a long day at school. But the “ten-minute rule”—recommended by homework researchers—would have first graders doing ten minutes of homework, second graders twenty minutes, and so on. That leaves plenty of time for chilling, and even brief assignments could have a significant impact if they were well-designed.

But a fundamental problem with homework at the elementary level has to do with the curriculum, which—partly because of standardized testing— has narrowed to reading and math. Social studies and science have been marginalized or eliminated, especially in schools where test scores are low. Students spend hours every week practicing supposed reading comprehension skills like “making inferences” or identifying “author’s purpose”—the kinds of skills that the tests try to measure—with little or no attention paid to content.

But as research has established, the most important component in reading comprehension is knowledge of the topic you’re reading about. Classroom time—or homework time—spent on illusory comprehension “skills” would be far better spent building knowledge of the very subjects schools have eliminated. Even if teachers try to take advantage of retrieval practice—say, by asking students to recall what they’ve learned that day about “making comparisons” or “sequence of events”—it won’t have much impact.

If we want to harness the potential power of homework—particularly for disadvantaged students—we’ll need to educate teachers about what kind of assignments actually work. But first, we’ll need to start teaching kids something substantive about the world, beginning as early as possible.

• Editorial Standards
• Forbes Accolades

• Search Menu

Sign in through your institution

• Advance articles
• Editor's Choice
• Browse content in C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods
• Browse content in C0 - General
• C01 - Econometrics
• Browse content in C1 - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General
• C10 - General
• C11 - Bayesian Analysis: General
• C12 - Hypothesis Testing: General
• C13 - Estimation: General
• C14 - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
• C15 - Statistical Simulation Methods: General
• C18 - Methodological Issues: General
• C19 - Other
• Browse content in C2 - Single Equation Models; Single Variables
• C20 - General
• C21 - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions
• C22 - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
• C23 - Panel Data Models; Spatio-temporal Models
• C24 - Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models; Threshold Regression Models
• C25 - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
• C26 - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
• Browse content in C3 - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables
• C30 - General
• C31 - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
• C32 - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
• C33 - Panel Data Models; Spatio-temporal Models
• C34 - Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models
• C35 - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions
• C36 - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
• C38 - Classification Methods; Cluster Analysis; Principal Components; Factor Models
• Browse content in C4 - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics
• C40 - General
• C41 - Duration Analysis; Optimal Timing Strategies
• C44 - Operations Research; Statistical Decision Theory
• C45 - Neural Networks and Related Topics
• Browse content in C5 - Econometric Modeling
• C50 - General
• C51 - Model Construction and Estimation
• C52 - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
• C53 - Forecasting and Prediction Methods; Simulation Methods
• C54 - Quantitative Policy Modeling
• C55 - Large Data Sets: Modeling and Analysis
• C57 - Econometrics of Games and Auctions
• C58 - Financial Econometrics
• Browse content in C6 - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling
• C60 - General
• C61 - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
• C63 - Computational Techniques; Simulation Modeling
• Browse content in C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory
• C78 - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
• Browse content in C8 - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs
• C81 - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
• Browse content in D - Microeconomics
• Browse content in D0 - General
• D04 - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation, and Evaluation
• Browse content in D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics
• D10 - General
• D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
• Browse content in D2 - Production and Organizations
• D22 - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
• D24 - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
• Browse content in D3 - Distribution
• D31 - Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
• Browse content in D4 - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
• D41 - Perfect Competition
• D44 - Auctions
• Browse content in D6 - Welfare Economics
• D63 - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
• Browse content in D9 - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
• D91 - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
• Browse content in E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Browse content in E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy
• E24 - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
• Browse content in E3 - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
• E30 - General
• E31 - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
• E32 - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
• E37 - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
• Browse content in E5 - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
• E52 - Monetary Policy
• E58 - Central Banks and Their Policies
• Browse content in G - Financial Economics
• Browse content in G1 - General Financial Markets
• G10 - General
• G11 - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
• G12 - Asset Pricing; Trading volume; Bond Interest Rates
• G17 - Financial Forecasting and Simulation
• Browse content in G2 - Financial Institutions and Services
• G21 - Banks; Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
• Browse content in H - Public Economics
• Browse content in H1 - Structure and Scope of Government
• H12 - Crisis Management
• Browse content in I - Health, Education, and Welfare
• Browse content in I1 - Health
• I12 - Health Behavior
• I13 - Health Insurance, Public and Private
• I14 - Health and Inequality
• I18 - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
• I19 - Other
• Browse content in I2 - Education and Research Institutions
• I21 - Analysis of Education
• I24 - Education and Inequality
• Browse content in J - Labor and Demographic Economics
• Browse content in J1 - Demographic Economics
• J16 - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
• Browse content in J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
• J31 - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
• Browse content in J6 - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
• J64 - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
• Browse content in J7 - Labor Discrimination
• J71 - Discrimination
• Browse content in L - Industrial Organization
• Browse content in L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
• L24 - Contracting Out; Joint Ventures; Technology Licensing
• Browse content in M - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics
• M3 - Marketing and Advertising
• Browse content in O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth
• Browse content in O1 - Economic Development
• O10 - General
• O18 - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
• Browse content in O5 - Economywide Country Studies
• O57 - Comparative Studies of Countries
• Browse content in P - Economic Systems
• Browse content in P1 - Capitalist Systems
• P16 - Political Economy
• Browse content in Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics
• Browse content in Q0 - General
• Q02 - Commodity Markets
• Browse content in Q1 - Agriculture
• Q11 - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices
• Browse content in Q5 - Environmental Economics
• Q54 - Climate; Natural Disasters; Global Warming
• Browse content in R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics
• Browse content in R0 - General
• R00 - General
• Browse content in R1 - General Regional Economics
• R15 - Econometric and Input-Output Models; Other Models
• Browse content in R2 - Household Analysis
• R23 - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Site
• Open Access
• Self-Archiving Policy
• About The Econometrics Journal
• About the Royal Economic Society
• Editorial Board
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic
• < Previous

The impact of homework on student achievement

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Ozkan Eren, Daniel J. Henderson, The impact of homework on student achievement, The Econometrics Journal , Volume 11, Issue 2, 1 July 2008, Pages 326–348, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1368-423X.2008.00244.x

• Permissions Icon Permissions

Utilizing parametric and nonparametric techniques, we assess the role of a heretofore relatively unexplored ‘input’ in the educational process, homework, on academic achievement. Our results indicate that homework is an important determinant of student test scores. Relative to more standard spending related measures, extra homework has a larger and more significant impact on test scores. However, the effects are not uniform across different subpopulations. Specifically, we find additional homework to be most effective for high and low achievers, which is further confirmed by stochastic dominance analysis. Moreover, the parametric estimates of the educational production function overstate the impact of schooling related inputs. In all estimates, the homework coefficient from the parametric model maps to the upper deciles of the nonparametric coefficient distribution and as a by‐product the parametric model understates the percentage of students with negative responses to additional homework.

Royal Economic Society members

Personal account.

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code
• Add your ORCID iD

Institutional access

Sign in with a library card.

• Sign in with username/password
• Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Short-term Access

To purchase short-term access, please sign in to your personal account above.

Don't already have a personal account? Register

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Recommend to your Librarian

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1368-423X
• Print ISSN 1368-4221
• Copyright © 2024 Royal Economic Society
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Rights and permissions
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement?

• Share this story on facebook
• Share this story on twitter
• Share this story on reddit
• Share this story on linkedin
• Get this story's permalink
• Print this story

Educators should be thrilled by these numbers. Pleasing a majority of parents regarding homework and having equal numbers of dissenters shouting "too much!" and "too little!" is about as good as they can hope for.

But opinions cannot tell us whether homework works; only research can, which is why my colleagues and I have conducted a combined analysis of dozens of homework studies to examine whether homework is beneficial and what amount of homework is appropriate for our children.

The homework question is best answered by comparing students who are assigned homework with students assigned no homework but who are similar in other ways. The results of such studies suggest that homework can improve students' scores on the class tests that come at the end of a topic. Students assigned homework in 2nd grade did better on math, 3rd and 4th graders did better on English skills and vocabulary, 5th graders on social studies, 9th through 12th graders on American history, and 12th graders on Shakespeare.

Less authoritative are 12 studies that link the amount of homework to achievement, but control for lots of other factors that might influence this connection. These types of studies, often based on national samples of students, also find a positive link between time on homework and achievement.

Yet other studies simply correlate homework and achievement with no attempt to control for student differences. In 35 such studies, about 77 percent find the link between homework and achievement is positive. Most interesting, though, is these results suggest little or no relationship between homework and achievement for elementary school students.

Why might that be? Younger children have less developed study habits and are less able to tune out distractions at home. Studies also suggest that young students who are struggling in school take more time to complete homework assignments simply because these assignments are more difficult for them.

These recommendations are consistent with the conclusions reached by our analysis. Practice assignments do improve scores on class tests at all grade levels. A little amount of homework may help elementary school students build study habits. Homework for junior high students appears to reach the point of diminishing returns after about 90 minutes a night. For high school students, the positive line continues to climb until between 90 minutes and 2½ hours of homework a night, after which returns diminish.

Beyond achievement, proponents of homework argue that it can have many other beneficial effects. They claim it can help students develop good study habits so they are ready to grow as their cognitive capacities mature. It can help students recognize that learning can occur at home as well as at school. Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits. And it can give parents an opportunity to see what's going on at school and let them express positive attitudes toward achievement.

Opponents of homework counter that it can also have negative effects. They argue it can lead to boredom with schoolwork, since all activities remain interesting only for so long. Homework can deny students access to leisure activities that also teach important life skills. Parents can get too involved in homework -- pressuring their child and confusing him by using different instructional techniques than the teacher.

My feeling is that homework policies should prescribe amounts of homework consistent with the research evidence, but which also give individual schools and teachers some flexibility to take into account the unique needs and circumstances of their students and families. In general, teachers should avoid either extreme.

Link to this page

Copy and paste the URL below to share this page.

Homework Struggles May Not Be a Behavior Problem

Exploring some options to understand and help..

Posted August 2, 2022 | Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

• What Is Anxiety?
• Take our Generalized Anxiety Disorder Test
• Find a therapist to overcome anxiety
• Mental health challenges and neurodevelopmental differences directly affect children's ability to do homework.
• Understanding what difficulties are getting in the way—beyond the usual explanation of a behavior problem—is key.
• Sleep and mental health needs can take priority over homework completion.

Chelsea was in 10th grade the first time I told her directly to stop doing her homework and get some sleep. I had been working with her since she was in middle school, treating her anxiety disorder. She deeply feared disappointing anyone—especially her teachers—and spent hours trying to finish homework perfectly. The more tired and anxious she got, the harder it got for her to finish the assignments.

One night Chelsea called me in despair, feeling hopeless. She was exhausted and couldn’t think straight. She felt like a failure and that she was a burden to everyone because she couldn’t finish her homework.

She was shocked when I told her that my prescription for her was to go to sleep now—not to figure out how to finish her work. I told her to leave her homework incomplete and go to sleep. We briefly discussed how we would figure it out the next day, with her mom and her teachers. At that moment, it clicked for her that it was futile to keep working—because nothing was getting done.

This was an inflection point for her awareness of when she was emotionally over-cooked and when she needed to stop and take a break or get some sleep. We repeated versions of this phone call several times over the course of her high school and college years, but she got much better at being able to do this for herself most of the time.

When Mental Health Symptoms Interfere with Homework

Kids with mental health or neurodevelopmental challenges often struggle mightily with homework. Challenges can come up in every step of the homework process, including, but not limited to:

• Remembering and tracking assignments and materials
• Getting the mental energy/organization to start homework
• Filtering distractions enough to persist with assignments
• Understanding unspoken or implied parts of the homework
• Remembering to bring finished homework to class
• Being in class long enough to know the material
• Tolerating the fear of not knowing or failing
• Not giving up the assignment because of a panic attack
• Tolerating frustration—such as not understanding—without emotional dysregulation
• Being able to ask for help—from a peer or a teacher and not being afraid to reach out

This list is hardly comprehensive. ADHD , autism spectrum disorder, social anxiety , generalized anxiety, panic disorder, depression , dysregulation, and a range of other neurodevelopmental and mental health challenges cause numerous learning differences and symptoms that can specifically and frequently interfere with getting homework done.

The Usual Diagnosis for Homework Problems is "Not Trying Hard Enough"

Unfortunately, when kids frequently struggle to meet homework demands, teachers and parents typically default to one explanation of the problem: The child is making a choice not to do their homework. That is the default “diagnosis” in classrooms and living rooms. And once this framework is drawn, the student is often seen as not trying hard enough, disrespectful, manipulative, or just plain lazy.

The fundamental disconnect here is that the diagnosis of homework struggles as a behavioral choice is, in fact, only one explanation, while there are so many other diagnoses and differences that impair children's ability to consistently do their homework. If we are trying to create solutions based on only one understanding of the problem, the solutions will not work. More devastatingly, the wrong solutions can worsen the child’s mental health and their long-term engagement with school and learning.

To be clear, we aren’t talking about children who sometimes struggle with or skip homework—kids who can change and adapt their behaviors and patterns in response to the outcomes of that struggle. For this discussion, we are talking about children with mental health and/or neurodevelopmental symptoms and challenges that create chronic difficulties with meeting homework demands.

How Can You Help a Child Who Struggles with Homework?

How can you help your child who is struggling to meet homework demands because of their ADHD, depression, anxiety, OCD , school avoidance, or any other neurodevelopmental or mental health differences? Let’s break this down into two broad areas—things you can do at home, and things you can do in communication with the school.

Helping at Home

The following suggestions for managing school demands at home can feel counterintuitive to parents—because we usually focus on helping our kids to complete their tasks. But mental health needs jump the line ahead of task completion. And starting at home will be key to developing an idea of what needs to change at school.

• Set an end time in the evening after which no more homework will be attempted. Kids need time to decompress and they need sleep—and pushing homework too close to or past bedtime doesn’t serve their educational needs. Even if your child hasn’t been able to approach the homework at all, even if they have avoided and argued the whole evening, it is still important for everyone to have a predictable time to shut down the whole process.
• If there are arguments almost every night about homework, if your child isn’t starting homework or finishing it, reframe it from failure into information. It’s data to put into problem-solving. We need to consider other possible explanations besides “behavioral choice” when trying to understand the problem and create effective solutions. What problems are getting in the way of our child’s meeting homework demands that their peers are meeting most of the time?
• Try not to argue about homework. If you can check your own anxiety and frustration, it can be more productive to ally with your child and be curious with them. Kids usually can’t tell you a clear “why” but maybe they can tell you how they are feeling and what they are thinking. And if your child can’t talk about it or just keeps saying “I don't know,” try not to push. Come back another time. Rushing, forcing, yelling, and threatening will predictably not help kids do homework.

Helping at School

The second area to explore when your neurodiverse child struggles frequently with homework is building communication and connections with school and teachers. Some places to focus on include the following.

• Label your child’s diagnoses and break down specific symptoms for the teachers and school team. Nonjudgmental, but specific language is essential for teachers to understand your child’s struggles. Breaking their challenges down into the problems specific to homework can help with building solutions. As your child gets older, help them identify their difficulties and communicate them to teachers.
• Let teachers and the school team know that your child’s mental health needs—including sleep—take priority over finishing homework. If your child is always struggling to complete homework and get enough sleep, or if completing homework is leading to emotional meltdowns every night, adjusting their homework demands will be more successful than continuing to push them into sleep deprivation or meltdowns.
• Request a child study team evaluation to determine if your child qualifies for services under special education law such as an IEP, or accommodations through section 504—and be sure that homework adjustments are included in any plan. Or if such a plan is already in place, be clear that modification of homework expectations needs to be part of it.

The Long-Term Story

I still work with Chelsea and she recently mentioned how those conversations so many years ago are still part of how she approaches work tasks or other demands that are spiking her anxiety when she finds herself in a vortex of distress. She stops what she is doing and prioritizes reducing her anxiety—whether it’s a break during her day or an ending to the task for the evening. She sees that this is crucial to managing her anxiety in her life and still succeeding at what she is doing.

Task completion at all costs is not a solution for kids with emotional needs. Her story (and the story of many of my patients) make this crystal clear.

Candida Fink, M.D. , is board certified in child/adolescent and general psychiatry. She practices in New York and has co-authored two books— The Ups and Downs of Raising a Bipolar Child and Bipolar Disorder for Dummies.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Online Therapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Self Tests NEW
• Therapy Center
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

It’s increasingly common for someone to be diagnosed with a condition such as ADHD or autism as an adult. A diagnosis often brings relief, but it can also come with as many questions as answers.

• Emotional Intelligence
• Gaslighting
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

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]

Homework, Sleep, and the Student Brain

Your content has been saved!

At some point, every parent wishes their high school aged student would go to bed earlier as well as find time to pursue their own passions -- or maybe even choose to relax. This thought reemerged as I reread Anna Quindlen's commencement speech, A Short Guide to a Happy Life. The central message of this address, never actually stated, was: "Get a life."

But what prevents students from "getting a life," especially between September and June? One answer is homework.

Favorable Working Conditions

As a history teacher at St. Andrew's Episcopal School and director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning , I want to be clear that I both give and support the idea of homework. But homework, whether good or bad, takes time and often cuts into each student's sleep, family dinner, or freedom to follow passions outside of school. For too many students, homework is too often about compliance and "not losing points" rather than about learning.

Most schools have a philosophy about homework that is challenged by each parent's experience doing homework "back in the day." Parents' common misconception is that the teachers and schools giving more homework are more challenging and therefore better teachers and schools. This is a false assumption. The amount of homework your son or daughter does each night should not be a source of pride for the quality of a school. In fact, I would suggest a different metric when evaluating your child's homework. Are you able to stay up with your son or daughter until he or she finishes those assignments? If the answer is no, then too much homework is being assigned, and you both need more of the sleep that, according to Daniel T. Willingham , is crucial to memory consolidation.

I have often joked with my students, while teaching the Progressive Movement and rise of unions between the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, that they should consider striking because of how schools violate child labor laws. If school is each student's "job," then students are working hours usually assigned to Washington, DC lawyers (combing the hours of the school day, school-sponsored activities, and homework). This would certainly be a risky strategy for changing how schools and teachers think about homework, but it certainly would gain attention. (If any of my students are reading this, don't try it!)

So how can we change things?

The Scientific Approach

In the study "What Great Homework Looks Like" from the journal Think Differently and Deeply , which connects research in how the brain learns to the instructional practice of teachers, we see moderate advantages of no more than two hours of homework for high school students. For younger students, the correlation is even smaller. Homework does teach other important, non-cognitive skills such as time management, sustained attention, and rule following, but let us not mask that as learning the content and skills that most assignments are supposed to teach.

Homework can be a powerful learning tool -- if designed and assigned correctly. I say "learning," because good homework should be an independent moment for each student or groups of students through virtual collaboration. It should be challenging and engaging enough to allow for deliberate practice of essential content and skills, but not so hard that parents are asked to recall what they learned in high school. All that usually leads to is family stress.

But even when good homework is assigned, it is the student's approach that is critical. A scientific approach to tackling their homework can actually lead to deepened learning in less time. The biggest contributor to the length of a student's homework is task switching. Too often, students jump between their work on an assignment and the lure of social media. But I have found it hard to convince students of the cost associated with such task switching. Imagine a student writing an essay for AP English class or completing math proofs for their honors geometry class. In the middle of the work, their phone announces a new text message. This is a moment of truth for the student. Should they address that text before or after they finish their assignment?

Delayed Gratification

When a student chooses to check their text, respond and then possibly take an extended dive into social media, they lose a percentage of the learning that has already happened. As a result, when they return to the AP essay or honors geometry proof, they need to retrace their learning in order to catch up to where they were. This jump, between homework and social media, is actually extending the time a student spends on an assignment. My colleagues and I coach our students to see social media as a reward for finishing an assignment. Delaying gratification is an important non-cognitive skill and one that research has shown enhances life outcomes (see the Stanford Marshmallow Test ).

At my school, the goal is to reduce the barriers for each student to meet his or her peak potential without lowering the bar. Good, purposeful homework should be part of any student's learning journey. But it takes teachers to design better homework (which can include no homework at all on some nights), parents to not see hours of homework as a measure of school quality, and students to reflect on their current homework strategies while applying new, research-backed ones. Together, we can all get more sleep -- and that, research shows, is very good for all of our brains and for each student's learning.

• svg]:fill-accent-900">

Kids are onto something: Homework might actually be bad

By Stan Horaczek

Posted on Sep 23, 2021 8:00 AM EDT

When you’re a kid, your stance on homework is generally pretty simple: It’s the worst. When it comes to educators, parents, and school administrators, however, the topic gets a lot more complicated. 

Collective educational enthusiasm toward homework has ebbed and flowed throughout the 20th century in the US. School districts began abolishing homework in the ‘30s and ‘40s, only for it to come roaring back as the space race kicked off in the late ‘50s and drove a desire for sharper math and science skills. It fell out of fashion again during the Vietnam War era before it came back strong in the ‘80s .

As the country mostly transitions back to full-time, in-person schooling, the available research on homework and its efficacy is still messy at best. 

How much homework are kids doing?

There’s a fundamental issue at the very start of this discussion: we’re not entirely sure how much homework kids are actually doing. A 2019 Pew survey found that teens were spending considerably more time doing schoolwork at home than they had in the past—an hour a day, on average, compared to 44 minutes a decade ago and just 30 in the mid-1990s. 

But other data disagrees , instead suggesting that homework expansion primarily affects children in lower grades. But it’s worth noting that such arguments typically refer to data from more than a decade ago. 

How much homework are kids supposed to be doing?

Many schools subscribe to a “rule of thumb” that suggests students should get 10 minutes of homework for each grade level. So, first graders should get just 10 minutes of work to do at home while high schoolers should be cracking the books for up to two hours each night. 

This once served as the official guidance for educators from the National Education Association, as well as the National PTA. It also serves as the official homework policy for many school districts, even though the NEA’s outline of  the policy now leads to an error page . The National PTA also now relies on a less-specific resolution on homework which encourages districts and educators to focus on “quality over quantity.”

The PTA’s resolution effectively sums up the current dominant perspective on homework. “The National PTA and its constituent associations advocate that teachers, schools, and districts follow evidence-based guidelines regarding the use of homework assignments and its impact on children’s lives and family interactions.”

Even with these well-known standards, a study from researchers at Brown University, Brandeis University, Rhode Island College, Dean College, the Children’s National Medical Center, and the New England Center for Pediatric Psychology, found that younger children were still getting more than the recommended amount of homework by two or three times . First and second graders were doing roughly 30 minutes of homework every night. 

Does homework make kids smarter?

In the mid-2000s, a Duke researcher named Harris Cooper led up one of the most comprehensive looks at homework efficacy to-date. The research set out to explore the perceived correlation between homework and achievement. The results showed a general correlation between homework and achievement. Cooper reported, “No strong evidence was found for an association between the homework–achievement link and the outcome measure (grades as opposed to standardized tests) or the subject matter (reading as opposed to math).” 

The paper does suggest that the correlation strengthens after 7th grade—but it’s likely not a causal relationship. In an interview with the NEA , Cooper explains, “It’s also worth noting that these correlations with older students are likely caused, not only by homework helping achievement but also by kids who have higher achievement levels doing more homework.”

A 2012 study looked at more than 18,000 10th-grade students and concluded that increasing homework loads could be the result of too much material with insufficient instructional time in the classroom. “The overflow typically results in more homework assignments,” the lead researcher said in a statement from the University. “However, students spending more time on something that is not easy to understand or needs to be explained by a teacher does not help these students learn and, in fact, may confuse them.”

Even in that case, however, the research provided somewhat conflicting results that are hard to reconcile. While the study found a positive association between time spent on homework and scores on standardized tests, students who did homework didn’t generally get better grades than kids who didn’t. 

Can homework hurt kids?

It seems antithetical, but some research suggests that homework can actually hinder achievement and, in some cases, students’ overall health. 

A 2013 study looked at a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper middle class communities. The results showed that “students who did more hours of homework experienced greater behavioral engagement in school but also more academic stress, physical health problems, and lack of balance in their lives.” And that’s in affluent districts. 

When you add economic inequity into the equation, homework’s prognosis looks even worse. Research suggests that increased homework can help widen the achievement gap between low-income and economically advantaged students ; the latter group is more likely to have a safe and appropriate place to do schoolwork at night, as well as to have caregivers with the time and academic experience to encourage them to get it done. 

That doesn’t mean financially privileged kids are guaranteed to benefit from hours of worksheets and essays. Literature supporting homework often suggests that it gives parents an opportunity to participate in the educational process as well as monitor a child’s progress and learning. Opponents, however, contest that parental involvement can actually hurt achievement. A 2014 research survey showed that help from parents who have forgotten the material (or who never really understood it) can actually harm a student’s ability to learn. 

The digital homework divide

Access to reliable high-speed internet also presents an unfortunate opportunity for inequity when it comes to at-home learning. Even with COVID-era initiatives expanding programs to provide broadband to underserved areas, millions of households still lack access to fast, reliable internet . 

As more homework assignments migrate to online environments instead of paper, those students without reliable home internet have to make other arrangements to complete their assignments in school or somewhere else outside the home. 

How do we make homework work?

Some experts suggest decoupling homework from students’ overall grades. A 2009 paper suggests that, while homework can be an effective tool for monitoring progress, assigning a grade can actually undercut the main purpose of the work by encouraging students to focus on their scores instead of mastering the material. The study recommends nuanced feedback instead of numbered grades to keep the emphasis on learning—which has the added benefit of minimizing consequences for kids with tougher at-home circumstances. 

Making homework more useful for kids may also come down to picking the right types of assignments. There’s a well-worn concept in psychology known as the spacing effect , which suggests it’s easier to learn material revisited several times in short bursts rather than during long study sessions. This supports the idea that shorter assignments can be more beneficial than heavy workloads.  Many homework opponents add that at-home assignments should appeal to a child’s innate curiosity. It’s easy to find anecdotal evidence from educators who have stopped assigning homework only to find that their students end up participating in more self-guided learning. As kids head back into physical school buildings, the homework debate will no doubt continue on. Hopefully, the research will go with it.

Is your head constantly spinning with outlandish, mind-burning questions? If you’ve ever wondered what the universe is made of, what would happen if you fell into a black hole, or even why not everyone can touch their toes, then you should be sure to listen and subscribe to Ask Us Anything, a podcast from the editors of Popular Science. Ask Us Anything hits  Apple ,  Anchor ,  Spotify , and everywhere else you listen to podcasts. Each episode takes a deep dive into a single query we know you’ll want to stick around for.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

The PMC website is updating on October 15, 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Front Psychol

Academic Goals, Student Homework Engagement, and Academic Achievement in Elementary School

Antonio valle.

1 Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain

Bibiana Regueiro

José c. núñez.

2 Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

Susana Rodríguez

Isabel piñeiro, pedro rosário.

3 Departmento de Psicologia Aplicada, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal

There seems to be a general consensus in the literature that doing homework is beneficial for students. Thus, the current challenge is to examine the process of doing homework to find which variables may help students to complete the homework assigned. To address this goal, a path analysis model was fit. The model hypothesized that the way students engage in homework is explained by the type of academic goals set, and it explains the amount of time spend on homework, the homework time management, and the amount of homework done. Lastly, the amount of homework done is positively related to academic achievement. The model was fit using a sample of 535 Spanish students from the last three courses of elementary school (aged 9 to 13). Findings show that: (a) academic achievement was positively associated with the amount of homework completed, (b) the amount of homework completed was related to the homework time management, (c) homework time management was associated with the approach to homework, (d) and the approach to homework, like the rest of the variables of the model (except for the time spent on homework), was related to the student's academic motivation (i.e., academic goals).

Introduction

Literature indicates that doing homework regularly is positively associated with students' academic achievement (Zimmerman and Kitsantas, 2005 ). Hence, as expected, the amount of homework done is one of the variables that shows a strong and positive relationship with academic achievement (Cooper et al., 2001 ).

It seems consensual in the literature that doing homework is always beneficial to students, but it is also true that the key for the academic success does not rely on the amount of homework done, but rather on how students engage on homework (Trautwein et al., 2009 ; Núñez et al., 2015c ), and on how homework engagement is related with student motivation (Martin, 2012 ). There is, therefore, a call to analyze the process of homework rather than just the product; that is, to examine the extent to which the quality of the process of doing homework may be relevant to the final outcome.

Trautwein's model of homework

The model by Trautwein et al. ( 2006b ) is rooted in the motivational theories, namely the theory of the expectancy value (Eccles (Parsons) et al., 1983 ; Pintrich and De Groot, 1990 ), and the theory of self-determination (Deci et al., 2002 ), as well as on theories of learning and instruction (Boekaerts, 1999 ). Trautwein and colleagues' model analyzes students' related variables in two blocks, as follows: the motivational (aiming at directing and sustaining the behavior) and the cognitive and behavioral implications (cognitions and behaviors related to the moment of doing homework).These two blocks of variables are rooted in the literature. Motivational variables are related with the theory of expectancy-value by Eccles (Parsons) et al. ( 1983 ), while the variables addressing students' implication are related with the school engagement framework (e.g., Fredricks et al., 2004 ). However, as Eccles and Wang ( 2012 ) stress, both models are interrelated due to the fact that both variables are closely related and show reciprocal relationships.

Student homework engagement: the interplay between cognitive and behavioral components

Engagement is a relatively new construct with great relevance in the field of psychology and instruction (Fredricks et al., 2004 ). Generally considered, engagement has been described as the active implication of the person in an activity (Reeve et al., 2004 ). However, despite the close relation between engagement and motivation, literature clearly differentiates between them (e.g., Martin, 2012 ), stressing engagement as the behavioral manifestation of motivation (Skinner and Pitzer, 2012 ), or arguing that motivation is a precursor of engagement rather than part of it. In sum, motivation relates to the “why” whereas the engagement focuses on the “what” of a particular behavior.

Consistent with this perspective, the current research fitted a model with the variable engagement mediating the relationship between motivation and academic achievement (see Eccles and Wang, 2012 ). Engagement is a complex construct with observational and non-observational aspects (Appleton et al., 2008 ). Some researchers conceptualize engagement with two dimensions—behavior and emotions (e.g., Marks, 2000 )—while others define engagement with four dimensions—academic, behavioral, cognitive, and emotional (e.g., Appleton et al., 2006 ). In the current study, we followed Fredricks' et al. ( 2004 ) conceptualization of engagement as a construct with three dimensions: cognitive (e.g., approaches to learning), behavioral (e.g., student homework behaviors), and emotional (e.g., interest, boredom). For the purpose of the present study, the dimension of emotion was not included in the model (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ).

General model hypothesized to explain the relationship between academic motivation, student homework engagement, and academic achievement .

Cognitive homework engagement

In the past few decades, a robust body of research has been addressing the relationship between the way students deal with their learning process and academic outcomes (Marton and Säljö, 1976a , b ; Struyven et al., 2006 ; Rosário et al., 2010a , 2013a ). Marton and Säljö ( 1976a , b ) examined how students studied an academic text and found two ways of approaching the task: a surface and a deep approach. The surface approach is characterized by learning the contents aiming at achieving goals that are extrinsic to the learning content. In contrast, the deep approach is characterized by an intrinsic interest in the task and students are likely to be focused on understanding the learning content, relating it to prior knowledge and to the surrounding environment (Entwistle, 2009 ; Rosário et al., 2010b ). The metaphor “surface vs. deep” constitutes an easy to perceive conceptual framework, both in the classroom setting and in other educational settings (i.e., doing homework at home), and has been shown to be a powerful tool for parents, teachers, and students when conceptualizing the ways students approach school tasks (Entwistle, 1991 ; Rosário et al., 2005 ). The core of the concept of approaches to studying (or to learning) is the metacognitive connection between an intention to approach a task and a strategy to implement it (Rosário et al., 2013b ).

The process of doing homework focuses on what students do when completing homework, that is, how they approach their work and how they manage their personal resources and settings while doing homework. It is likely that students' approaches to homework may influence not only the final homework outcome but also the quality of that process. Students who adopt a deep approach are likely to engage their homework with the intention of deepening their understanding of the knowledge learned in class. In this process, students often relate the homework exercises to prior knowledge and monitor their mastery of the content learned. This process involves intrinsic intention to understand the ideas and the use of strategies to build meaning (Cano et al., 2014 ). In contrast, students who approach homework with a surface approach are likely to do homework with extrinsic motivation (e.g., rewards of their parents, fear of upsetting their teacher). Their goals may target finishing homework as soon as and with the less effort possible to be able to do more interesting activities. Students using this approach are more likely to do homework to fulfill an external obligation (e.g., hand in homework in class and get a grade), than for the benefits for learning.

Behavioral homework engagement

Findings from prior research indicate that the more the implication of students in doing their homework the better the academic achievement (Cooper et al., 2006 ). Following Trautwein et al. ( 2006b ), our conceptualization of student homework engagement includes behaviors related with the amount of homework done, time spent on homework, and homework time management (e.g., concentration). In the present investigation, these three variables were included in the model (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ).

Extant findings on the relationship between the amount of homework done and academic achievement are in need of further clarification. Some authors argue for a strong and positive relationship (e.g., Cooper et al., 2006 ), while others found that this relationship is higher throughout schooling (Cooper et al., 2001 ; Zimmerman and Kitsantas, 2005 ). Authors explained this last finding arguing that the load of homework assigned by teachers vary throughout schooling, and also that the cognitive competencies of students are likely to vary with age (Muhlenbruck et al., 2000 ). More recently, Núñez et al. ( 2015c ) found that the relationship between these two variables varied as a function of the age of the students enrolled. Particularly, this relationship was found to be negative in elementary school, null in junior high school, and positive in high school.

Moreover, the relationship between the amount of homework done and academic achievement relates, among other factors, with the students' age, the quality of the homework assigned, the type of assessment, and the nature of the feedback provided. For example, some students may always complete their homework and get good grades for doing it, which does not mean that these students learn more (Kohn, 2006 ). In fact, more important than the quantity of the homework done, is the quality of that work (Fernández-Alonso et al., 2014 ).

Another variable included in the model was the time spent on homework. Findings on the relationship between time spent on homework and academic achievement are mixed. Some studies found a positive relationship (Cooper et al., 2001 , 2006 ) while others found a null or a negative one (Trautwein et al., 2006b , 2009 ). In 2009, Dettmers, Trautwein and Lüdtke conducted a study with data from the PISA 2003 (Dettmers et al., 2009 ). Findings on the relationship between the number of hours spent on homework and academic achievement in mathematics show that the students in countries with higher grades spend fewer hours doing homework than students in countries with low academic grades. At the student level, findings showed a negative relationship between time spent on homework and academic achievement in 12 out of 40 countries.

The relationship between the amount of homework done, time dedicated to homework, and academic achievement was hypothesized to be mediated by the homework time management. Xu ( 2007 ) was one of the pioneers examining the management of the time spent on homework. Initially, Xu ( 2007 ) did not find a relationship between time management and academic achievement (spend more time on homework is not equal to use efficient strategies for time management). Latter, Xu ( 2010 ) found a positive relationship between students' grade level, organized environment, and homework time management. More recently, Núñez et al. ( 2015c ) found that effective homework time management affects positively the amount of homework done, and, consequently, academic achievement. This relationship is stronger for elementary students when compared with students in high school.

Academic motivation and student homework engagement relationship

Literature has consistently shown that a deep approach to learning is associated positively with the quality of the learning outcomes (Rosário et al., 2013b ; Cano et al., 2014 ; Vallejo et al., 2014 ). The adoption of a deep approach to homework depends on many factors, but students self-set goals and their motives for doing homework are among the most critical motivational variables when students decide to engage in homework.

Literature on achievement motivation highlights academic goals as an important line of research (Ng, 2008 ). In the educational setting, whereas learning goals focus on the comprehension and mastery of the content, performance goals are more focused on achieving a better performance than their colleagues (Pajares et al., 2000 ; Gaudreau, 2012 ).

Extant literature reports a positive relationship between adopting learning goals and the use of cognitive and self-regulation strategies (Elliot et al., 1999 ; Núñez et al., 2013 ). In fact, students who value learning and show an intention to learn and improve their competences are likely to use deep learning strategies (Suárez et al., 2001 ; Valle et al., 2003a , b , 2015d ), which are aimed at understanding the content in depth. Moreover, these learning-goal oriented students are likely to self-regulate their learning process (Valle et al., 2015a ), put on effort to learn, and assume the control of their learning process (Rosário et al., 2016 ). These students persist much longer when they face difficult and challenging tasks than colleagues pursuing performance goals. The former also use more strategies oriented toward the comprehension of content, are more intrinsically motivated, and feel more enthusiasm about academic work. Some researchers also found positive relationships between learning goals and pro-social behavior (e.g., Inglés et al., 2013 ).

Reviewing the differentiation between learning goals and performance goals, Elliot and colleagues (Elliot and Church, 1997 ; Elliot, 1999 ; Elliot et al., 1999 ) proposed a three-dimensional framework for academic goals. In addition to learning goals, performance goals were differentiated as follows: (a) performance-approach goals, focused on achieving competence with regard to others; and (b) performance-avoidance goals, aimed at avoiding incompetence with regard to others. Various studies have provided empirical support for this distinction within performance goals (e.g., Wolters et al., 1996 ; Middleton and Midgley, 1997 ; Skaalvik, 1997 ; Rodríguez et al., 2001 ; Valle et al., 2006 ). Moreover, some authors proposed a similar differentiation for learning goals (Elliot, 1999 ). The rationale was as follows: learning goals are characterized by high engagement in academic tasks, so an avoidance tendency in such goals should reflect avoidance of this engagement. Hence, students who pursue a work avoidance goal are likely to avoid challenging tasks and to put on effort to do well, only doing the bare minimum to complete the task. In general, learning goals are associated with a large amount of positive results in diverse motivational, cognitive, and achievement outcomes, whereas performance goals have been linked to less adaptive outcomes, or even to negative outcomes (Valle et al., 2009 ).

Aims of this study

Several relationships between motivational, cognitive, and behavioral variables involving self-regulated learning in the classroom have recently been studied (Rosário et al., 2013a ). However, there is a lack of knowledge of the relationships between these variables throughout the process of doing homework.

The principal purpose of this work (see Figure ​ Figure1) 1 ) is to analyze how student homework engagement (cognitive and behavioral) mediates motivation and academic performance. This study aims to provide new information about an issue that is taken for granted, but which, as far as we know, lacks empirical data. The question is: to what extent students acknowledge homework as a good way to acquire competence, improve their skills and performance? Our working hypothesis is that student value homework in this regard. Therefore, we hypothesized that the more students are motivated to learn, the more they will be involved (cognitively and behaviorally) in their homework, and the higher their academic achievement.

To address this goal, we developed a path analysis model (see Figure ​ Figure1) 1 ) in which we hypothesized that: (a) the student's motivational level is significantly related to their cognitive homework engagement (i.e., the approach to studying applied to homework), and their behavioral homework engagement (i.e., amount of time spent and homework time management, and amount of homework completed); (b) student's cognitive and behavioral homework engagement are positively associated with academic achievement; and (c) cognitive and behavioral homework engagement are related (the more deep cognitive engagement, the more time spent and time management, and the more amount of homework is done).

Participants

The study enrolled 535 students, aged between 9 and 13 ( M = 10.32, SD = 0.99), of four public schools, from the last three years of the Spanish Elementary Education (4th, 5th, and 6th grade level), of whom 49.3% were boys. By grade, 40.4% ( n = 216) were enrolled in the 4th grade, 35.1% ( n = 188) in the 5th grade, and 24.5% ( n = 131) in the 6th grade.

Learning goals

The level and type of motivation for academic learning was assessed with the Academic Goals Instrument (Núñez et al., 1997 ). Although, this instrument allows differentiating a broad range of academic goals, for the purposes of this work, we only used the subscale of learning goals (i.e., competence and control). The instrument is rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with responses ranging from one (not at all interested) to five (absolutely interested in learning and acquiring competence and control in the different subjects). An example item is: “I make an effort in my studies because performing the academic tasks allows me to increase my knowledge.” The reliability of the scale is good (α = 0.87).

Approach to homework

To measure the process of approaching homework, we adapted the Students' Approaches to Learning Inventory (Rosário et al., 2010a , 2013a ), taking into account both the students' age and the homework contexts. This instrument is based on voluminous literature on approaches to learning (e.g., Biggs et al., 2001 ; Rosário et al., 2005 ), and provides information about two ways of approaching homework. For the purpose of this research, we only used the deep approach (e.g., “Before starting homework, I usually decide whether what was taught in class is clear and, if not, I review the lesson before I start”). Students respond to the items on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from one (not at all deep approach) to five (completely deep approach). The reliability of the scale is good (α = 0.80).

Time spent on homework, homework time management, and amount of homework completed

To measure these three variables, we used the Homework Survey (e.g., Rosário et al., 2009 ; Núñez et al., 2015a , b ; Valle et al., 2015b , c ). To measure the time spent on homework , students responded to three items (in general, in a typical week, on a typical weekend) with the general formulation, “How much time do you usually spend on homework?,” with the response options 1, <30 min; 2, 30 min to 1 h; 3, 1 h to an hour and a half; 4, 1 h and a half to 2 h; 5, more than 2 h. Homework time management was measured through the responses to three items (in general, in a typical week, on a typical weekend) in which they were asked to indicate how they managed the time normally spent doing homework, using the following scale: 1, I waste it completely (I am constantly distracted by anything); 2, I waste it more than I should; 3, regular; 4, I manage it pretty much; 5, I optimize it completely (I concentrate and until I finish, I don't think about anything else). Finally, the amount of homework completed by students (assigned by teachers) was assessed through responses to an item about the amount of homework usually done, using a 5-point Likert-type scale (1, none; 2, some; 3, one half; 4, almost all; 5, all).

Academic achievement

Assessment of academic achievement was assessed through students' report card grades in Spanish Language, Galician Language, English Language, Knowledge of the Environment, and Mathematics. Average achievement was calculated with the mean grades in these five areas.

Data of the target variables was collected during regular school hours, by research assistants, after obtaining the consent of the school administration and of the teachers and students. Prior to the application of the questionnaires, which took place in a single session, the participants were informed about the goals of the project, and assured that data was confidential and used for research purposes only.

Data analysis

The model was fit with AMOS 18 (Arbuckle, 2009 ). The data were previously analyzed and individual cases presenting a significant number of missing values were eliminated (2.1%), whereas the rest of the missing values were replaced by the mean. Taking into account the analysis of the characteristics of the variables (e.g., skewness and kurtosis in Table ​ Table1), 1 ), we used the maximum likelihood method to fit the model and estimate the values of the parameters.

Means, standard deviations, skewness, kurtosis, and correlation matrix of the target variables .

A series of goodness-of-fit statistics were used to analyze our model. Beyond chi-square (χ 2 ) and its associated probability ( p ), the information provided by the goodness-of-fit index (GFI) and the adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI; Jöreskog and Sörbom, 1983 ); the comparative fit index (CFI) (Bentler, 1990 ); and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA; Browne and Cudeck, 1993 ) was used. According to these authors, the model fits well when GFI and AGFI > 0.90, CFI > 0.95, and RMSEA ≤ 0.05.

Descriptive analysis

The relations between the variables included in the model as well as the descriptive statistics are shown in Table ​ Table1. 1 . All the variables were significantly and positively related, except for the time spent on homework, which was only related to the amount of homework done. According to the value of the means of these variables, students in the last years of elementary school: (a) reported a high level of motivation to learn and mastery; (b) used preferentially a deep approach to homework; (c) did the homework assigned by the teachers most of the times; (d) usually spent about an hour a day on homework; (e) reported to manage their study time effectively; and (f) showed a medium-high level of academic achievement.

Evaluation and re-specification of the initial model

The data obtained indicated that the initial model (see Figure ​ Figure1) 1 ) presented a poor fit to the empirical data: χ 2 = 155.80, df = 8, p < 0.001, GFI = 0.917, AGFI = 0.783, TLI = 0.534, CFI = 0.751, RMSEA = 0.186, 90% CI (0.161, 0.212), p < 0.001. Analysis of the modification indexes revealed the need to include three direct effects initially considered as null, and to eliminate a finally null effect (included in the initial model as significant). The strategy adopted to modify the initial model involved including and estimating the model each time a new effect was included. The final model comprised three effects (academic goals on homework time management, on amount of homework done, and on academic achievement) and the elimination of the initially established effect of the approach to studying on the time spent doing homework. The inclusion or elimination of the effects in the model was determined accounting for their statistical and theoretical significance. The final model resulting from these modifications is shown in Figure ​ Figure2, 2 , with an adequate fit to the empirical data: χ 2 = 12.03, df = 6, p = 0.061, GFI = 0.993, AGFI = 0.974, TLI = 0.975, CFI = 0.990, RMSEA = 0.043, 90% CI (0.000, 0.079), p = 0.567.

The results of the fit of the hypothesized model (standardized outcomes): Relations in dashed lines were found to be statistically significant, but this was not established in the initial model .

Assessment of the relationships on the final model

Table ​ Table2 2 presents the data obtained for the relationships considered in the final model (see also Figure ​ Figure2 2 ).

Fit of the hypothesized model (standardized outcomes): final model of student engagement in homework .

The data from Table ​ Table2 2 and Figure ​ Figure2 2 indicates that the majority of the relationships between the variables are consistent with the hypotheses. First, we found a statistically significant association between the learning goals (i.e., competence and control), the approach to homework ( b = 0.50, p < 0.001), two of the variables associated with engagement in homework (the amount of homework done [ b = 0.27, p < 0.001], homework time management [ b = 0.30, p < 0.001]), and academic achievement ( b = 0.34, p < 0.001). These results indicate that the more oriented students are toward learning goals (i.e., competence and control), the deeper the approach to homework, the more homework is completed, the better the homework time management, and the higher the academic achievement.

Second, a statistically significant association between the deep approach and homework time management ( b = 0.30, p < 0.001) and the amount of homework done ( b = 0.09, p < 0.05) was found. These results reflect that the deeper the students' approach to homework, the better the management of the time spent on homework, and the more the homework done. Third, there was a statistically significant association between homework time management, time spent on homework, and the amount of homework done ( b = 0.23, p < 0.001, and b = 0.10, p < 0.01, respectively). These results confirm, as expected, that the more time students spent doing homework and the better students manage their homework time, the more homework they will do. Four, we found a statistically significant relation between the amount of homework done and academic achievement ( b = 0.20, p < 0.001). This indicates that the more homework students complete the better their academic achievement.

In summary, our findings indicate that: (a) academic achievement is positively associated with the amount of homework completed; (b) the amount of homework done is related to homework time management; (c) homework time management is associated with how homework is done (approach to homework); and (d) consistent with the behavior of the variables in the model (except for the time spent on homework), how homework is done (i.e., approach to homework) is explained to a great extent (see total effects in Table ​ Table3) 3 ) by the student's type of academic motivation.

Standardized direct, indirect, and total effects for the final model .

Finally, taking into account both the direct effects (represented in Figure ​ Figure2) 2 ) and the indirect ones (see Table ​ Table3), 3 ), the model explained between 20 and 30% of the variance of the dependent variables (except for the time spent on homework, which is not explained at all): approach to homework (24.7%), time management (26.9%), amount of homework done (24.4%), and academic achievement (21.6%).

Consistent with prior research (e.g., Cooper et al., 2001 ), our findings showed that students' academic achievement in the last years of elementary education is closely related to the amount of homework done. In addition, the present study also confirms the importance of students' effort and commitment to doing homework (Trautwein et al., 2006a , b ), showing that academic achievement is also related with students' desire and interest to learn and improve their skills. Therefore, when teachers assign homework, it is essential to attend to students' typical approach to learning, which is mediated by the motivational profile and by the way students solve the tasks proposed (Hong et al., 2004 ). The results of this investigation suggest that the adoption of learning goals leads to important educational benefits (Meece et al., 2006 ), among which is doing homework.

Importantly, our study shows that the amount of homework done is associated not only with the time spent, but also with the time management. Time spent on homework should not be considered an absolute indicator of the amount of homework done, because students' cognitive skills, motivation, and prior knowledge may significantly affect the time needed to complete the homework assignment (Regueiro et al., 2015 ). For students, managing homework time is a challenge (Corno, 2000 ; Xu, 2008 ), but doing it correctly may have a positive influence on their academic success (Claessens et al., 2007 ), on homework completion (Xu, 2005 ), and on school achievement (Eilam, 2001 ).

Despite, that previous studies reported a positive relationship between the time spent on homework and academic achievement (Cooper et al., 2006 ), the present research shows that time spent on homework is not a relevant predictor of academic achievement. Other studies have also obtained similar results (Trautwein et al., 2009 ; Núñez et al., 2015a ), indicating that time spent on homework is negatively associated to academic achievement, perhaps because spending a lot of time on homework may indicate an inefficient working style and lack of motivation (Núñez et al., 2015a ). Besides, our data indicates that spending more time on homework is positively associated to the amount of homework done.

Although, some studies have found that students who spend more time on homework also tend to report greater commitment to school work (Galloway et al., 2013 ), our findings indicated that spending more time doing homework was not related to a deeper engagement on the task. A possible explanation may be that using a deep approach to school tasks subsumes engaging in homework with the aim of practicing but also to further extend the content learned in class. This approach does not depends on the time spent doing homework, rather on the students' motives for doing homework.

Another important contribution of this study concerns learning-oriented goals—usually associated with positive outcomes in motivational, cognitive, and achievement variables (Pajares et al., 2000 ). Results indicate that the motivation to increase competence and learning is also related to approaching homework deeply and to manage homework efficiently. Consistent with previous findings (Xu, 2005 ), these results provide additional empirical support to time management goals (Pintrich, 2004 ).

There is a robust relationship between learning-oriented goals and a deep approach, and between a deep approach and the amount of homework done. All this indicates that these results are in line with prior research, meaning that the adoption of a deep approach to learning is related with high quality academic achievement (Lindblom-Ylänne and Lonka, 1999 ; Rosário et al., 2013b ).

Educational implications and study limitations

One of the major limitations of this study lies in the type of research design used. We used a cross-sectional design to examine the effects among the variables within a path analysis model. However, to establish a cause-effect relationship a temporal sequence between two variables is needed a requirement that can only be met with longitudinal designs. Future studies should consider address this limitation.

Despite the above limitation, our results can be considered relevant and show important educational implications. It is essential for teachers and school administrators to be sensitized about the effects of teachers' homework follow-up practices on students' homework engagement (Rosário et al., 2015 ), and of these variables in students' school engagement and academic success. Likewise, research on students' learning should be undertaken from the perspective of the learners to understand how students use their knowledge and skills to do homework and to solve problems posed therein. On the other hand, research should examine in-depth the use of learning strategies during homework, as well as how students' motivations at an early age may foster homework completion and increase the quality of school outcomes. For this last purpose, teachers should pay attention not only to the acquisition of curricular content but also to the development of the appropriate thinking skills and self-regulated learning strategies (Rosário et al., 2010b ; Núñez et al., 2013 ). Finally, the amount of homework done and its positive relationship with academic achievement should be considered as a final outcome of a process rooted on a comprehensive and meaningful learning. Students motivated to learn are likely to approach homework deeply and manage homework time efficaciously. As a result, they tend to do more homework and outperform. In sum, is doing homework a good way to acquire competence, improve skills, and outperform? Our data suggest a positive answer.

Author contributions

AV and BR Collect data, data analysis, writing the paper. JN and PR data analysis, writing the paper. SR and IP writing the paper.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

This work was developed through the funding of the research project EDU2013-44062-P, of the State Plan of Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation 2013-2016 (MINECO) and to the financing received by one of the authors in the FPU program of the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport.

• Appleton J. J., Christenson S. L., Furlong M. J. (2008). Student engagement with school: critical conceptual and methodological issues of the construct . Psychol. Sch. 45 , 369–386. 10.1002/pits.20303 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Appleton J. J., Christenson S. L., Kim D., Reschly A. L. (2006). Measuring cognitive and psychological engagement: validation of the student engagement instrument . J. Sch. Psychol. 44 , 427–445. 10.1016/j.jsp.2006.04.002 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Arbuckle J. L. (2009). Amos 18.0 User's Guide . Crawfordville, FL: Amos Development Corporation. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bentler P. M. (1990). Comparative fit indexes in structural models . Psychol. Bull. 107 , 238–246. 10.1037/0033-2909.107.2.238 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Biggs J., Kember D., Leung D. Y. (2001). The revised two-actor study process questionnaire: R-SPQ-2F . Br. J. Educ. Psychol. 71 , 133–149. 10.1348/000709901158433 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Boekaerts M. (1999). Self-regulated learning: where are today . Int. J. Educ. Res. 31 , 445–458. 10.1016/S0883-0355(99)00014-2 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Browne M. W., Cudeck R. (1993). Alternative ways of assessing model fit , in Testing Structural Equation Models , eds Bollen K., Long J. (Newbury Park, CA: Sage; ), 136–162. [ Google Scholar ]
• Cano F., García A., Justicia F., García-Berbén A. B. (2014). Enfoques de aprendizaje y comprensión lectora: el papel de las preguntas de los estudiantes y del conocimiento previo [Approaches to learning and reading comprehension: the role of students' questions and of prior knowledge] . Rev. Psicodidáctica 19 , 247–265. 10.1387/RevPsicodidact.10186 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Claessens B. J. C., van Eerde W., Rutte C. G., Roe R. A. (2007). A review of the time management literature . Pers. Rev. 36 , 255–276. 10.1108/00483480710726136 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cooper H., Jackson K., Nye B., Lindsay J. J. (2001). A model of homework's influence on the performance evaluations of elementary school students . J. Exp. Educ. 69 , 181–200. 10.1080/00220970109600655 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cooper H., Robinson J. C., Patall E. A. (2006). Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research, 1987–2003 . Rev. Educ. Res. 76 , 1–62. 10.3102/00346543076001001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Corno L. (2000). Looking at homework differently . Element. Sch. J. 100 , 529–548. 10.1086/499654 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Deci E. L., Ryan R. M. (2002). Handbook of Self-Determination Research . New York, NY: University of Rochester Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dettmers S., Trautwein U., Lüdtke O. (2009). The relationship between homework time and achievement is not universal: evidence from multilevel analyses in 40 countries . Sch. Eff. Sch. Improv. 20 , 375–405. 10.1080/09243450902904601 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Eccles J., Wang M. T. (2012). Part I Commentary: so what is student engagement anyway? ,in Handbook of Research on Student Engagement , eds Christenson S. L., Reschly A. L., Wylie C. (New York, NY: Springer; ), 133–145. [ Google Scholar ]
• Eccles (Parsons) J., Adler T. F., Futterman R., Goff S. B., Kaczala C. M., Meece J. L., et al. (1983). Expectancies, values, and academic choice: origins and changes , in Achievement and Achievement Motivation , ed Spence J. (San Francisco, CA: Freeman; ), 75–146. [ Google Scholar ]
• Eilam B. (2001). Primary strategies for promoting homework performance . Am. Educ. Res. J. 38 , 691–725. 10.3102/00028312038003691 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Elliot A. J. (1999). Approach and avoidance motivation and achievement goals . Educ. Psychol. 34 , 169–189. 10.1207/s15326985ep3403_3 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Elliot A. J., Church M. A. (1997). A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation . J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 72 , 218–232. 10.1037/0022-3514.72.1.218 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Elliot A. J., McGregor H. A., Gable S. (1999). Achievement goals, study strategies, and exam performance: a mediational analysis . J. Educ. Psychol. 91 , 549–563. 10.1037/0022-0663.91.3.549 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Entwistle N. J. (1991). Approaches to learning and perceptions of the learning environment . High. Educ. 22 , 201–204. 10.1007/BF00132287 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Entwistle N. J. (2009). Teaching for Understanding at University: Deep Approaches and Distinctive Ways of Thinking . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fernández-Alonso R., Suárez-Álvarez J., Muñiz J. (2014). Tareas escolares en el hogar y rendimiento en matemáticas: una aproximación multinivel con estudiantes de Enseñanza Primaria [Homework and academic performance in mathematics: a multilevel approach with Primary school students] . Rev. Psicol. Educ. 9 , 15–29. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fredricks J. A., Blumenfeld P. C., Paris A. (2004). School engagement: potential of the concept, state of the evidence . Rev. Educ. Res. 74 , 59–109. 10.3102/00346543074001059 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Galloway M., Conner J., Pope D. (2013). Nonacademic effects of homework in privileged, high-performing high schools . J. Exp. Educ. 81 , 490–510. 10.1080/00220973.2012.745469 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gaudreau P. (2012). Goal self-concordance moderates the relationship between achievement goals and indicators of academic adjustment . Learn. Individ. Differ. 22 , 827–832. 10.1016/j.lindif.2012.06.006 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hong E., Milgram R. M., Rowell L. L. (2004). Homework motivation and preference: a learner-centered homework approach . Theory Pract. 43 , 197–203. 10.1207/s15430421tip4303_5 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Inglés C. J., Martínez-González A. E., García-Fernández J. M. (2013). Conducta prosocial y estrategias de aprendizaje en una muestra de estudiantes españoles de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria [Prosocial behavior and learning strategies in a sample of Spanish students of Compulsory Secondary Education] . Eur. J. Educ. Psychol. 6 , 33–53. 10.1989/ejep.v6i1.101 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Jöreskog K. G., Sörbom D. (1983). LISREL - 6 User's Reference Guide . Mooresville, IN: Scientifi c Software. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kohn A. (2006). Abusing research: the study of homework and other examples . Phi Delta Kappan 88 , 9–22. 10.1177/003172170608800105 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lindblom-Ylänne S., Lonka K. (1999). Individual ways of interacting with the learning environment - are they related to study success? Learn. Instruct. 9 , 1–18. 10.1016/S0959-4752(98)00025-5 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Marks H. (2000). Student engagement in instructional activity: patterns in the elementary, middle, and high school years . Am. Educ. Res. J. 37 , 153–184. 10.3102/00028312037001153 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Martin A. J. (2012). Motivation and engagement: conceptual, operational, and empirical clarity , in Handbook of Research on Student Engagement , eds Christenson S. L., Reschly A. L., Wylie C. (New York, NY: Springer; ), 303–311. [ Google Scholar ]
• Marton F., Säljö R. (1976a). On qualitative differences in learning . I: outcome and process. Br. J. Educ. Psychol. 46 , 4–11. 10.1111/j.2044-8279.1976.tb02980.x [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Marton F., Säljö R. (1976b). On qualitative differences in learning . II: outcome as a function of the learner's conception of the task. Br. J. Educ. Psychol. 46 , 115–127. 10.1111/j.2044-8279.1976.tb02304.x [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Meece J. L., Anderman E. M., Anderman L. H. (2006). Classroom goal structure, student motivation, and academic achievement . Annu. Rev. Psychol. 57 , 487–503. 10.1146/annurev.psych.56.091103.070258 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Middleton M., Midgley C. (1997). Avoiding the demonstration of lack of ability: an unexplored aspect of goal theory . J. Educ. Psychol. 89 , 710–718. 10.1037/0022-0663.89.4.710 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Muhlenbruck L., Cooper H., Nye B., Lindsay J. J. (2000). Homework and achievement: explaining the different strengths of relation at the elementary and secondary school levels . Soc. Psychol. Educ. 3 , 295–317. 10.1023/A:1009680513901 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ng C. H. (2008). Multiple-goal learners and their differential patterns of learning . Educ. Psychol. 28 , 439–456. 10.1080/01443410701739470 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Núñez J. C., González-Pienda J. A., González-Pumariega S., García M., Roces C. (1997). Cuestionario Para la Evaluación de Metas Académicas [Academic Goals Assessment Questionnaire] . Department of Psychology, University of Oviedo. [ Google Scholar ]
• Núñez J. C., Suárez N., Cerezo R., González-Pienda J. A., Rosário P., Mourão R., et al. (2015a). Homework and academic achievement across Spanish Compulsory Education . Educ. Psychol. 35 , 726–746. 10.1080/01443410.2013.817537 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Núñez J. C., Suárez N., Rosário P., Vallejo G., Cerezo R., Valle A. (2015b). Teachers' feedback on homework, homework-related behaviors and academic achievement . J. Educ. Res. 108 , 204–216. 10.1080/00220671.2013.878298 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Núñez J. C., Suárez N., Rosário P., Vallejo G., Valle A., Epstein J. L. (2015c). Relationships between parental involvement in homework, student homework behaviors, and academic achievement: differences among elementary, junior high, and high school students . Metacogn. Learn. 10 , 375–406. 10.1007/s11409-015-9135-5 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Núñez J., Rosário P., Vallejo G., González-Pienda J. (2013). A longitudinal assessment of the effectiveness of a school-based mentoring program in middle school . Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 38 , 11–21. 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2012.10.002 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pajares F., Britner S. L., Valiante G. (2000). Relation between achievement goals and self-beliefs of middle school students in writing and science . Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 25 , 406–422. 10.1006/ceps.1999.1027 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pintrich P. R. (2004). A conceptual framework for assessing motivation and self-regulated learning in college students . Educ. Psychol. Rev. 16 , 385–407. 10.1007/s10648-004-0006-x [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pintrich P. R., De Groot E. V. (1990). Motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom performance . J. Educ. Psychol. 82 , 33–40. 10.1037/0022-0663.82.1.33 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Reeve J., Jang H., Carrell D., Jeon S., Barch J. (2004). Enhancing students' engagement by increasing teachers' autonomy support . Motiv. Emot. 28 , 147–169. 10.1023/B:MOEM.0000032312.95499.6f [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Regueiro B., Suárez N., Valle A., Núñez J. C., Rosário P. (2015). La motivación e implicación en los deberes escolares a lo largo de la escolaridad obligatoria [Homework motivation and engagement throughout compulsory education] . Rev. Psicodidáctica 20 , 47–63. 10.1387/RevPsicodidact.12641 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rodríguez S., Cabanach R. G., Piñeiro I., Valle A., Núñez J. C., González-Pienda J. A. (2001). Metas de aproximación, metas de evitación y múltiples metas académicas [Approach goals, avoidance goals and multiple academic goals] . Psicothema 13 , 546–550. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosário P., González-Pienda J. A., Pinto R., Ferreira P., Lourenço A., Paiva O. (2010a). Efficacy of the program “Testas's (mis)adventures” to promote the deep approach to learning . Psicothema 22 , 828–834. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosário P., Mourão R., Baldaque M., Nunes T., Núñez J. C., González-Pienda J. A., et al. (2009). Homework, self-regulation of learning and math performance . Rev. Psicodidáctica 14 , 179–192. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosário P., Núñez J. A., Ferrando J. P., Paiva O., Lourenço A., Cerezo R., et al. (2013a). The relationship between approaches to teaching and approaches to studying: a two-level structural equation model for biology achievement in high school . Metacogn. Learn. 8 , 47–77. 10.1007/s11409-013-9095-6 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosário P., Núñez J. C., González-Pienda J. A., Almeida L., Soares S., Rúbio M. (2005). Academic learning from the perspective of Model 3P of J. Biggs . Psicothema 17 , 20–30. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosário P., Núñez J. C., González-Pienda J. A., Valle A., Trigo L., Guimarães C. (2010b). Enhancing self-regulation and approaches to learning in first-year college students: a narrative-based program assessed in the Iberian Peninsula . Eur. J. Psychol. Educ. 25 , 411–428. 10.1007/s10212-010-0020-y [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosário P., Núñez J. C., Vallejo G., Cunha J., Azevedo R., Pereira R., et al. (2016). Promoting Gypsy children school engagement: a story-tool project to enhance self-regulated learning . Contemp. Educ. Psychol . [Epub ahead of print]. 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2015.11.005. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosário P., Núñez J. C., Vallejo G., Cunha J., Nunes T., Suárez N., et al.. (2015). The effects of teachers' homework follow-up practices on students' EFL performance: a randomized-group design . Front. Psychol. 6 : 1528 . 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01528 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosário P., Núñez J., Valle A., González-Pienda J., Lourenço A. (2013b). Grade level, study time, and grade retention and their effects on motivation, self-regulated learning strategies, and mathematics achievement: a structural equation model . Eur. J. Psychol. Educ. 28 , 1311–1331. 10.1007/s10212-012-0167-9 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Skaalvik E. (1997). Self- enhancing and self-defeating ego orientation: relations with task and avoidance orientation, achievement, self- perceptions, and anxiety . J. Educ. Psychol. 89 , 71–81. 10.1037/0022-0663.89.1.71 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Skinner E. A., Pitzer J. R. (2012). Developmental dynamics of student engagement, coping, and everyday resilience , in Handbook of Research on Student Engagement , eds Christenson S. L., Reschly A. L., Wylie C. (New York, NY: Springer; ), 21–44. [ Google Scholar ]
• Struyven K., Dochy F., Janssens S., Gielen S. (2006). On the dynamics of students' approaches to learning: the effects of the teaching/learning environment . Learn. Instr. 16 , 279–294. 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2006.07.001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Suárez J. M., Cabanach R. G., Valle A. (2001). Multiple-goal pursuit and its relation to cognitive, self-regulatory, and motivational strategies . Br. J. Educ. Psychol. 71 , 561–572. 10.1348/000709901158677 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Trautwein U., Lüdtke O., Kastens C., Köller O. (2006a). Effort on homework in grades 5 through 9: development, motivational antecedents, and the association with effort on classwork . Child Dev. 77 , 1094–1111. 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00921.x [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Trautwein U., Ludtke O., Schnyder I., Niggli A. (2006b). Predicting homework effort: support for a domain-specific, multilevel homework model . J. Educ. Psychol. 98 , 438–456. 10.1037/0022-0663.98.2.438 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Trautwein U., Schnyder I., Niggli A., Neumann M., Lüdtke O. (2009). Chameleon effects in homework research: the homework-achievement association depends on the measures used and the level of analysis chosen . Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 34 , 77–88. 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2008.09.001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Valle A., Cabanach R. G., Núñez J. C., González-Pienda J. A., Rodríguez S., Piñeiro I. (2003a). Cognitive, motivational, and volitional dimensions of learning: an empirical test of a hypothetical model . Res. High. Educ. 44 , 557–580. 10.1023/A:1025443325499 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Valle A., Cabanach R. G., Núñez J. C., González-Pienda J. A., Rodríguez S., Piñeiro I. (2003b). Multiple goals, motivation and academic learning . Br. J. Educ. Psychol. 73 , 71–87. 10.1348/000709903762869923 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Valle A., Cabanach R. G., Rodríguez S., Núñez J. C., González-Pienda J. A. (2006). Metas académicas, estrategias cognitivas y estrategias de autorregulación del estudio [Academic goals, cognitive and self-regulatory strategies] . Psicothema 18 , 166–170. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Valle A., Núñez J. C., Cabanach R. G., González-Pienda J. A., Rodríguez S., Rosário P., et al.. (2009). Academic goals and learning quality in higher education students . Span. J. Psychol. 12 , 96–105. 10.1017/S1138741600001517 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Valle A., Núñez J. C., Cabanach R., Rodríguez S., Rosário P., Inglés C. (2015a). Motivational profiles as a combination of academic goals in higher education . Educ. Psychol. 35 , 634–650. 10.1080/01443410.2013.819072 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Valle A., Pan I., Núñez J. C., Rosário P., Rodríguez S., Regueiro B. (2015b). Deberes escolares y rendimiento académico en Educación Primaria [Homework and academic achievement in Primary Education] . An. Psicol. 31 , 562–569. 10.6018/analesps.31.2.171131 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Valle A., Pan I., Regueiro B., Suárez N., Tuero E., Nunes A. R. (2015c). Predicting approach to homework in primary school students . Psicothema 27 , 334–340. 10.7334/psicothema2015.118 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Valle A., Regueiro B., Rodríguez S., Piñeiro I., Freire C., Ferradás M., et al. (2015d). Perfiles motivacionales como combinación de expectativas de autoeficacia y metas académicas en estudiantes universitarios [Motivational profiles as a combination of self-efficacy expectations and academic goals in university students] . Eur. J. Educ. Psychol. 8 , 1–8. 10.1016/j.ejeps.2015.10.001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Vallejo G., Tuero E., Núñez J. C., Rosário P. (2014). Performance evaluation of recent information criteria for selecting multilevel models in behavioral and social sciences . Int. J. Clin. Health Psychol. 14 , 48–57. 10.1016/S1697-2600(14)70036-5 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wolters C. A., Yu S. L., Pintrich P. R. (1996). The relation between goal orientation and students' motivational beliefs and self- regulated learning . Learn. Individ. Differ. 8 , 211−238. 10.1016/s1041-6080(96)90015-1 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2005). Purposes for doing homework reported by middle and high school students . J. Educ. Res. 99 , 46–55. 10.3200/JOER.99.1.46-55 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2007). Middle-school homework management: more than just gender and family involvement . Educ. Psychol. 27 , 173–189. 10.1080/01443410601066669 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2008). Validation of scores on the Homework Management Scale for high school students . Educ. Psychol. Meas. 68 , 304–324. 10.1177/0013164407301531 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2010). Predicting homework time management at the secondary school level: a multilevel analysis . Learn. Individ. Differ. 20 , 34–39. 10.1016/j.lindif.2009.11.001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zimmerman B. J., Kitsantas A. (2005). Homework practices and academic achievement: the mediating role of self-efficacy and perceived responsibility beliefs . Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 30 , 397–417. 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2005.05.003 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

Texas A&M University

College of education & human development.

Analyzing Homework’s Impact

By CEHD Communications

It has been a debate for decades. Children are unhappy about doing homework and teachers insist that homework is key to helping students learn.

In recent years, parents have joined in the debate, complaining their children are stressed out because of an increased workload. That has prompted school districts across the country to re-examine their homework policies.

When we learned of Katy ISD’s plans to implement several no-homework nights this school year, we took the homework debate to Dr. Jeffrey Liew, professor of educational psychology.

Dr. Liew points to research that says not all homework is created equally – it depends on a variety of factors such as the type of assignments, the school subject, and the grade level.

Several studies show elementary students who do homework fare no better in school than students who do not. There is a slight uptick in higher grade levels, but the impact is minimal. However, Dr. Liew says homework can be beneficial to learning and achievement – because some subjects and school projects require more practice or time to complete than others.

“Ultimately, it is important to think about why homework is being assigned and how effectively homework assignments will serve to achieve learning objectives or goals,” he said. “Homework can benefit children’s learning, but not when homework assignments are used simply as a way to keep children busy or preoccupied after school.”

Most of Dr. Liew’s own research relates to child development. When we asked him about homework’s impact on free play and creative thinking, he said he is not surprised when he sees students struggle with certain life skills after they graduate from high school and go off to college or enter the workforce.

“When homework assignments dictate children’s after-school schedules, that leaves them little to no time for social or recreational activities. It also leaves them little to no time for learning critical life skills such as developing self-interests, self-initiative or autonomy, and peer relationships. These social emotional learning or life skills are critical for their development as a whole-person – skills for success that they will need for a lifetime.”

When children come home without homework, or on the designated no-homework nights, Dr. Liew has suggestions for parents.

“Rather than always controlling what their children should do when there is free time, parents who give their children some freedom to suggest and choose what they could do together are helping promote their children’s planning and decision-making skills.”

The goal for many parents on these no-homework nights is to also build and strengthen the relationships and bonds with their children. While some teachers argue parents can also accomplish that with homework, as it turns out, some parents don’t feel they have the background needed to help. This causes stresses for both children and parents.

“Having some homework assignments, especially when children progress into the higher grades can really help them master concepts and skills. But too much homework may be counterproductive for both students and parents” explained Dr. Liew. “And schools need to consider the diversity in home situations, as not all students come from homes with parents in a position to help their children with homework.”

For Dr. Liew, he sees the homework debate as an opportunity to focus attention on the need for ways to improve and enhance the schooling experience to ensure quality and equity in education for all children.

About the Writer

Ashley is the Media Relations Coordinator and responsible for news coverage in the Department of Teaching, Learning and Culture as well as the Department of Educational Psychology.

For media inquiries, contact  Ashley Green.

Fundraising

Recent posts.

‘It’s Okay to Not Be Okay’: CEHD Supports Students’ Mental Health

CEHD supports student mental health through the Counseling and Assessment Clinic (CAC) and the Byrne Student Success Center.

Aspiring Coaches Level Up Their Game At State Conference

Undergraduate Coaching Certificate Program students enhanced their education and networking by attending the largest coaching convention in the United States.

Student Journey Culminates in Business Experience and Sports Excellence

Paige Zizka ‘24, recent Sport Management program graduate, started a business, interned with the Texas Rangers during their World Series title run and helped lead the Texas A&M Cycling Team to a national championship.

2024-25 Meet Our New CEHD Faculty

Student Spotlight: Abigail Ahrens ‘24

Student Spotlight: Abigail Ahrens ‘24 Aggie Swimmer Balances Olympic and Classroom Aspirations…

PEAP Instructors Prepare Aspiring Olympians

PEAP coaching staff help lead the Texas A&M Archery Team to its 23rd National Championship with three members competing for a spot in the 2024 Olympics.

Aggie Teacher Recognized for Leadership in the Classroom

Former student Caitlin Baumgarten ’16, eighth-grade history and social studies teacher in College Station ISD, earned two awards for her commitment to education and leadership.

The WORDS Project: CEHD Researcher’s Partnership To Enhance Literacy

Dr. Marc Goodrich partnered with multiple universities in the U.S. to help increase literacy in rural schools.

Student Spotlight: Lauren Hummel

Lauren Hummel ‘25 is a current education student at our school whose teaching goals were inspired by her mother and a former English teacher.

KNSM Student Manages Goals On and Off the Pitch

Hart Ray ‘24, a recent graduate of our Sport Management program worked as a student manager for the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Women’s Soccer Team.

• child development
• educational psychology
• jeffrey liew

About CEHD Communications

Related articles.

Can't find what you are looking for?

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.

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

In this article

share this!

September 19, 2024

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

fact-checked

peer-reviewed publication

trusted source

Study reveals impact of homework on student achievement in math and science

by Maynooth University

Researchers at Maynooth University's Hamilton Institute and Department of Mathematics and Statistics in Ireland have unveiled significant findings on the role of homework in student achievement. The research, led by Prof Andrew Parnell, Nathan McJames and Prof Ann O'Shea, used a new AI model to analyze data from the "Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study" (TIMSS 2019).

Focusing on 4,118 Irish students in their second year of secondary school, the research assessed the impact of varying homework patterns on their mathematics and science performance.

The study titled, "Little and often: Causal inference machine learning demonstrates the benefits of homework for improving achievement in mathematics and science" was published in the journal Learning and Instruction .

It offers new evidence on how homework frequency and duration affect academic performance among Irish secondary school students.

Frequency over duration

The study highlights that the frequency of homework is more important than its duration. Daily homework assignments were found to be most effective for improving mathematics achievement, while science performance benefited most from homework assigned three to four times a week.

Effectiveness of shorter assignments

Short-duration homework tasks, lasting up to 15 minutes, were shown to be just as effective as longer assignments. This suggests that regular, concise homework can promote learning without overwhelming students with excessive work.

Equity in benefits

Contrary to previous research, this study found that all students, regardless of socioeconomic background, experienced similar benefits from homework, indicating equitable advantages across diverse student populations. The researchers advocate for homework policies prioritizing regular, short-duration assignments to optimize student engagement and academic success without causing undue stress.

Nathan McJames, the lead author, commented, "Our study provides strong evidence that regular homework can significantly enhance student performance, especially when given 'little and often'. By avoiding very long homework assignments, this also allows students to balance schoolwork with other important activities outside of school."

Prof Andrew Parnell added, "Our use of advanced causal inference methods ensures the reliability of our findings. This research provides valuable insights that can guide evidence-based policy changes in education, ultimately benefiting students across the board."

Journal information: Learning and Instruction

Provided by Maynooth University

Explore further

Feedback to editors

New results from the CMS experiment put W boson mass mystery to rest

5 hours ago

Researchers observe an antiferromagnetic diode effect in even-layered MnBi₂Te₄

8 hours ago

Scientists explore origins of horseback riding through human skeletons

9 hours ago

'Pirate birds' force other seabirds to regurgitate fish meals. Their thieving ways could spread lethal avian flu

Sep 21, 2024

Even the heaviest particles experience the usual quantum weirdness, new experiment shows

New method developed to relocate misplaced proteins in cells

New biosensor illuminates physiological signals in living animals

New tool to help decision makers navigate possible futures of the Colorado River

Many people in the Pacific lack access to adequate toilets—and climate change makes things worse

Saturday Citations: Football metaphors in physics; vets treat adorable baby rhino's broken leg

Relevant physicsforums posts, sources to study basic logic for precocious 10-year old.

14 hours ago

How to explain Bell's theorem to non-scientists

Sep 19, 2024

Worksheets for Physics Experiments with Smartphones

How is physics taught without calculus.

Sep 18, 2024

I want to start Tutoring Online -- Looking for Advice

Sep 13, 2024

Are excuses for academic parties getting thinner or is it just me?

Sep 7, 2024

More from STEM Educators and Teaching

Related Stories

Doing homework is associated with change in students' personality

Oct 6, 2017

How parents' support and emotional guidance shape homework success

Sep 5, 2024

The numbers do not add up for mathematics homework, according to a new study

Mar 12, 2024

Q&A: Does homework still have value? An education expert weighs in

Jan 18, 2024

Should parents help their kids with homework?

Aug 29, 2019

Type of maternal homework assistance affects child's persistence

May 9, 2018

Recommended for you

Learning mindset could be key to addressing medical students' alarming burnout

Researchers test ChatGPT, other AI models against real-world students

Sep 16, 2024

Virtual learning linked to rise in chronic absenteeism, study finds

AI tools like ChatGPT popular among students who struggle with concentration and attention

Aug 28, 2024

Researchers find academic equivalent of a Great Gatsby Curve in science mentorships

Aug 27, 2024

More academic freedom leads to more innovation, reports study

Aug 21, 2024

Let us know if there is a problem with our content

Use this form if you have come across a typo, inaccuracy or would like to send an edit request for the content on this page. For general inquiries, please use our contact form . For general feedback, use the public comments section below (please adhere to guidelines ).

Please select the most appropriate category to facilitate processing of your request

Thank you for taking time to provide your feedback to the editors.

Your feedback is important to us. However, we do not guarantee individual replies due to the high volume of messages.

E-mail the story

Your email address is used only to let the recipient know who sent the email. Neither your address nor the recipient's address will be used for any other purpose. The information you enter will appear in your e-mail message and is not retained by Phys.org in any form.

Newsletter sign up

Get weekly and/or daily updates delivered to your inbox. You can unsubscribe at any time and we'll never share your details to third parties.

More information Privacy policy

Donate and enjoy an ad-free experience

We keep our content available to everyone. Consider supporting Science X's mission by getting a premium account.

E-mail newsletter