does homework kill the interest to learn

• 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

Improving lives through learning

• 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

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

© Stanford University , Stanford , California 94305 .

ChatGPT for Teachers

Trauma-informed practices in schools, teacher well-being, cultivating diversity, equity, & inclusion, integrating technology in the classroom, social-emotional development, covid-19 resources, invest in resilience: summer toolkit, civics & resilience, all toolkits, degree programs, trauma-informed professional development, teacher licensure & certification, how to become - career information, classroom management, instructional design, lifestyle & self-care, online higher ed teaching, current events, the homework debate: the case against homework.

This post has been updated as of December 2017.

It’s not uncommon to hear students, parents, and even some teachers always complaining about homework. Why, then, is homework an inescapable part of the student experience? Worksheets, busy work, and reading assignments continue to be a mainstay of students’ evenings.

Whether from habit or comparison with out-of-class work time in other nations, our students are getting homework and, according to some of them, a LOT of it. Educators and policy makers must ask themselves—does assigning homework pay off?

Is there evidence that homework benefits students younger than high school?

The Scholastic article Is Homework Bad? references Alfie Kohn’s book The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing , in which he says, “There is no evidence to demonstrate that homework benefits students below high school age.”

The article goes on to note that those who oppose homework focus on the drawbacks of significant time spent on homework, identifying one major negative as homework’s intrusion into family time. They also point out that opponents believe schools have decided homework is necessary and thus assign it simply to assign some kind of homework, not because doing the work meets specifically-identified student needs.

“Busy work” does not help students learn

Students and parents appear to carry similar critiques of homework, specifically regarding assignments identified as busy work—long sheets of repetitive math problems, word searches, or reading logs seemingly designed to make children dislike books.

When asked how homework can negatively affect children, Nancy Kalish, author of The Case Against Homework: How Homework is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It , says that many homework assignments are “simply busy work” that makes learning “a chore rather than a positive, constructive experience.”

Commenters on the piece, both parents and students, tended to agree. One student shared that on occasion they spent more time on homework than at school, while another commenter pointed out that, “We don’t give slow-working children a longer school day, but we consistently give them a longer homework day.”

Without feedback, homework is ineffective

The efficacy of the homework identified by Kalish has been studied by policy researchers as well. Gerald LeTendre, of Penn State’s Education Policy Studies department points out that the shotgun approach to homework, when students all receive the same photocopied assignment which is then checked as complete rather than discussed individually with the student, is “not very effective.”  He goes on to say that, “If there’s no feedback and no monitoring, the homework is probably not effective.”

Researchers from the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia had similar findings in their study, “ When Is Homework Worth The Time ?” According to UVAToday, these researchers reported no “substantive difference” in the grades of students related to homework completion.

As researcher Adam Maltese noted, “Our results hint that maybe homework is not being used as well as it could be.” The report further suggested that while not all homework is bad, the type and quality of assignments and their differentiation to specific learners appears to be an important point of future research.

If homework is assigned, it should heighten understanding of the subject

The Curry School of Education report did find a positive association between standardized test performance and time spent on homework, but standardized test performance shouldn’t be the end goal of assignments—a heightened understanding and capability with the content material should.

As such, it is important that if/when teachers assign homework assignments, it is done thoughtfully and carefully—and respectful of the maximum times suggested by the National Education Association, about 10 minutes per night starting in the first grade, with an additional 10 minutes per year after.

Continue reading — The Homework Debate: How Homework Benefits Students

Monica Fuglei is a graduate of the University of Nebraska in Omaha and a current adjunct faculty member of Arapahoe Community College in Colorado, where she teaches composition and creative writing.

You may also like to read

• The Homework Debate: How Homework Benefits Students
• Ending the Homework Debate: Expert Advice on What Works
• Advice on Creating Homework Policies
• Elementary Students and Homework: How Much Is Too Much?
• Homework in Middle School: Building a Foundation for Study Skills
• Homework Helps High School Students Most — But it Must Be Purposeful

Categorized as: Tips for Teachers and Classroom Resources

Tagged as: Leadership and Administration ,  Pros and Cons ,  Teacher-Parent Relationships

• Certificates in Administrative Leadership
• Teacher Resources for Social-Emotional Develo...
• Degrees and Certificates for Teachers & Educa...

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

‘Schools are killing curiosity’: why we need to stop telling children to shut up and learn

Pupils who ask lots of questions get better results, especially those from poorer homes

Y oung children sit cross-legged on the mat as their teacher prepares to teach them about the weather, equipped with pictures of clouds. Outside the classroom, lightning forks across a dark sky and thunder rumbles. Curious children call out and point, but the teacher draws their attention back – that is not how the lesson target says they are going to learn about the weather.

It could be a scene in almost any school. Children, full of questions about things that interest them, are learning not to ask them at school. Against a background of tests and targets, unscripted queries go mainly unanswered and learning opportunities are lost.

Yet the latest American research suggests we should be encouraging questions, because curious children do better. Researchers from the University of Michigan CS Mott Children’s Hospital and the Center for Human Growth and Development investigated curiosity in 6,200 children, part of the US Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. The study is highlighted in a new book by Judith Judd and me, How to Succeed at School. What Every Parent Should Know.

The researchers gauged levels of curiosity when the children were babies, toddlers and preschoolers, using parent visits and questionnaires. Reading, maths and behaviour were then checked in kindergarten (the first year of school), where they found that the most curious children performed best. In a finding critical to tackling the stubborn achievement gap between poorer and richer children, disadvantaged children had the strongest connection between curiosity and performance.

Further, the researchers found that when it came to good school performance, the ability to stay focused and, for example, not be distracted by a thunderstorm, was less important than curiosity – the questions children might have about that storm.

Teachers who concentrate on developing focus and good behaviour because of the links to good academic performance, now need to take on board that developing curiosity could be even more important.

The study’s lead researcher, Dr Prachi Shah, a developmental and behavioural paediatrician at Mott and an assistant research scientist at the University of Michigan, says: “Promoting curiosity in children, especially those from environments of economic disadvantage, may be an important, under-recognised way to address the achievement gap. Promoting curiosity is a foundation for early learning that we should be emphasising more when we look at academic achievement.”

Children are born curious. The number of questions a toddler can ask can seem infinite – it is one of the critical methods humans adopt to learn. In 2007, researchers logging questions asked by children aged 14 months to five years found they asked an average of 107 questions an hour. One child was asking three questions a minute at his peak.

But research from Susan Engel , author of The Hungry Mind and a leading international authority on curiosity in children, finds questioning drops like a stone once children start school. When her team logged classroom questions, she found the youngest children in an American suburban elementary school asked between two and five questions in a two-hour period. Even worse, as they got older the children gave up asking altogether. There were two-hour stretches in fifth grade (year 6) where 10 and 11-year-olds failed to ask their teacher a single question.

In one lesson she observed, a ninth grader raised her hand to ask if there were any places in the world where no one made art. The teacher stopped her mid-sentence with, “Zoe, no questions now, please; it’s time for learning.”

Engel, who is professor of developmental psychology at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, says: “When you visit schools in many parts of the world it can be difficult to remember they are full of active, intellectual children, because no one is talking about their inner mental lives. How well they behave, and how they perform seem much more important to many people in the educational communities. Often educational bureaucracies have shunted curiosity to the side.”

When teachers teach young children not to ask questions, it is not surprising that high-performing students studied by American researchers in 2013 were found to be less curious, because they saw curiosity as a risk to their results. The questions they asked were aimed at improving their results, whereas the questions asked by more curious students were aimed at understanding a topic more deeply.

Of course, some teachers do encourage and enhance curiosity – Engel says that in every school she visits there tends to be one teacher who is managing it. But it is usually down to an individual – rather than a systematic approach such as that introduced at Ilminster Avenue nursery school, in Bristol.

Last September the nursery took the radical step of permanently removing most of its toys for two-year-olds and replacing them with a range of cardboard boxes, tin cans, pots and pans, old phones, kettles, computers and plumbing supplies – anything with creative possibilities.

The children took to the new objects immediately, making slides for building blocks with guttering, dens and spaceships with cardboard boxes and having conversations with imaginary people on old phones. Old keys were used to lock things away or unlock imaginary kingdoms. Most haven’t asked for the toys back.

Matt Caldwell, the headteacher, says sceptical parents and teachers have been convinced by the change because of the rise in creativity and conversation among the children.

He says: “What children love is to copy what adults are doing with objects. What people and objects do makes them curious about their world.

“School kills curiosity. When do children get to ask questions about things that interest them? As soon as they are at primary school they have to shut up and learn. It’s not the fault of teachers. They have so many targets to meet.”

Paul Howard-Jones, professor of neuroscience and education at Bristol University, who has visited to observe the children playing with their new “toys”, says humans learn from novel situations and curiosity is important to that process.

“Children should be prompted and encouraged to ask questions even though that can be challenging for the teacher,” he says. “We do need to find some time for questions during the day. There is not enough time in schools for creativity and following up on curiosity.”

How to Succeed at School: Separating Fact from Fiction. What Every Parent Should Know, by Wendy Berliner and Judith Judd, is published by Routledge

• Early years education
• Primary schools

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

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

Opening doors: rhonda harrison (eng’98,’04, grs’04), campus reacts and responds to israel-hamas war, reading list: what the pandemic revealed, remembering com’s david anable, cas’ john stone, “intellectual brilliance and brilliant kindness”, one good deed: christine kannler (cas’96, sph’00, camed’00), william fairfield warren society inducts new members, spreading art appreciation, restoring the “black angels” to medical history, in the kitchen with jacques pépin, feedback: readers weigh in on bu’s new president, com’s new expert on misinformation, and what’s really dividing the nation, the gifts of great teaching, sth’s walter fluker honored by roosevelt institute, alum’s debut book is a ramadan story for children, my big idea: covering construction sites with art, former terriers power new professional women’s hockey league, five trailblazing alums to celebrate during women’s history month, alum beata coloyan is boston mayor michelle wu’s “eyes and ears” in boston neighborhoods, bu alum nina yoshida nelsen (cfa’01,’03) named artistic director of boston lyric opera, my big idea: blending wildlife conservation and human welfare.

Filed under:

• The Highlight

Nobody knows what the point of homework is

The homework wars are back.

Share this story

• Share this on Facebook
• Share this on Twitter
• Share this on Reddit
• Share All sharing options

Share All sharing options for: Nobody knows what the point of homework is

As the Covid-19 pandemic began and students logged into their remote classrooms, all work, in effect, became homework. But whether or not students could complete it at home varied. For some, schoolwork became public-library work or McDonald’s-parking-lot work.

Luis Torres, the principal of PS 55, a predominantly low-income community elementary school in the south Bronx, told me that his school secured Chromebooks for students early in the pandemic only to learn that some lived in shelters that blocked wifi for security reasons. Others, who lived in housing projects with poor internet reception, did their schoolwork in laundromats.

According to a 2021 Pew survey , 25 percent of lower-income parents said their children, at some point, were unable to complete their schoolwork because they couldn’t access a computer at home; that number for upper-income parents was 2 percent.

The issues with remote learning in March 2020 were new. But they highlighted a divide that had been there all along in another form: homework. And even long after schools have resumed in-person classes, the pandemic’s effects on homework have lingered.

Over the past three years, in response to concerns about equity, schools across the country, including in Sacramento, Los Angeles , San Diego , and Clark County, Nevada , made permanent changes to their homework policies that restricted how much homework could be given and how it could be graded after in-person learning resumed.

Three years into the pandemic, as districts and teachers reckon with Covid-era overhauls of teaching and learning, schools are still reconsidering the purpose and place of homework. Whether relaxing homework expectations helps level the playing field between students or harms them by decreasing rigor is a divisive issue without conclusive evidence on either side, echoing other debates in education like the elimination of standardized test scores from some colleges’ admissions processes.

I first began to wonder if the homework abolition movement made sense after speaking with teachers in some Massachusetts public schools, who argued that rather than help disadvantaged kids, stringent homework restrictions communicated an attitude of low expectations. One, an English teacher, said she felt the school had “just given up” on trying to get the students to do work; another argued that restrictions that prohibit teachers from assigning take-home work that doesn’t begin in class made it difficult to get through the foreign-language curriculum. Teachers in other districts have raised formal concerns about homework abolition’s ability to close gaps among students rather than widening them.

Many education experts share this view. Harris Cooper, a professor emeritus of psychology at Duke who has studied homework efficacy, likened homework abolition to “playing to the lowest common denominator.”

But as I learned after talking to a variety of stakeholders — from homework researchers to policymakers to parents of schoolchildren — whether to abolish homework probably isn’t the right question. More important is what kind of work students are sent home with and where they can complete it. Chances are, if schools think more deeply about giving constructive work, time spent on homework will come down regardless.

There’s no consensus on whether homework works

The rise of the no-homework movement during the Covid-19 pandemic tapped into long-running disagreements over homework’s impact on students. The purpose and effectiveness of homework have been disputed for well over a century. In 1901, for instance, California banned homework for students up to age 15, and limited it for older students, over concerns that it endangered children’s mental and physical health. The newest iteration of the anti-homework argument contends that the current practice punishes students who lack support and rewards those with more resources, reinforcing the “myth of meritocracy.”

But there is still no research consensus on homework’s effectiveness; no one can seem to agree on what the right metrics are. Much of the debate relies on anecdotes, intuition, or speculation.

Researchers disagree even on how much research exists on the value of homework. Kathleen Budge, the co-author of Turning High-Poverty Schools Into High-Performing Schools and a professor at Boise State, told me that homework “has been greatly researched.” Denise Pope, a Stanford lecturer and leader of the education nonprofit Challenge Success, said, “It’s not a highly researched area because of some of the methodological problems.”

Experts who are more sympathetic to take-home assignments generally support the “10-minute rule,” a framework that estimates the ideal amount of homework on any given night by multiplying the student’s grade by 10 minutes. (A ninth grader, for example, would have about 90 minutes of work a night.) Homework proponents argue that while it is difficult to design randomized control studies to test homework’s effectiveness, the vast majority of existing studies show a strong positive correlation between homework and high academic achievement for middle and high school students. Prominent critics of homework argue that these correlational studies are unreliable and point to studies that suggest a neutral or negative effect on student performance. Both agree there is little to no evidence for homework’s effectiveness at an elementary school level, though proponents often argue that it builds constructive habits for the future.

For anyone who remembers homework assignments from both good and bad teachers, this fundamental disagreement might not be surprising. Some homework is pointless and frustrating to complete. Every week during my senior year of high school, I had to analyze a poem for English and decorate it with images found on Google; my most distinct memory from that class is receiving a demoralizing 25-point deduction because I failed to present my analysis on a poster board. Other assignments really do help students learn: After making an adapted version of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book for a ninth grade history project, I was inspired to check out from the library and read a biography of the Chinese ruler.

For homework opponents, the first example is more likely to resonate. “We’re all familiar with the negative effects of homework: stress, exhaustion, family conflict, less time for other activities, diminished interest in learning,” Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth, which challenges common justifications for homework, told me in an email. “And these effects may be most pronounced among low-income students.” Kohn believes that schools should make permanent any moratoria implemented during the pandemic, arguing that there are no positives at all to outweigh homework’s downsides. Recent studies , he argues , show the benefits may not even materialize during high school.

In the Marlborough Public Schools, a suburban district 45 minutes west of Boston, school policy committee chair Katherine Hennessy described getting kids to complete their homework during remote education as “a challenge, to say the least.” Teachers found that students who spent all day on their computers didn’t want to spend more time online when the day was over. So, for a few months, the school relaxed the usual practice and teachers slashed the quantity of nightly homework.

Online learning made the preexisting divides between students more apparent, she said. Many students, even during normal circumstances, lacked resources to keep them on track and focused on completing take-home assignments. Though Marlborough Schools is more affluent than PS 55, Hennessy said many students had parents whose work schedules left them unable to provide homework help in the evenings. The experience tracked with a common divide in the country between children of different socioeconomic backgrounds.

So in October 2021, months after the homework reduction began, the Marlborough committee made a change to the district’s policy. While teachers could still give homework, the assignments had to begin as classwork. And though teachers could acknowledge homework completion in a student’s participation grade, they couldn’t count homework as its own grading category. “Rigorous learning in the classroom does not mean that that classwork must be assigned every night,” the policy stated . “Extensions of class work is not to be used to teach new content or as a form of punishment.”

Canceling homework might not do anything for the achievement gap

The critiques of homework are valid as far as they go, but at a certain point, arguments against homework can defy the commonsense idea that to retain what they’re learning, students need to practice it.

“Doesn’t a kid become a better reader if he reads more? Doesn’t a kid learn his math facts better if he practices them?” said Cathy Vatterott, an education researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. After decades of research, she said it’s still hard to isolate the value of homework, but that doesn’t mean it should be abandoned.

Blanket vilification of homework can also conflate the unique challenges facing disadvantaged students as compared to affluent ones, which could have different solutions. “The kids in the low-income schools are being hurt because they’re being graded, unfairly, on time they just don’t have to do this stuff,” Pope told me. “And they’re still being held accountable for turning in assignments, whether they’re meaningful or not.” On the other side, “Palo Alto kids” — students in Silicon Valley’s stereotypically pressure-cooker public schools — “are just bombarded and overloaded and trying to stay above water.”

Merely getting rid of homework doesn’t solve either problem. The United States already has the second-highest disparity among OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations between time spent on homework by students of high and low socioeconomic status — a difference of more than three hours, said Janine Bempechat, clinical professor at Boston University and author of No More Mindless Homework .

When she interviewed teachers in Boston-area schools that had cut homework before the pandemic, Bempechat told me, “What they saw immediately was parents who could afford it immediately enrolled their children in the Russian School of Mathematics,” a math-enrichment program whose tuition ranges from $140 to about $400 a month. Getting rid of homework “does nothing for equity; it increases the opportunity gap between wealthier and less wealthy families,” she said. “That solution troubles me because it’s no solution at all.”

A group of teachers at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, made the same point after the school district proposed an overhaul of its homework policies, including removing penalties for missing homework deadlines, allowing unlimited retakes, and prohibiting grading of homework.

“Given the emphasis on equity in today’s education systems,” they wrote in a letter to the school board, “we believe that some of the proposed changes will actually have a detrimental impact towards achieving this goal. Families that have means could still provide challenging and engaging academic experiences for their children and will continue to do so, especially if their children are not experiencing expected rigor in the classroom.” At a school where more than a third of students are low-income, the teachers argued, the policies would prompt students “to expect the least of themselves in terms of effort, results, and responsibility.”

Not all homework is created equal

Despite their opposing sides in the homework wars, most of the researchers I spoke to made a lot of the same points. Both Bempechat and Pope were quick to bring up how parents and schools confuse rigor with workload, treating the volume of assignments as a proxy for quality of learning. Bempechat, who is known for defending homework, has written extensively about how plenty of it lacks clear purpose, requires the purchasing of unnecessary supplies, and takes longer than it needs to. Likewise, when Pope instructs graduate-level classes on curriculum, she asks her students to think about the larger purpose they’re trying to achieve with homework: If they can get the job done in the classroom, there’s no point in sending home more work.

At its best, pandemic-era teaching facilitated that last approach. Honolulu-based teacher Christina Torres Cawdery told me that, early in the pandemic, she often had a cohort of kids in her classroom for four hours straight, as her school tried to avoid too much commingling. She couldn’t lecture for four hours, so she gave the students plenty of time to complete independent and project-based work. At the end of most school days, she didn’t feel the need to send them home with more to do.

A similar limited-homework philosophy worked at a public middle school in Chelsea, Massachusetts. A couple of teachers there turned as much class as possible into an opportunity for small-group practice, allowing kids to work on problems that traditionally would be assigned for homework, Jessica Flick, a math coach who leads department meetings at the school, told me. It was inspired by a philosophy pioneered by Simon Fraser University professor Peter Liljedahl, whose influential book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics reframes homework as “check-your-understanding questions” rather than as compulsory work. Last year, Flick found that the two eighth grade classes whose teachers adopted this strategy performed the best on state tests, and this year, she has encouraged other teachers to implement it.

Teachers know that plenty of homework is tedious and unproductive. Jeannemarie Dawson De Quiroz, who has taught for more than 20 years in low-income Boston and Los Angeles pilot and charter schools, says that in her first years on the job she frequently assigned “drill and kill” tasks and questions that she now feels unfairly stumped students. She said designing good homework wasn’t part of her teaching programs, nor was it meaningfully discussed in professional development. With more experience, she turned as much class time as she could into practice time and limited what she sent home.

“The thing about homework that’s sticky is that not all homework is created equal,” says Jill Harrison Berg, a former teacher and the author of Uprooting Instructional Inequity . “Some homework is a genuine waste of time and requires lots of resources for no good reason. And other homework is really useful.”

Cutting homework has to be part of a larger strategy

The takeaways are clear: Schools can make cuts to homework, but those cuts should be part of a strategy to improve the quality of education for all students. If the point of homework was to provide more practice, districts should think about how students can make it up during class — or offer time during or after school for students to seek help from teachers. If it was to move the curriculum along, it’s worth considering whether strategies like Liljedahl’s can get more done in less time.

Some of the best thinking around effective assignments comes from those most critical of the current practice. Denise Pope proposes that, before assigning homework, teachers should consider whether students understand the purpose of the work and whether they can do it without help. If teachers think it’s something that can’t be done in class, they should be mindful of how much time it should take and the feedback they should provide. It’s questions like these that De Quiroz considered before reducing the volume of work she sent home.

More than a year after the new homework policy began in Marlborough, Hennessy still hears from parents who incorrectly “think homework isn’t happening” despite repeated assurances that kids still can receive work. She thinks part of the reason is that education has changed over the years. “I think what we’re trying to do is establish that homework may be an element of educating students,” she told me. “But it may not be what parents think of as what they grew up with. ... It’s going to need to adapt, per the teaching and the curriculum, and how it’s being delivered in each classroom.”

For the policy to work, faculty, parents, and students will all have to buy into a shared vision of what school ought to look like. The district is working on it — in November, it hosted and uploaded to YouTube a round-table discussion on homework between district administrators — but considering the sustained confusion, the path ahead seems difficult.

When I asked Luis Torres about whether he thought homework serves a useful part in PS 55’s curriculum, he said yes, of course it was — despite the effort and money it takes to keep the school open after hours to help them do it. “The children need the opportunity to practice,” he said. “If you don’t give them opportunities to practice what they learn, they’re going to forget.” But Torres doesn’t care if the work is done at home. The school stays open until around 6 pm on weekdays, even during breaks. Tutors through New York City’s Department of Youth and Community Development programs help kids with work after school so they don’t need to take it with them.

As schools weigh the purpose of homework in an unequal world, it’s tempting to dispose of a practice that presents real, practical problems to students across the country. But getting rid of homework is unlikely to do much good on its own. Before cutting it, it’s worth thinking about what good assignments are meant to do in the first place. It’s crucial that students from all socioeconomic backgrounds tackle complex quantitative problems and hone their reading and writing skills. It’s less important that the work comes home with them.

Jacob Sweet is a freelance writer in Somerville, Massachusetts. He is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker, among other publications.

Will you help keep Vox free for all?

Millions rely on Vox’s journalism to understand the coronavirus crisis. We believe it pays off for all of us, as a society and a democracy, when our neighbors and fellow citizens can access clear, concise information on the pandemic. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive. Support from our readers helps us keep it free for everyone. If you have already made a financial contribution to Vox, thank you. If not, please consider making a contribution today from as little as $3.

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via

Can we protect and profit from the oceans?

Sometimes kids need a push. here’s how to do it kindly., who gets to flourish, sign up for the newsletter today, explained, thanks for signing up.

Check your inbox for a welcome email.

Oops. Something went wrong. Please enter a valid email and try again.

share this!

August 16, 2021

Is it time to get rid of homework? Mental health experts weigh in

by Sara M Moniuszko

It's no secret that kids hate homework. And as students grapple with an ongoing pandemic that has had a wide-range of mental health impacts, is it time schools start listening to their pleas over workloads?

Some teachers are turning to social media to take a stand against homework .

Tiktok user @misguided.teacher says he doesn't assign it because the "whole premise of homework is flawed."

For starters, he says he can't grade work on "even playing fields" when students' home environments can be vastly different.

"Even students who go home to a peaceful house, do they really want to spend their time on busy work? Because typically that's what a lot of homework is, it's busy work," he says in the video that has garnered 1.6 million likes. "You only get one year to be 7, you only got one year to be 10, you only get one year to be 16, 18."

Mental health experts agree heavy work loads have the potential do more harm than good for students, especially when taking into account the impacts of the pandemic. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether.

Emmy Kang, mental health counselor at Humantold, says studies have shown heavy workloads can be "detrimental" for students and cause a "big impact on their mental, physical and emotional health."

"More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies," she says, adding that staying up late to finish assignments also leads to disrupted sleep and exhaustion.

Cynthia Catchings, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist at Talkspace, says heavy workloads can also cause serious mental health problems in the long run, like anxiety and depression.

And for all the distress homework causes, it's not as useful as many may think, says Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, a psychologist and CEO of Omega Recovery treatment center.

"The research shows that there's really limited benefit of homework for elementary age students, that really the school work should be contained in the classroom," he says.

For older students, Kang says homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night.

"Most students, especially at these high-achieving schools, they're doing a minimum of three hours, and it's taking away time from their friends from their families, their extracurricular activities. And these are all very important things for a person's mental and emotional health."

Catchings, who also taught third to 12th graders for 12 years, says she's seen the positive effects of a no homework policy while working with students abroad.

"Not having homework was something that I always admired from the French students (and) the French schools, because that was helping the students to really have the time off and really disconnect from school ," she says.

The answer may not be to eliminate homework completely, but to be more mindful of the type of work students go home with, suggests Kang, who was a high-school teacher for 10 years.

"I don't think (we) should scrap homework, I think we should scrap meaningless, purposeless busy work-type homework. That's something that needs to be scrapped entirely," she says, encouraging teachers to be thoughtful and consider the amount of time it would take for students to complete assignments.

The pandemic made the conversation around homework more crucial

Mindfulness surrounding homework is especially important in the context of the last two years. Many students will be struggling with mental health issues that were brought on or worsened by the pandemic, making heavy workloads even harder to balance.

"COVID was just a disaster in terms of the lack of structure. Everything just deteriorated," Kardaras says, pointing to an increase in cognitive issues and decrease in attention spans among students. "School acts as an anchor for a lot of children, as a stabilizing force, and that disappeared."

But even if students transition back to the structure of in-person classes, Kardaras suspects students may still struggle after two school years of shifted schedules and disrupted sleeping habits.

"We've seen adults struggling to go back to in-person work environments from remote work environments. That effect is amplified with children because children have less resources to be able to cope with those transitions than adults do," he explains.

'Get organized' ahead of back-to-school

In order to make the transition back to in-person school easier, Kang encourages students to "get good sleep, exercise regularly (and) eat a healthy diet."

To help manage workloads, she suggests students "get organized."

"There's so much mental clutter up there when you're disorganized... sitting down and planning out their study schedules can really help manage their time," she says.

Breaking assignments up can also make things easier to tackle.

"I know that heavy workloads can be stressful, but if you sit down and you break down that studying into smaller chunks, they're much more manageable."

If workloads are still too much, Kang encourages students to advocate for themselves.

"They should tell their teachers when a homework assignment just took too much time or if it was too difficult for them to do on their own," she says. "It's good to speak up and ask those questions. Respectfully, of course, because these are your teachers. But still, I think sometimes teachers themselves need this feedback from their students."

©2021 USA Today Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Explore further

Feedback to editors

Research reveals pre-collapse monitoring of Kakhovka Dam, Ukraine

7 minutes ago

New molecular compound designed with technological applications at the nanoscale

14 minutes ago

Scientists identify class of binding molecules that can be used for targeted protein degradation

Breakthrough in prime number theory demonstrates primes can be predicted

20 minutes ago

Scientists create plastic-free vegan leather that dyes itself, grown from bacteria

26 minutes ago

A balancing act: EphB4 and ephrin-B2 regulate artery formation

Amber reveals mating behavior of cretaceous water striders

27 minutes ago

Liquid metals research breaks ground in sustainable chemical manufacturing with metal-enhanced catalysts

29 minutes ago

Two Jurassic mammaliaforms from China shed light on mammalian evolution

Intelligent liquid: Researchers develop metafluid with programmable response

Relevant physicsforums posts, motivating high school physics students with popcorn physics.

Apr 1, 2024

How is Physics taught without Calculus?

Mar 29, 2024

Why are Physicists so informal with mathematics?

Mar 24, 2024

The changing physics curriculum in 1961

Suggestions for using math puzzles to stimulate my math students.

Mar 21, 2024

The New California Math Framework: Another Step Backwards?

Mar 14, 2024

More from STEM Educators and Teaching

Related Stories

Smartphones are lowering student's grades, study finds

Aug 18, 2020

Doing homework is associated with change in students' personality

Oct 6, 2017

Scholar suggests ways to craft more effective homework assignments

Oct 1, 2015

Should parents help their kids with homework?

Aug 29, 2019

How much math, science homework is too much?

Mar 23, 2015

Anxiety, depression, burnout rising as college students prepare to return to campus

Jul 26, 2021

Recommended for you

Research reveals significant effects of onscreen instructors during video classes in aiding student learning

Mar 25, 2024

Prestigious journals make it hard for scientists who don't speak English to get published, study finds

Mar 23, 2024

Using Twitter/X to promote research findings found to have little impact on number of citations

Mar 22, 2024

Gender and racial discrimination uncovered in leadership positions at Australia's leading universities

Mar 15, 2024

Study finds children in Flint experienced educational declines even if they did not have lead pipes

Could iPhones replace microscopes in early STEM education?

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

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

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Front Psychol

Effects of homework creativity on academic achievement and creativity disposition: Evidence from comparisons with homework time and completion based on two independent Chinese samples

Huiyong fan.

1 College of Educational Science, Bohai University, Jinzhou, China

2 Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China

Jianzhong Xu

3 Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Foundations, College of Education, Mississippi State University, MS, United States

Shengli Guo

Associated data.

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

During the past several decades, the previous studies have been focusing on the related theoretical issues and measuring tool of homework behaviors (mainly including homework time, completion, and homework creativity). However, the effects of these homework behaviors on general creativity remain unknown. Employing a number of questionnaires, this study investigated two samples from middle schools of Mainland China. The results showed that (1) the eight-item version of Homework Creativity Behaviors Scale had acceptable validity and reliability; (2) compared with homework completion and homework time, homework creativity explained less variety of academic achievement (3.7% for homework creativity; 5.4% for completion and time); (3) homework creativity explained more variance of general creativity than that of homework completion and homework time accounted (7.0% for homework creativity; 1.3% for completion and time); and (4) homework creativity was negatively associated with grade level. Contrary to the popular beliefs, homework completion and homework creativity have positive effects on the students’ general creativity. Several issues that need further studies were also discussed.

Introduction

Homework is an important part of the learning and instruction process. Each week, students around the world spend 3–14 hours on homework, with an average of 5 hours a week ( Dettmers et al., 2009 ; OECD, 2014 ). The results of the previous studies and meta-analysis showed that the homework time is correlated significantly with students’ gains on the academic tests ( Cooper et al., 2012 ; Fan et al., 2017 ; Fernández-Alonso et al., 2019 ).

Homework is a multi-faceted process which has many attributes – each attribute can be identified, defined, and measured independently ( Guo and Fan, 2018 ). Some attributes, such as homework time ( Núñez et al., 2013 ; Kalenkoski and Pabilonia, 2017 ), homework frequency ( Fernández-Alonso et al., 2015 ), homework completion ( Rosário et al., 2015 ), homework effort ( Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2007 ; Fernández-Alonso et al., 2015 ), homework purpose ( Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2009 ; Xu, 2010 , 2021 ), homework performance and problems ( Power et al., 2007 ), homework management behavior ( Xu, 2008 ), homework expectation ( Xu, 2017 ), and self-regulation of homework behavior ( Yang and Tu, 2020 ), have been well recorded in the literature, and operationally defined and measured.

Recently, a research community has noticed the “creativity” in homework (in short form, “homework creativity”) who have raised some speculations about its effects on students’ academic achievement and general creativity disposition ( Kaiipob, 1951 ; Beghetto and Kaufman, 2007 ; Kaufman and Beghetto, 2009 ; Guo, 2018 ; Guo and Fan, 2018 ; Chang, 2019 ). However, the scientific measurement of homework creativity has not been examined systematically. The relationship between homework creativity, academic achievement, and general creativity disposition, as well as the grade difference in homework creativity, are still in the state of conjectures consequently.

As a scientific probe to homework creativity, this study included three main sections. In the “Literature Review” section, the conceptualization and relevant measurement of homework creativity were summarized; the relationship between homework behaviors and academic achievements, general creativity, and the grade difference in homework behaviors and general creativity were also evaluated. These four main results related to the four research questions were also presented in the body of this article. They are reliability and validity of homework creativity behavior scale (HCBS), the relationships between the scores of HCBS and those of general creativity and academic achievement, and the grade effects of scores of HCBS. In the “Discussion” section, the scientific contributions and interpretations of the findings of this study were elaborated.

Homework creativity

Conceptual background of homework creativity.

As an attribute of homework process, homework creativity refers to the novelty and uniqueness of homework ( Guo and Fan, 2018 ). Specifically, the ways relating to homework creativity with extant theoretical literature are presented below.

First, creativity is a natural part of homework process which serves as a sub-process of learning. Guilford (1950) is the first psychologist who linked creativity with learning, pointing out that the acquisition of creativity is a typical quality of human learning, and that a complete learning theory must take creativity into account.

Second, according to the Four-C Model of Creativity (e.g., Kaufman and Beghetto, 2009 ), the homework creativity can be divided mainly into the category of “Transformative Learning” (Mini-C creativity), which is different from the “Everyday Innovation” (Little-C creativity), “Professional Expertise” (Pro-C creativity), or “Eminent Accomplishments” (Big-C creativity, Beghetto and Kaufman, 2007 ; Kaufman and Beghetto, 2009 ; Kozbelt et al., 2011 ).

The Mini-C is defined as a type of intrapersonal creativity which has personal meaning, not solid contribution or breakthrough in a field ( Beghetto and Kaufman, 2007 , p. 76, Table 1 ). The most important point which distinguishes Mini-C from other types of creativity is the level of novelty of product. The Mini-C creativity involves the personal insight or interpretation which is new to a particular individual, but may be ordinary to others. The Little-C creativity refers to any small, but solid innovation in daily life. The Pro-C creativity is represented in the form of professional contribution which is still not a breakthrough. The Big-C creativity generates a real breakthrough appears in some field which is considered as something new to all human beings. The other difference is related with the subjects of sub-types of creativity. The Mini-C creativity mainly happens in all kinds of students. The Little-C creativity can be widely found in normal people. The Pro-C creativity’s masters are those who are proficient in some field. The Big-C creativity is related frequently with those giants who has made eminent contribution to human being.

Basic information of samples 1 and 2 included.

The Mini-C creativity frequently happens in learning process. When the contribution of the Mini-C creativity grows big enough, it can move into the category of the Little-C creativity, or the Big-C creativity. Most homework creativity is of Mini-C creativity, and of which a small part may grow as the Little-C and Big-C creativities. For example, when students independently find a unique solution to a problem in homework which has scientific meaning, a Little-C or Big-C occurs.

Third, the education researchers have observed homework creativity for many years and been manipulating them in educational practice. Kaiipob (1951) described that homework is a semi-guide learning process in which homework such as composition, report, public speech, difficult and complex exercises, experiments, and making tools and models consumes a lot of time and accelerate the development of students’ creativity disposition (p. 153).

In the recent years, creativity has become a curriculum or instruction goal in many countries (the case of United Kingdom, see Smith and Smith, 2010 ; Chinese case, see Pang and Plucker, 2012 ). Homework is the most important way that accomplish this goal. Considering Chinese in primary and secondary schools in China as an example, the curriculum standards have clearly required homework to cultivate students’ creative spirit, creative thinking, and ability to imagination since the year 2000. The results of Qian’s (2006) investigation revealed that the percent of these creative homework items in each unit fluctuates between 29 and 45%.

Previous instruments of homework behaviors

Those existent instruments measuring homework behavior can be divided into the following two categories: The single-indicator instruments and the multi-dimension instruments ( Guo and Fan, 2018 ). The single-indicator instruments employ only one item to measure homework attributes, such as homework time (e.g., Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2007 ), homework frequency (e.g., De Jong et al., 2000 ), homework completion (e.g., Xu et al., 2019 ), and effort (e.g., Liu et al., 2013 ).

The typical multi-dimension instruments include Homework Process Inventory ( Cooper et al., 1998 ), Homework Purpose Scale ( Xu, 2010 ), Homework Performance Questionnaire ( Pendergast et al., 2014 ), Homework Management Scale (HMS; Xu and Corno, 2003 ), Homework Evaluating Scale ( Fernández-Alonso et al., 2015 ), Homework Problem Checklist ( Anesko et al., 1987 ), Science Homework Scale ( Tas et al., 2016 ), Homework Expectancy Value Scale ( Yang and Xu, 2017 ), and Online Homework Distraction Scale ( Xu et al., 2020 ).

Although the previous tools measured some dimensions of homework ( Guo and Fan, 2018 ), there is hardly any tool that can be employed to gauge the homework creativity. Guo and Fan (2018) extracted several attributes (i.e., time, completion, quality, purpose, effort, creativity, sociality, liking) represented in the existent instruments of homework behaviors, and put forth a multi-faceted model of homework behaviors which intuitionally predicts the existence of homework creativity.

Under the guideline of the multi-faceted model ( Guo and Fan, 2018 ), Guo (2018) developed a multi-dimensional homework behavior instrument, which detected the homework creativity as a dimension in the homework behavior of middle school students. A typical item of homework creativity in Guo (2018) is “The way I do my homework is different from others.” The subscale homework creativity reported by Guo (2018) needs to be improved because it has a small number of items with lower reliability.

Following Guo’s (2018) work, Chang (2019) conducted a new investigation focusing on homework creativity behavior. Using an open-ended questionnaire, a total of 30 students from primary, middle, and high schools were invited to answer this question, that is, “What characteristics can be considered as creative in the process of completing the homework?” Here, “creativity” refers to novelty, uniqueness, and high quality. A group of 23 specific behaviors were reported, among which the top 10 are as follows: Learning by analogy, open minded, one question with multiple solutions, unique solution, summarizing the cause of errors, constructing a personal understanding, analyzing knowledge points clearly, classifying homework contents, making more applications, having rich imagination, and a neat handwriting (see Chang, 2019 , Table 4 , p. 14). Based on these results of open-ended questionnaire, Chang (2019) invented a nine-item scale (see Table 1 and Supplementary Table S3 for details) called as the HCBS which has a good reliability coefficient (α = 0.87).

Regression analyses of homework creative behavior on academic achievement and general creativity.

AA, academic achievement; WCAPt, total score of WCAP; TWk, time spent on homework in week days; TWw, time spent on homework in weekend; HCp, homework completion; HCb, homework creativity behavior.

Previous studies on the relationship between homework behaviors and academic achievement

In the literature, homework behaviors is one cluster of variables typically including homework time, homework completion, effort, purpose, frequency, etc. Academic achievement is an outcome of homework which is operationally measured using the scores on the standardized tests, or non-standardized tests (including final examinations, or teachers’ grades, or estimations by participants themselves, those forms were used widely in the literature, see Fan et al., 2017 ). Academic achievement may be affected by a lot of factors inherited in the process of learning (see Hattie, 2009 for an overview of its correlates). The relationship between homework behaviors and academic achievement is one of the most important questions in homework field, because it is related to the effectiveness of homework ( Cooper et al., 2006 , 2012 ; Fan et al., 2017 ).

Most of the previous studies focused on the relationship between homework time and academic achievement. Cooper et al. (2006) synthesized the primary studies published from 1989 to 2003, and found that the correlation between homework time of America students and their academic achievement was about 0.15. Fan et al. (2017) reviewed those individual studies published before June 2015, and reported that the averaged correlation between homework time of international students and their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) academic achievement was about 0.20. Fernández-Alonso et al. (2017) investigated a representative sample of Spanish students (more than 26,000), and the results of multi-level analysis indicated that the correlation between homework time and academic achievement was negative at student level, but positive at school level ( r = 0.16). Fernández-Alonso et al. (2019) took a survey on a big sample from 16 countries from Latin America, and reported that the relationship between homework time and academic achievement was very weak. Valle et al. (2019) analyzed the homework time, time management, and achievement of 968 Spain students finding that homework time management was positively related to academic achievement. Taken all these together, we will find that the homework has some small significant correlations with academic achievement, the average r = 0.15.

The correlation between homework completion and academic achievement has also been investigated for decades. Based on a review of 11 primary studies, Fan et al. (2017) reported a high correlation of 0.59 between them. Rosário et al. (2015) investigated 638 students, and demonstrated a correlation of 0.22 between amount of homework completed and math test scores. Xu et al. (2019) took a survey using a sample of 1,450 Chinese eighth graders, and found that the correlations between homework completion and the gains in math test scores ranged from 0.25 to 0.28. Dolean and Lervag (2022) employed the Randomized Controlled Trial design, and demonstrated that amount of homework completed has immediate effect on writing competency in which the effect of moderate amount of homework can last for 4 months. Integrating the aforementioned results, we can find that the averaged correlation between homework completion and academic achievement was higher than that between homework time with academic achievement.

Homework effort was also found to be correlated with academic achievement. Fan et al. (2017) reviewed four primary studies and returned that a medium correlation ( r = 0.31) between homework effort and academic achievement. Two recent investigations showed that this relationship is positively and reciprocally related ( r = 0.41–0.42) ( Xu, 2020 ; Xu et al., 2021 ).

The effect of homework purpose was also correlated with the academic achievement. Fan et al. (2017) summarized four existent primary studies and reported an averaged correlation of 0.11 between them. Later, Rosário et al. (2015) found a similar correlation coefficient of these two variables on a sample of 638 students. Xu’s (2018) investigation revealed that the correlation between purpose and academic achievement was about 0.40. Sun et al. (2021) investigated a larger sample ( N = 1,365), and found that the subscales of homework purpose had different correlation patterns with academic achievement (academic purpose is 0.40, self-regulatory purpose is 0.20, and approval-seeking purpose is 0.10).

Considering the case of homework creativity, there is only one study preliminarily investigated its relationship with academic achievement. Guo (2018) investigated a sample of 1,808 middle school students, and reported a significant correlation between homework creativity and academic achievement ( r = 0.34, p < 0.05).

Previous studies on the relationship between homework behaviors and general creativity

General creativity refers to the psychological attributes which can generate novel and valuable products ( Kaufman and Glăveanu, 2019 ; Sternberg and Karami, 2022 ). These psychological attributes typically included attitude (e.g., willing to take appropriate risk), motivations (e.g., intrinsic motivation, curiosity), abilities (e.g., divergent thinking), and personality (e.g., independence) ( Kaufman and Glăveanu, 2019 ; Long et al., 2022 ). These attributes can be assessed independently, or in the form of grouping ( Plucker et al., 2019 ; Sternberg, 2019 ). For instance, the divergent thinking was measured independently ( Kaufman et al., 2008 ). Also, the willing to take appropriate risk was measured in tools contain other variables ( Williams, 1979 ). There are many studies examined the relationship between learning and general creativity in the past several decades indicating that the correlation between them was around 0.22 (e.g., Gajda et al., 2017 ; Karwowski et al., 2020 ).

Regarding the relationship between homework behaviors and general creativity, there are few studies which presented some contradictory viewpoints. Kaiipob (1951) posited that homework could accelerate development of students’ general creativity disposition, because the tasks in homework provide opportunities to exercise creativity. Cooper et al. (2012) argued that homework can diminish creativity. Furthermore, Zheng (2013) insisted that homework will reduce curiosity and the ability to challenging – the two core components of creativity. The preliminary results of Chang (2019) indicated that the score of HCBS is significantly correlated with scores of a test of general creativity, Williams’ creativity packet ( r = 0.25–0.33, p < 0.05).

Previous studies on the relationship between homework behaviors and homework creativity

In Guo and Fan’s (2018) theoretical work, homework creativity was combined from two independent words, homework and creativity, which was defined as a new attribute of homework process and was considered as a new member of homework behaviors. Up till now, there are two works providing preliminary probe to the relationship between homework behaviors and homework creativity. Guo (2018) investigated a sample of 1808 middle school students, and found that homework creativity was correlated significantly with liking ( r = 0.33), correctness ( r = 0.47), completion ( r = 0.57), and purpose ( r = 0.53). Based on another sample of Chinese students (elementary school students, N = 300; middle school students, N = 518; high school students, N = 386), Chang (2019) showed that the score of homework creativity was correlated significantly with homework time ( r = 0.11), completion ( r = 0.39), correctness ( r = 0.63), effort ( r = 0.73), social interaction ( r = 0.35), quality ( r = 0.69), interpersonal relation purpose ( r = 0.17), and purpose of personal development ( r = 0.41).

Previous studies on grade differences of homework behaviors and general creativity

Grade differences of homework behaviors.

As a useful indicator, homework time was recorded frequently (e.g., Cooper et al., 2006 ; Fan et al., 2017 ). A recent meta-analysis included 172 primary studies (total N = 144,416) published from 2003 to 2019, and demonstrated that time Chinese K-12 students spent on homework increased significantly along with increasing of grades ( Zhai and Fan, 2021 , October).

Regarding homework managing time, some studies reported the grade difference was insignificant. Xu (2006) surveyed 426 middle school students and found that there was no difference between middle school students and high school students. Xu and Corno (2003) reported that urban junior school students ( N = 86) had no grade difference in homework Managing time. Yang and Tu (2020) surveyed 305 Chinese students in grades 7–9, and found that in managing time behavior, the grade differences were insignificant. The rest studies showed that the grade effect is significant. A survey by Xu et al. (2014) based on 1799 Chinese students in grades 10 and 11 showed that the higher level the grade, the lower level of time management.

Grade differences of general creativity

The findings from the previous studies suggested that the scores of general creativity deceases as the grade increases except for some dimensions. Kim (2011) reviewed the Torrance Tests of Creative thinking (TTCT) scores change using five datasets from 1974 to 2008, and reported that three dimensions of creative thinking (i.e., “Fluency,” “Originality,” and “Elaboration”) significantly decreased along with grades increase, while the rest dimension (i.e., “Abstractness of titles”) significantly increased when grades increase. Nie and Zheng (2005) investigated a sample of 3,729 participants from grades 3–12 using the Williams’ Creativity Assessment Packet (WCAP), and reported that the creativity scores decreased from grades 9–12. Said-Metwaly et al. (2021) synthesized 41 primary studies published in the past 60 years, and concluded that the ability of divergent thinking had a whole increase tendency from grades 1 to 12 with a decrease tendency from grades 8 to 11 at the same time.

The purpose and questions of this study

What we have known about homework creativity hitherto is nothing except for its notation and a preliminary version of measurement. To get deeper understanding of homework creativity, this study made an endeavor to examine its relationships with relevant variables based on a confirmation of the reliability and validity of HCBS. Specifically, there are four interrelated research questions, as the following paragraphs (and their corresponding hypotheses) described.

(i) What is the reliability and validity of the HCBS?

Because the earlier version of the HCBS showed a good Cronbach α coefficient of 0.87, and a set of well-fitting indices ( Chang, 2019 ), this study expected that the reliability and validity will also behave well in the current conditions as before. Then, we present the first set of hypotheses as follows:

H1a: The reliability coefficient will equal or greater than 0.80.

H1b: The one-factor model will also fit the current data well; and all indices will reach or over the criteria as the expertise suggested.

(ii) What degree is the score of the HCBS related with academic achievement?

As suggested by the review section, the correlations between homework behaviors and academic achievement ranged from 0.15 and 0.59 (e.g., Fan et al., 2017 ), then we expected that the relationship between homework creativity and academic achievement will fall into this range, because homework creativity is a member of homework behaviors.

The results of the previous studies also demonstrated that the correlation between general creativity and academic achievement changed in a range of 0.19–0.24 with a mean of 0.19 ( Gajda et al., 2017 ). Because it can be treated as a sub-category of general creativity, we predicted that homework creativity will have a similar behavior under the current condition.

Taken aforementioned information together, Hypothesis H2 is presented as follows:

H2: There will be a significant correlation between homework creativity and academic achievement which might fall into the interval of 0.15–0.59.

(iii) What degree is the relationship between HCBS and general creativity?

As discussed in the previous section, there are no inconsistent findings about the relationship between the score of HCBS and general creativity. Some studies postulated that these two variables be positive correlated (e.g., Kaiipob, 1951 ; Chang, 2019 ); other studies argued that this relationship be negative (e.g., Cooper et al., 2012 ; Zheng, 2013 ). Because homework creativity is a sub-category of general creativity, we expected that this relationship would be positive and its value might be equal or less than 0.33. Based on those reasoning, we presented our third hypothesis as follows:

H3: The correlation between homework creativity and general creativity would be equal or less than 0.33.

(iv) What effect does grade have on the HCBS score?

Concerning the grade effect of homework behaviors, the previous findings were contradictory ( Xu et al., 2014 ; Zhai and Fan, 2021 , October). However, the general creativity decreased as the level of grade increases from grade 8 to grade 11 ( Kim, 2011 ; Said-Metwaly et al., 2021 ). Taken these previous findings and the fact that repetitive exercises increase when grades go up ( Zheng, 2013 ), we were inclined to expect that the level of homework creativity is negative correlated with the level of grade. Thus, we presented our fourth hypothesis as follows:

H4: The score of HCBS might decrease as the level of grades goes up.

Materials and methods

Participants.

To get more robust result, this study investigated two convenient samples from six public schools in a medium-sized city in China. Among them, two schools were of high schools (including a key school and a non-key school), and the rest four schools were middle schools (one is key school, and the rest is non-key school). All these schools included here did not have free lunch system and written homework policy. Considering the students were mainly prepared for entrance examination of higher stage, the grades 9 and 12 were excluded in this survey. Consequently, students of grades 7, 8, 10, and 11 were included in our survey. After getting permission of the education bureau of the city investigated, the headmasters administrated the questions in October 2018 (sample 1) and November 2019 (sample 2).

A total of 850 questionnaires were released and the valid number of questionnaires returned is 639 with a valid return rate of 75.18%. Therefore, there were 639 valid participants in sample 1. Among them, there were 273 boys and 366 girls (57.2%); 149 participants from grade 7 (23.31%), 118 from grade 8 (18.47%), 183 from grade 10 (28.64%), and 189 from grade 11 (29.58%); the average age was 15.25 years, with a standard deviation (SD) of 1.73 years. See Table 1 for the information about each grade.

Those participants included received homework assignments every day (see Table 1 for the distribution of homework frequency). During the working days, the averaged homework time was 128.29 minutes with SD = 6.65 minutes. In the weekend, the average homework time was 3.75 hours, with SD = 0.22 hours. The percentage distribution here is similar with that of a national representative sample ( Sun et al., 2020 ), because the values of Chi-squared (χ 2 ) were 7.46 (father) and 8.46 (mother), all p -values were above 0.12 (see Supplementary Table S1 for details).

Another package of 850 questionnaires were released. The valid number of questionnaires returned is 710 with a valid return rate of 83.53%. Among them, there were 366 girls (51.50%); 171 participants from grade 7 (24.23%), 211 from grade 8 (26.06%), 190 from the grade 10 (22.96%), and 216 from grade 11 (26.76%); the average age was 15.06 years, with SD = 1.47 years.

Those participants included received homework assignments almost each day (see Table 1 for details for the distribution of homework frequency). During the working days, the averaged homework time was 123.02 minutes with SD = 6.13 minutes. In weekend, the average homework time was 3.47 hours, with SD = 0.21 hours.

The percentage distribution here is insignificantly different from that of a national representative sample ( Sun et al., 2020 ), because the values of χ 2 were 5.20 (father) and 6.05 (mother), p -values were above 0.30 (see Supplementary Table S1 for details).

Instruments

The homework creativity behavior scale.

The HCBS contains nine items representing students’ creativity behaviors in the process of completing homework (for example, “I do my homework in an innovative way”) ( Chang, 2019 , see Supplementary Table S3 for details). The HCBS employs a 5-point rating scale, where 1 means “completely disagree” and 5 means “completely agree.” The higher the score, the stronger the homework creative behavior students have. The reliability and validity of the HCBS can be found in Section “Reliability and validity of the homework creativity behavior scale” (see Table 2 and Figures 1 , ​ ,2 2 for details).

Results of item discrimination analysis and exploratory factor analysis.

**p < 0.01, two side-tailed. The same for below.

a Correlations for sample 1; b Correlations for sample 2. c Seventh item should be removed away according to the results of CFA (see section “Reliability and validity of the HCBS” for details).

Parallel analysis scree plots of the HCBS data.

The standardized solution for HCBS eight-item model. hcb, homework creativity behavior; it 1∼9, item1 ∼6, 8∼9.

Homework management scale

The HMS contains 22 items describing specific behaviors related to self-management in homework (for example, “I will choose a quiet place to do my homework” or “Tell myself to calm down when encountering difficulties”) ( Xu and Corno, 2003 ; Xu, 2008 ). The HMS employs a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree). All items can be divided into five dimensions, i.e., arranging environment, managing time, focusing attention, monitoring motivation, and monitoring and controlling emotion. Among them, the monitoring and controlling emotion dimension adopts a method of reverse scoring.

Except for the internal consistency of arranging environment in sample 1, which is 0.63, the internal consistency coefficients of the five dimensions based two samples in this study are all greater than 0.7, ranging from 0.70 to 0.79. The Cronbach’s coefficients of the overall HMS-based two samples are 0.88 and 0.87, respectively. The ω coefficients of the dimensions of HMS ranged from 0.64 to 0.80. The ω coefficients of the HMS total scores were 0.88 and 0.87 for samples 1 and 2, respectively. Those reliability coefficients were acceptable for research purpose ( Clark and Watson, 1995 ; Peterson and Kim, 2013 ).

Williams’ creativity assessment packet

The WCAP including a total of 40 items is a revised version to measure general disposition of creativity (for example, “I like to ask some questions out of other’s expectation” or “I like to imagine something novel, even if it looks useless”) ( Williams, 1979 ; Wang and Lin, 1986 ; Liu et al., 2016 ). The WCAP uses a 3-point Likert scales, in which 1 = disagree, 2 = uncertain, and 3 = agree. The higher WCAP score, the higher is the general creativity level. All items of WCAP can be scattered into four dimensions: adventure, curiosity, imagination, and challenge ( Williams, 1979 ; Wang and Lin, 1986 ; Liu et al., 2016 ). In this study, the Cronbach’s α coefficients of adventure, curiosity, imagination, challenge, and total scale are 0.62, 0.71, 0.78, 0.64, and 0.90, respectively. The ω coefficients were in sequence 0.61, 0.70, 0.77, 0.63, and 0.90 for adventure, curiosity, imagination, challenge, and the total score of WCAP. The correlations between the four dimensions of WCAP are between 0.47 and 0.65. The patterns of reliability coefficients and correlations between dimensions are similar to those results reported by the previous studies ( Williams, 1979 ; Wang and Lin, 1986 ; Liu et al., 2016 ) which stand acceptable reliability and validity ( Clark and Watson, 1995 ; Peterson and Kim, 2013 ).

Homework indicators

Homework time.

The participants were asked to report the time spent on homework in the past week. This technique has been employed widely in many international survey programs, such as PISA from OECD (e.g., Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2007 ). The items are as follows: (1) “Every day, from Monday to Friday, in last week, how many minutes you spent on homework?” The options are as follows: (A) 0–30 min; (B) 31–60 min (C) 61–90 min (D) 91–120 min; (E) 121–180 min; (F) 181 min or more. (2) “In last weekend, how many hours you spent on homework?” The options are as follows: (A) 0–1 h; (B) 1.1–3 h; (C) 3.1–5 h; (D) 5.1–7 h; (E) 7.1 h or more.

Homework completion

The homework completion is a useful indicator demonstrated in the previous studies ( Welch et al., 1986 ; Austin, 1988 ; Swank, 1999 ; Pelletier, 2005 ; Wilson, 2010 ), and had large correlation with achievement, as a meta-analytic results suggested ( Fan et al., 2017 ). In the survey of this study, the participants were also asked to estimate a percent of the completion of homework in the past week and fill in the given blank space. It includes three items which are as follows: “What is the percentage of Chinese/Maths/English homework assignment you completed in the last week?” “Please estimate and write a number from 0 to 100 in the blank space.”

Academic achievement

To record the academic achievement, an item required participants to make a choice based on their real scores of tests, not estimate their tests scores. The item is, “In the last examination, what is the rank of your score in your grade?” (A) The first 2%; (B) The first 3–13%; (C) The first 14–50%; (D) The first 51–84%; (E) The last 16%. The options here correspond to the percentage in the normal distribution, it is convenient to compute a Z -score for each student.

The method employed here is effective to retrieve participants’ test scores. First, the self-report method is more effective than other method under the condition of anonymous investigation. To our knowledge, participants do not have the will to provide their real information in the real name format. Second, this method transforms test scores from different sources into the same space of norm distribution which benefits the comparisons. Third, the validity of this method has been supported by empirical data. Using another sample ( N = 234), we got the academic achievement they reported and real test scores their teacher recorded. The correlation between ranks self-reported and the real scores from Chinese test were r = 0.81, p < 0.001; and the correlation coefficient for mathematics was also large, i.e., r = 0.79, p < 0.001.

Data collection procedure

There are three phases in data collection. The first one is the design stage. At this stage, the corresponding author of this study designed the study content, prepared the survey tools, and got the ethical approve of this project authorized from research ethic committee of school the corresponding author belongs to.

The second stage is to releasing questionnaire prepared. The questionnaire was distributed and retrieved by the head master of those classes involved. Neither the teachers nor the students knew the purpose of this research. During this stage, students can stop answering at any time, or simply withdraw from the survey. None of the teachers and students in this study received payment.

The third stage is the data entry stage. At this stage, the corresponding author of this study recruited five volunteers majored in psychology and education, and explained to them the coding rules, missing value processing methods, identification of invalid questionnaires, and illustrated how to deal with these issues. The volunteers used the same data template for data entry. The corresponding author of this study controlled the data entry quality by selective check randomly.

Data analysis strategies

R packages employed.

The “psych” package in R environment ( R Core Team, 2019 ) was employed to do descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, mean difference comparisons, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), reliability Analysis ( Revelle, 2022 ); and the “lavaan” package was used in confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and measurement invariance test ( Rosseel, 2012 ); and the “semPlot” package was employed to draw the picture of CFA’s outputs ( Epskamp et al., 2022 ).

Analysis strategies of exploratory factor analysis and reliability

Sample 1 was used for item analysis, EFA, reliability analysis. In EFA, factors were extracted using maximum likelihood, and the promax method served as the rotation method. The number of factors were determined according to the combination of the results from screen plot, and the rule of Eigenvalues exceeding 1.0, and parallel analysis ( Luo et al., 2019 ).

The Cronbach’s α and MacDonald’s ω test were employed to test the reliability of the scale. The rigorous criteria that α ≥ 0.70 ( Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994 ) and ω ≥ 0.7 ( Green and Yang, 2015 ) were taken as acceptable level of the reliability of HCBS.

Analysis strategies of confirmatory factor analysis

As suggested by Hu and Bentler (1999) , two absolute goodness-of-fit indices, namely, the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) and the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR), and two relative goodness-of-fit indices, namely, comparative fit index (CFI) and Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI) were recruited as fitting indicators. The absolute goodness-of-fit indices are less than 0.08, and the relative goodness-of-fit indices greater than 0.90 are considered as a good fit. The CFA was conducted using the second sample.

Strategies for measurement invariance

Measurement invariance testing included four models, they are Configural invariance (Model 1), which is to test whether the composition of latent variables between different groups is the same; Weak invariance (Factor loading invariance, Model 2), which is to test whether the factor loading is equal among the groups; Intercept invariance (Model 3), that is, whether the intercepts of the observed variables are equal; Strict equivalent (Residual Variance invariance, Model 4), that is, to test whether the error variances between different groups are equal ( Chen, 2007 ; Putnick and Bornstein, 2016 ).

Since the χ 2 test will be affected easily by the sample size, even small differences will result in significant differences as the sample size will increase. Therefore, this study used the changes of model fitting index CFI, RMSEA, and SRMR (ΔCFI, ΔRMSEA, and ΔSRMR) to evaluate the invariance of the measurement. When ΔCFI ≤ 0.010, ΔRMSEA ≤ 0.015, and ΔSRMR ≤ 0.030 (for metric invariance) or 0.015 (for scalar or residual invariance), the invariance model is considered acceptable ( Cheung and Rensvold, 2002 ; Chen, 2007 ; Putnick and Bornstein, 2016 ).

Strategies of controlling common methods biases

The strategy of controlling common methods biases is mainly hided in the directions. Each part of the printed questionnaire had a sub-direction which invites participants answer the printed questions honestly. The answer formats between any two neighboring parts were different from each other which requested participants change their mind in time. For example, on some part, the answering continuum varied from “1 = totally disagreed” to “5 = total agreed,” while the answering continuum on the neighboring part is the from “5 = totally disagreed” to “1 = total agreed.” Additionally, according to the suggestion of the previous studies, the one factor CFA model and the bi-factor model can be used to detect the common methods biases (e.g., Podsakoff et al., 2012 ).

Detection of common method biases

The fitting results of the one-common-factor model using CFA technique were as follows: χ 2 = 15,073, df = 3320, p < 0.001; χ 2 / df = 4.54, CFI = 0.323, TLI = 0.306, RMSEA = 0.071, 90% CI: 0.070–0.072, and SRMR = 0.101. The results of the bi-factor model under CFA framework were presented as follows: χ 2 = 2,225.826, df = 117, p < 0.001; χ 2 / df = 19.024, CFI = 0.650, TLI = 0.543, RMSEA = 0.159, 90% CI: 0.154–0.164, and SRMR = 0.127. These poor indices of the two models suggested that the one-common-factor model failed to fit the data well and that the biases of common method be ignored ( Podsakoff et al., 2012 ).

Reliability and validity of the homework creativity behavior scale

Item analysis.

Based on the sample 1, the correlation coefficients between the items of the HCBS were between 0.34 and 0.64, p -values were below 0.01. The correlations between the items and the total score of HCBS vary from 0.54 to 0.75 ( p -values are below 0.01). On the condition of sample 2, the correlations between the items fluctuate between 0.31 and 0.58, the correlation coefficients between the items and the total score of the HCBS change from 0.63 to 0.75 ( p -values were below 0.01). All correlation coefficients between items and total score are larger than those between items and reached the criterion suggested ( Ferketich, 1991 ; see Table 2 for details).

Results of exploratory factor analysis

The EFA results (based on sample 1) showed that the KMO was 0.89, and the χ 2 of Bartlett’s test = 1,666.07, p < 0.01. The rules combining eigenvalue larger than 1 and the results of parallel analysis (see Figure 1 for details) suggested that one factor should be extracted. The eigenvalue of the factor extracted was 3.63. The average variance extracted was 0.40. This factor accounts 40% variance with factor loadings fluctuating from 0.40 to 0.76 (see Table 2 ).

Results of confirmatory factor analysis

In the CFA situation (based on sample 2) the fitting indices of the nine-item model of the HCBS are acceptable marginally, they are χ 2 = 266.141; df = 27; χ 2 / df = 9.857; CFI = 0.904; TLI = 0.872; RMSEA = 0.112; 90% CI: 0.100–0.124; SRMR = 0.053.

The modification indices of item 7 were too big (MI value = 74.339, p < 0.01), so it is necessary to consider to delete item 7. Considering its content of “I designed a neat, clean and clear homework format by myself,” item 7 is an indicator of strictness which is weakly linked with creativity. Therefore, the item 7 should be deleted.

After removing item 7, the fitting results were, χ 2 = 106.111; df = 20; χ 2 / df = 5.306; CFI = 0.957; TLI = 0.939; RMSEA = 0.078; 90% CI: 0.064–0.093; SRMR = 0.038). The changes of the fitting indices of the two nested models (eight-item vs. nine-item models) are presented as follows: Δχ 2 = 160.03, Δ df = 7, χ 2 (α = 0.01, df = 7) = 18.48, p < 0.05. After deleting item 7, both CFI and TLI indices increased to above 0.93, and RMSEAs decreased below 0.08 which suggested that the factor model on which eight items loaded fitted the data well. The average variance extracted was 0.50 which is adequate according to the criteria suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981) . The standardized solution for the eight-item model of the HCBS was shown in Figure 2 .

Correlations between the homework creativity behavior scale and similar concepts

The results showed that the score of the HCBS was significantly correlated with the total score and four dimensions of WCAP and their correlation coefficients ranged from 0.20 to 0.29, p -values were below 0.01. Similarly, the correlations between the score of the HCBS and the scores of arranging environment, managing time, motivation management, and controlling emotion, and total score of the HMS ranged from 0.08 to 0.22, p -values were 0.01; at the meanwhile, the correlation between the score of HCBS and the distraction dimension of the HMS was r = –0.14, p -values were 0.01. The HCBS score was also significantly related to homework completion ( r = 0.18, p < 0.01), but insignificantly related to homework time (see Table 3 for details).

Correlation matrix between variables included and the corresponding descriptive statistics.

About correlation between variables, the results of sample 1 and sample 2 were presented in the lower, upper triangle, respectively.

a In analyses, grades 7, 8, 10, and 11 were valued 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively.

b TWk, the time spent on homework in the weekend; TWw, the time spent on homework from Monday to Friday; HCp, homework completion; HMSt, total score of homework management scale; AE, arrange environment; MT, manage time; MM, monitor motivation; CE, control emotion; FA, focus attention; WCAPt, WCAP total score; AD, adventure; CU, curiosity; IM, imagination; CH, challenging; HCb, homework creativity behavior; AA, academic achievement.

c Since sample 1 did not answer the WCAP, so the corresponding cells in the lower triangle are blank. *p < 0.05, two side-tailed, the same for below.

d Since there is only one item from variable 1 to 4, the α and ω coefficients cannot be computed.

Correlations between the homework creativity behavior scale and distinct concepts

The correlation analysis results demonstrated that both the correlation coefficients between the score of HCBS and the time spent on homework in week days, and time spent on in weekend days were insignificant ( r -values = 0.02, p -values were above 0.05), which indicated a non-overlap between two distinct constructs of homework creativity and time spent on homework.

Reliability analyses

The results revealed that both the Cronbach’s α coefficients of sample 1 and sample 2 were 0.86, which were greater than a 0.70 criteria the previous studies suggest ( Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994 ; Green and Yang, 2015 ).

Effect of homework creativity on academic achievement

The results (see Table 4 ) of hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that (1) gender and grade explained 0.8% variation of the score of academic achievement. This number means closing to zero because the regression equation failed to pass the significance test; (2) homework time and completion explained 5.4% variation of academic achievement; considering the β coefficients of the time spent on homework is insignificant, this contribution should be attributed to homework completion totally, and (3) the score of the HCBS explained 3.7% variation of the academic achievement independently.

Effect of homework creativity on general creativity

The results showed the following (see Table 4 for details):

(1) Gender and grade explained 1.3% variation of the total score of general creativity (i.e., the total score of WACP); homework time and completion explained 1.3% variation of the total score of general creativity disposition; and the score of the HCBS independently explained 7.0% variation of the total score of general creativity.

(2) Gender and grade explained 1.7% variation of the adventure score, and homework time and completion explained 1.6% variation of the adventure score, and the score of the HCBS independently explained 6.4% variation of the adventure score.

(3) Gender and grade explained 2.4% variation of the curiosity score, and homework time and completion explained 1.1% variation of the curiosity score, and the score of the HCBS independently explained 5.1% variation of the curiosity score.

(4) Gender and grade explained 0.3% variation of the imagination score, homework time completion explained 0.3% variation of the imagination score. The real values of the two “0.3%” are zeros because both the regression equations and coefficients failed to pass the significance tests. Then the score of the HCBS independently explained 4.4% variation of the imagination score.

(5) Gender and grade explained 0.3% variation of the score of the challenge dimension, homework time and completion explained 2.3% variation of the challenge score, and the score of the HCBS independently explained 4.9% variation of the challenge score.

Grade differences of the homework creativity behavior scale

Test of measurement invariance.

The results of measurement invariance test across four grades indicated the following:

(1) The fitting states of the four models (Configural invariance, Factor loading invariance, Intercept invariance, and Residual variance invariance) were marginally acceptable, because values of CFIs (ranged from 0.89 to 0.93), TLIs (varied from 0.91 to 0.93), RMSEAs (fluctuated from 0.084 to 0.095), and SRMRs (changed from 0.043 to 0.074) located the cutoff intervals suggested by methodologists ( Cheung and Rensvold, 2002 ; Chen, 2007 ; Putnick and Bornstein, 2016 ; see Table 5 for fitting indices, and refer to Supplementary Table S2 for the estimation of parameters).

Fitting results of invariance tests across grades.

(2) When setting factor loadings equal across four grades (i.e., grades 7, 8, 10, and 11), the ΔCFA was –0.006, ΔRMSEA was –0.007, and ΔSRMR was 0.016 which indicated that it passed the test of factor loading invariance. After adding the limit of intercepts equal across four groups, the ΔCFA was –0.008, ΔRMSEA was –0.004, and the ΔSRMR was 0.005 which supported that it passed the test of intercept invariance. At the last step, the error variances were also added as equal, the ΔCFA was –0.027, ΔRMSEA was 0.005, and the ΔSRMR was 0.019 which failed to pass the test of residual variance invariance (see Table 5 for changes of fitting indices). Taking into these fitting indices into account, the subsequent comparisons between the means of factors can be conducted because the residuals are not part of the latent factor ( Cheung and Rensvold, 2002 ; Chen, 2007 ; Putnick and Bornstein, 2016 ).

Grade differences in homework creativity and general creativity

The results of ANOVA showed that there were significant differences in the HCBS among the four grades [ F (3,1345) = 27.49, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.058, see Table 6 for details]. Further post-test tests returned that the scores of middle school students were significantly higher than those of high school students (Cohen’s d values ranged from 0.46 to 0.54; the averaged Cohen’s d = 0.494), and no significant difference occurs between grades 7 and 8, or between grades 10 and 11. See Figure 3 for details.

Grade differences in HCBS.

***p < 0.001.

The mean differences of the HCBS between the groups of grades.

To address the gap in the previous research on homework creativity, this study examined the psychometric proprieties of the HCBS and its relationship with academic achievement and general creativity. The main findings were (1) Hypotheses H1a and H1b were supported that the reliability and validity of the HCBS were acceptable; (2) Hypothesis H2 was supported that the correlation between the score of the HCBS and academic achievement was significant ( r -values = 0.23–0.26 for two samples); (3) Hypothesis H3 received support that the correlation between the scores of HCBS and WCAP was significant ( r -values = 0.20–0.29 for two samples); and (4) the H4 was supported from the current data that the score of high school students’ was lower than that of the middle school students’ (Cohen’s d = 0.49).

The positive correlations among homework creativity, homework completion, and general creativity

The first key finding should be noted is that the positive correlations with between pairs of homework creativity, homework completion, and general creativity. This result is inconsistent with prediction of an argument that homework diminishes creativity ( Cooper et al., 2012 ; Zheng, 2013 ). Specifically, the correlation between homework completion and curiosity was insignificant ( r = 0.08, p > 0.05) which did not support the argument that homework hurts curiosity of creativity ( Zheng, 2013 ). The possible reason may be homework can provide opportunities to foster some components of creativity by independently finding and developing new ways of understanding what students have learned in class, as Kaiipob (1951) argued. It may be the homework creativity that served as the way to practice the components of general creativity. In fact, the content of items of the HCBS are highly related with creative thinking (refer to Table 2 for details).

Possible reasons of the grade effect of the score of the homework creativity behavior scale

The second key finding should be noted is that the score of the HCBS decreased as the level of grades increased from 7 to 11. This is consistent with the basic trend recorded in the previous meta-analyses ( Kim, 2011 ; Said-Metwaly et al., 2021 ). There are three possible explanations leading to this grade effect. The first one is the repetitive exercises in homework. As Zheng (2013) observed, to get higher scores in the highly competitive entrance examination of high school and college, those Chinese students chose to practice a lot of repetitive exercises. The results of some behavior experiments suggested that repetitive activity could reduce the diverse thinking of subjects’ (e.g., Main et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, the repetitive exercises would lead to fast habituation (can be observed by skin conductance records) which hurts the creative thinking of participants ( Martindale et al., 1996 ). The second explanation is that the stress level in Chinese high schools is higher than in middle school because of the college entrance examination. The previous studies (e.g., Beversdorf, 2018 ) indicated that the high level of stress will trigger the increase activity of the noradrenergic system and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis which could debase the individual’s performance of creativity. Another likely explanation is the degree of the certainty of the college entrance examination. The level of certainty highly increases (success or failure) when time comes closer to the deadline of the entrance examination. The increase of degree of certainty will lead to the decrease of activity of the brain areas related to curiosity (e.g., Jepma et al., 2012 ).

The theoretical implications

From the theoretical perspective, there are two points deserving to be emphasized. First, the findings of this study extended the previous work ( Beghetto and Kaufman, 2007 ; Kaufman and Beghetto, 2009 ). This study revealed that homework creativity had two typical characteristics, including the personal meaning of students (as represented by the content of items of the HCBS) and the small size of “creativity” and limited in the scope of exercises (small correlations with general creativity). These characteristics are in line with what Mini-C described by the previous studies ( Beghetto and Kaufman, 2007 ; Kaufman and Beghetto, 2009 ). Second, this study deepened our understanding of the relationship between learning (homework is a part of learning) and creativity which has been discussed more than half a century. One of the main viewpoints is learning and creativity share some fundamental similarities, but no one explained what is the content of these “fundamental similarities” (e.g., Gajda et al., 2017 ). This study identified one similarity between learning and creativity in the context of homework, that is homework creativity. Homework creativity has the characteristics of homework and creativity at the same time which served as an inner factor in which homework promote creativity.

The practical implications

The findings in this study also have several potential practical implications. First, homework creativity should be a valuable goal of learning, because homework creativity may make contributions to academic achievement and general creativity simultaneously. They accounted for a total of 10.7% variance of academic achievement and general creativity which are the main goals of learning. Therefore, it is valuable to imbed homework creativity as a goal of learning, especially in the Chinese society ( Zheng, 2013 ).

Second, the items of the HCBS can be used as a vehicle to help students how to develop about homework creativity. Some studies indicated that the creative performance of students will improve just only under the simple requirement of “to be creative please” ( Niu and Sternberg, 2003 ). Similarly, some simple requirements, like “to do your homework in an innovative way,” “don’t stick to what you learned in class,” “to use a simpler method to do your homework,” “to use your imagination when you do homework,” “to design new problems on the basis what learnt,” “to find your own unique insights into your homework,” and “to find multiple solutions to the problem,” which rewritten from the items of the HCBS, can be used in the process of directing homework of students. In fact, these directions are typical behaviors of creative teaching (e.g., Soh, 2000 ); therefore, they are highly possible to be effective.

Third, the HCBS can be used to measure the degree of homework creativity in ordinary teaching or experimental situations. As demonstrated in the previous sections, the reliability and validity of the HCBS were good enough to play such a role. Based on this tool, the educators can collect the data of homework creativity, and make scientific decisions to improve the performance of people’s teaching or learning.

Strengths, limitations, and issues for further investigation

The main contribution is that this study accumulated some empirical knowledge about the relationship among homework creativity, homework completion, academic achievement, and general creativity, as well as the psychometric quality of the HCBS. However, the findings of this study should be treated with cautions because of the following limitations. First, our study did not collect the test–retest reliability of the HCBS. This makes it difficult for us to judge the HCBS’s stability over time. Second, the academic achievement data in our study were recorded by self-reported methods, and the objectivity may be more accurate. Third, the lower reliability coefficients existed in two dimensions employed, i.e., the arrange environment of the HMS (the α coefficient was 0.63), and the adventure of the WCAP (the α coefficient was 0.61). Fourth, the samples included here was not representative enough if we plan to generalize the finding to the population of middle and high school students in main land of China.

In addition to those questions listed as laminations, there are a number of issues deserve further examinations. (1) Can these findings from this study be generalized into other samples, especially into those from other cultures? For instances, can the reliability and validity of the HCBS be supported by the data from other samples? Or can the grade effect of the score of the HCBS be observed in other societies? Or can the correlation pattern among homework creativity, homework completion, and academic achievement be reproduced in other samples? (2) What is the role of homework creativity in the development of general creativity? Through longitudinal study, we can systematically observe the effect of homework creativity on individual’s general creativity, including creative skills, knowledge, and motivation. The micro-generating method ( Kupers et al., 2018 ) may be used to reveal how the homework creativity occurs in the learning process. (3) What factors affect homework creativity? Specifically, what effects do the individual factors (e.g., gender) and environmental factors (such as teaching styles of teachers) play in the development of homework creativity? (4) What training programs can be designed to improve homework creativity? What should these programs content? How about their effect on the development of homework creativity? What should the teachers do, if they want to promote creativity in their work situation? All those questions call for further explorations.

Homework is a complex thing which might have many aspects. Among them, homework creativity was the latest one being named ( Guo and Fan, 2018 ). Based on the testing of its reliability and validity, this study explored the relationships between homework creativity and academic achievement and general creativity, and its variation among different grade levels. The main findings of this study were (1) the eight-item version of the HCBS has good validity and reliability which can be employed in the further studies; (2) homework creativity had positive correlations with academic achievement and general creativity; (3) compared with homework completion, homework creativity made greater contribution to general creativity, but less to academic achievement; and (4) the score of homework creativity of high school students was lower than that of middle school students. Given that this is the first investigation, to our knowledge, that has systematically tapped into homework creativity, there is a critical need to pursue this line of investigation further.

Data availability statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the research ethic committee, School of Educational Science, Bohai University. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.

Author contributions

HF designed the research, collected the data, and interpreted the results. YM and SG analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. HF, JX, and YM revised the manuscript. YC and HF prepared the HCBS. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Liwei Zhang for his supports in collecting data, and Lu Qiao, Dounan Lu, Xiao Zhang for their helps in the process of inputting data.

This work was supported by the LiaoNing Revitalization Talents Program (grant no. XLYC2007134) and the Funding for Teaching Leader of Bohai University.

Conflict of Interest

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.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.923882/full#supplementary-material

• Anesko K. M., Schoiock G., Ramirez R., Levine F. M. (1987). The homework problem checklist: Assessing children’s homework difficulties. Behav. Assess. 9 179–185. 10.1155/2020/1250801 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Austin C. A. (1988). Homework as a parental involvement strategy to improve the achievement of first grade children: Dissertation abstracts international, 50/03, 622. Doctoral dissertation. Memphis, TN: Memphis State University. [ Google Scholar ]
• Beghetto R. A., Kaufman J. C. (2007). Toward a broader conception of creativity: A case for mini-c creativity. Psycho. Aesthetics Creat. Arts 1 73–79. [ Google Scholar ]
• Beversdorf D. Q. (2018). “ Stress, pharmacology, and creativity ,” in The cambridge handbook of the neuroscience of creativity , eds Jung R. E., Vartanian O. V. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.), 73–91. 10.1017/9781316556238.006 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chang Y. (2019). An investigation on relationship between homework and creativity of elementary and middle school students. Master thesis. Liaoning Jinzhou: Bohai University. [ Google Scholar ]
• Chen F. F. (2007). Sensitivity of goodness of fit indexes to lack of measurement invariance. Struct. Equ. Modeling 14 464–504. 10.1080/10705510701301834 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cheung G. W., Rensvold R. B. (2002). Evaluating goodness-of-fit indexes for testing measurement invariance. Struct. Equ. Modeling 9 233–255. [ Google Scholar ]
• Clark L. A., Watson D. (1995). Constructing validity: Basic issues in objective scale development. Psychological Assessment 7 309–319. 10.1037/1040-3590.7.3.309 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cooper H., Lindsay J. J., Nye B., Greathouse S. (1998). Relationships among attitudes about homework, amount of homework assigned and completed, and student achievement. J. Educ. Psychol. 90 70–83. 10.1037//0022-0663.90.1.70 [ 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. [ Google Scholar ]
• Cooper H., Steenbergen-Hu S., Dent A. L. (2012). “ Homework ,” in APA educational psychology handbook, Vol.3. Application to learning and teaching , eds Harris K. R., Graham S., Urdan T. (Washington DC: American Psychological Association; ), 475–495. [ Google Scholar ]
• De Jong R., Westerhof K. J., Creemers B. P. M. (2000). Homework and student math achievement in junior high schools. Educ. Res. Eval. 6 130–157. [ 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. Effect. Sch. Improv. 20 375–405. 10.1080/09243450902904601 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dolean D. D., Lervag A. (2022). Variations of homework amount assigned in elementary school can impact academic achievement. J. Exp. Educ. 90 280–296. 10.1080/00220973.2020.1861422 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Epskamp S., Stuber S., Nak J., Veenman M., Jorgensen T. D. (2022). semPlot: Path diagrams and visual analysis of various sem packages’ output. R package Version 1.1.5. Availabl eonline at: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/semPlot/index.html (accessed July 18, 2022). [ Google Scholar ]
• Fan H., Xu J., Cai Z., He J., Fan X. (2017). Homework and students’ achievement in math and science: A 30-year meta-analysis, 1986–2015. Educ. Res. Rev. 20 35–54. 10.1016/j.edurev.2016.11.003 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ferketich S. (1991). Focus on psychometrics. Aspects of item analysis. Res. Nurs. Health 14 165–168. 10.1002/nur.4770140211 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fernández-Alonso R., Álvarez-Díaz M., Suárez-Álvarez J., Muñiz J. (2017). Students’ achievement and homework assignment strategies. Front. Psychol. 8 : 286 . 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00286 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fernández-Alonso R., Suárez-álvarez J., Javier M. (2015). Adolescents’ homework performance in mathematics and science: Personal factors and teaching practices. J. Educ. Psychol. 107 1075–1085. 10.1037/edu0000032 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fernández-Alonso R., Woitschach P., Álvarez-Díaz M., González-López A. M., Cuesta M., Muñiz J. (2019). Homework and academic achievement in latin america: A multilevel approach. Front. Psychol. 10 : 95 . 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00095 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fornell C., Larcker D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. J. Mark. Res. 18 39–50. 10.1177/002224378101800104 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gajda A., Karwowski M., Beghetto R. A. (2017). Creativity and academic achievement: A meta-analysis. J. Educ. Psychol. 109 269–299. 10.1037/edu0000133 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Green S. B., Yang Y. (2015). Evaluation of dimensionality in the assessment of internal consistency reliability: Coefficient alpha and omega coefficients. Educ. Meas. Issues Pract. 34 14–20. 10.1111/emip.12100 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Guilford J. P. (1950). Creativity. Am. Psychol. 5 444–454. 10.1037/h0063487 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Guo L. (2018). The compilation of homework behavior questionnaire for junior middle school students. Master thesis. Liaoning Jinzhou: Bohai University. [ Google Scholar ]
• Guo L., Fan H. (2018). Analysis and prospect of homework instruments in primary and middle schools. Educ. Sci. Res. 3 48–53. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hattie J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. London: Routledge. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hu L. T., Bentler P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Struct. Equ. Modeling 6 1–55. 10.1080/10705519909540118 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Jepma M., Verdonschot R. G., van Steenbergen H., Rombouts S. A. R. B., Nieuwenhuis S. (2012). Neural mechanisms underlying the induction and relief of perceptual curiosity. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 6 : 2012 . 10.3389/fnbeh.2012.00005 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kaiipob I. A. (1951). Pedagogy (Shen yingnan, Nan zhishan et al, translated into chinese). Beijing: People’s Education Press, 150–155. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kalenkoski C. M., Pabilonia S. W. (2017). Does high school homework increase academic achievement? Educ. Econ. 25 45–59. 10.1080/09645292.2016.1178213 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kaufman J. C., Beghetto R. A. (2009). Beyond big and little: The Four-C model of creativity. Rev. Gen. Psychol. 13 1–12. 10.1037/a0013688 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kaufman J. C., Glăveanu V. P. (2019). “ A review of creativity theories: What questions are we trying to answer? ,” in Cambridge handbook of creativity , 2nd Edn, eds Kaufman J. C., Sternberg R. J. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; ), 27–43. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kaufman J. C., Plucker J. A., Baer J. (2008). Essentials of creativity assessment. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. [ Google Scholar ]
• Karwowski M., Jankowska D. M., Brzeski A., Czerwonka M., Gajda A., Lebuda I., et al. (2020). Delving into creativity and learning. Creat. Res. J. 32 4–16. 10.1080/10400419.2020.1712165 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kim K. H. (2011). The creativity crisis: The decrease in creative thinking scores on the torrance tests of creative thinking. Creat. Res. J. 23 285–295. 10.1080/10400419.2011.627805 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kozbelt A., Beghetto R. A., Runco M. A. (2011). “ Theories of creativity ,” in The cambridge handbook of creativity , eds Kaufman J. C., Sternberg R. J. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; ), 20–47. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kupers E., van Dijk M., Lehmann-Wermser A. (2018). Creativity in the here and now: A generic, micro-developmental measure of creativity. Front. Psychol. 9 : e2095 . 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02095 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Liu X.-L., Liu L., Qiu Y.-X., Jin Y., Zhou J. (2016). Reliability and validity of williams creativity assessment packet. J. Sch. Stud. 13 51–58. 10.3969/j.issn.1005-2232.2016.03.007 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Liu Y., Gong S., Cai X. (2013). Junior-high school students’ homework effort and its influencing factors. Adv. Psychol. Sci. 21 1422–1429. 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2013.01422 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Long H., Kerr B. A., Emler T. E., Birdnow M. (2022). A critical review of assessments of creativity in education. Rev. Res. Educ. 46 288–323. 10.3102/0091732X221084326 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Luo L., Arizmendi C., Gates K. M. (2019). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) programs in R. Struct. Equ. Modeling 26 819–826. 10.1080/10705511 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Main K. J., Aghakhani H., Labroo A. A., Greidanus N. S. (2020). Change it up: Inactivity and repetitive activity reduce creative thinking. J. Creat. Behav. 54 395–406. 10.1002/jocb.373 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Martindale C., Anderson K., Moor K., West A. (1996). Creativity, oversensitivity and rate of habituation. Pers. Individ. Diff. 20 423–427. 10.1016/0191-8869(95)00193-X [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nie Y., Zheng X. (2005). A study on the developmental characteristics of children’s and adolescent’s creative personality. Psychol. Sci. 28 356–361. 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.2005.02.024 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Niu W., Sternberg R. J. (2003). Societal and school influences on student creativity: The case of China. Psychol. Sch. 40 103–114. 10.1002/pits.10072 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Núñez J. C., Suárez N., Cerezo R., González-Pienda J., Valle A. (2013). Homework and academic achievement across Spanish Compulsory Education. Educ. Psychol. 35 1–21. 10.1080/01443410 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Nunnally J. C., Bernstein I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory , 3rd Edn. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. [ Google Scholar ]
• OECD (2014). Does homework perpetuate inequities in education? Pisa in Focus, No. 46. Paris: OECD Publishing, 10.1787/5jxrhqhtx2xt-en [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pang W., Plucker J. A. (2012). Recent transformations in China’s economic, social, and education policies for promoting innovation and creativity. J. Creat. Behav. 46 247–273. 10.1002/jocb.17 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pendergast L. L., Watkins M. W., Canivez G. L. (2014). Structural and convergent validity of the homework performance questionnaire. Educ. Psychol. 34 291–304. 10.1080/01443410.2013.785058 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pelletier R. (2005). The predictive power of homework assignments on student achievement in grade three (Order No. 3169466). Available from proquest dissertations & theses global. (305350863). Available online at: http://search.proquest.com/docview/305350863?accountid¼12206 [ Google Scholar ]
• Peterson R., Kim Y. (2013). On the relationship between coefficient alpha and composite reliability. J. Appl. Psychol. 98 194–198. 10.1037/a0030767 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Plucker J. A., Makel M. C., Qian M. (2019). “ Chapter3: assessment of creativity ,” in The cambridge handbook of creativity , 2nd Edn, eds Kaufman J. C., Sternberg R. J. (Cambridge University Press: New York, NY; ), 44–68. [ Google Scholar ]
• Podsakoff P. M., Mac Kenzie S. B., Podsakoff N. P. (2012). Sources of method bias in social science research and recommendations on how to control it. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 63 539–569. 10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100452 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Power T. J., Dombrowski S. C., Watkins M. W., Mautone J. A., Eagle J. W. (2007). Assessing children’s homework performance: Development of multi-dimensional, multi-informant rating scales. J. Sch. Psychol. 45 333–348. 10.1016/j.jsp.2007.02.002 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Putnick D. L., Bornstein M. H. (2016). Measurement invariance conventions and reporting: The state of the art and future directions for psychological research. Dev. Rev. 41 71–90. 10.1016/j.dr.2016.06.004 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Qian A. (2006). Research on the creative thought ability training in the language teaching material work system. Ph.D. thesis. Jiangsu Nanjing: Nanjing Normal University. [ Google Scholar ]
• R Core Team (2019). R: a language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. [ Google Scholar ]
• Revelle W. (2022). Psych: Procedures for psychological, psychometric, and personality research. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosário P., Núñez J., Vallejo G., Cunha J., Nunes T., Mourão R., et al. (2015). Does homework design matter? The role of homework’s purpose in student mathematics achievement. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 43 10–24. 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2015.08.001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rosseel Y. (2012). Lavaan: An R package for structural equation modeling. J. Stat. Softw. 48 : 97589 . 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01521 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Said-Metwaly S., Fernández-Castilla B., Kyndt E., Van den Noortgate W., Barbot B. (2021). Does the fourth-grade slump in creativity actually exist? A meta-analysis of the development of divergent thinking in school-age children and adolescents. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 33 275–298. 10.1007/s10648-020-09547-9 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Smith J. K., Smith L. F. (2010). “ Educational creativity ,” in The cambridge handbook of creativity , eds Kaufman J. C., Sternberg R. J. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; ), 250–264. [ Google Scholar ]
• Soh K.-C. (2000). Indexing creativity fostering teacher behavior: A preliminary validation study. J. Creat. Behav. 34 118–134. 10.1002/j.2162-6057.2000.tb01205.x [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sternberg R. J. (2019). Measuring creativity: A 40+ year retrospective. J. Creat. Behav. 53 600–604. 10.1002/jocb.218 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sternberg R. J., Karami S. (2022). An 8P theoretical framework for understanding creativity and theories of creativity. J. Creat. Behav. 56 55–78. 10.1002/jocb.516 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sun M., Du J., Xu J. (2021). Are homework purposes and student achievement reciprocally related? A longitudinal study. Curr. Psychol. 40 4945–4956. 10.1007/s12144-019-00447-y [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sun L., Shafiq M. N., McClure M., Guo S. (2020). Are there educational and psychological benefits from private supplementary tutoring in Mainland China? Evidence from the China Education Panel Survey, 2013–15. Int. J. Educ. Dev. 72 : 102144 . [ Google Scholar ]
• Swank A. L. G. (1999). The effect of weekly math homework on fourth grade student math performance. Master of arts action research project. Knoxville, TN: Johnson Bible College. [ Google Scholar ]
• Tas Y., Sungur S., Oztekin C. (2016). Development and validation of science homework scale for middle-school students. Int. J. Sci. Math. Educ. 14 417–444. 10.1007/s10763-014-9582-5 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Trautwein U., Lüdtke O. (2007). Students’ self-reported effort and time on homework in six school subjects: Between-student differences and within-student variation. J. Educ. Psychol. 99 432–444. 10.1037/0022-0663.99.2.432 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Trautwein U., Lüdtke O. (2009). Predicting homework motivation and homework effort in six school subjects: The role of person and family characteristics, classroom factors, and school track. Learn. Instr. 19 243–258. 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2008.05.001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Valle A., Piñeiro I., Rodríguez S., Regueiro B., Freire C., Rosário P. (2019). Time spent and time management in homework in elementary school students: A person-centered approach. Psicothema 31 422–428. 10.7334/psicothema2019.191 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wang M., Lin X. (1986). Research on the revised williams creative aptitude test. Bull. Spec. Educ. 2 231–250. [ Google Scholar ]
• Welch W. W., Walberg H. J., Fraser B. J. (1986). Predicting elementary science learning using national assessment data. J. Res. Sci. Teach. 23 699–706. 10.1002/tea.3660230805 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Williams F. E. (1979). Assessing creativity across Williams “CUBE” model. Gifted Child Q. 23 748–756. 10.1177/001698627902300406 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wilson J. L. (2010). The impact of teacher assigned but not graded compared to teacher assigned and graded chemistry homework on the formative and summative chemistry assessment scores of 11th-grade students with varying chemistry potential (Order No. 3423989). Available from proquest dissertations & theses global. (759967221). Available online at: https://www.proquest.com/docview/759967221 (accessed July 18, 2022). [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2006). Gender and homework management reported by high school students. Educ. Psychol. 26 73–91. 10.1080/01443410500341023 [ 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). Homework purpose scale for high school students: A validation study. Educ. Psychol. Meas. 70 459–476. 10.1177/0013164409344517 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2017). Homework expectancy value scale for high school students: Measurement invariance and latent mean differences across gender and grade level. Learn. Individ. Diff. 60 10–17. 10.1016/j.lindif.2017.10.003 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2018). Reciprocal effects of homework self-concept, interest, effort, and math achievement. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 55 42–52. 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2018.09.002 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2020). Longitudinal effects of homework expectancy, value, effort, and achievement: An empirical investigation. Int. J. Educ. Res. 99 : 101507 . 10.1016/j.ijer.2019.101507 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J. (2021). Math homework purpose scale: Confirming the factor structure with high school students. Psychology in the Schools 58 1518–1530. 10.1002/pits.22507 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J., Corno L. (2003). Family help and homework management reported by middle school students. Elem. Sch. J. 103 503–518. 10.1086/499737 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J., Du J., Cunha J., Rosrio P. (2021). Student perceptions of homework quality, autonomy support, effort, and math achievement: Testing models of reciprocal effects. Teach. Teach. Educ. 108 : 103508 . 10.1016/j.tate.2021.103508 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J., Du J., Liu F., Huang B. (2019). Emotion regulation, homework completion, and math achievement: Testing models of reciprocal effects. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 59 : 101810 . 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2019.101810 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J., Núñez J., Cunha J., Rosário P. (2020). Validation of the online homework distraction scale. Psicothema 32 469–475. 10.7334/psicothema2020.60 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xu J., Yuan R., Xu B., Xu M. (2014). Modeling students’ managing time in math homework. Learn. Individ. Differences 34 33–42. 10.1016/j.lindif.2014.05.011 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Yang F., Tu M. (2020). Self-regulation of homework behavior: Relating grade, gender, and achievement to homework management. Educ. Psychol. 40 392–408. 10.1080/01443410.2019.1674784 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Yang F., Xu J. (2017). Homework expectancy value scale: Measurement invariance and latent mean differences across gender. J. Psychoeduc. Assess. 36 863–868. 10.1177/0734282917714905 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhai J., Fan H. (2021). “ The changes in primary and middle school students’ homework time in china: A cross-temporal meta-analysis ,” in Paper presented at the meeting of the 23rd national academic conference of psychology , Huhhot. [ Google Scholar ]
• Zheng Y. (2013). Problems and causes of China’s education. Beijing: China CITIC Press, 125. [ Google Scholar ]

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.

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
• Reprints & Permissions

Is Homework Good for Kids?

Research suggests that homework may be most beneficial when it is minimal..

Updated October 3, 2023 | Reviewed by Devon Frye

• Why Education Is Important
• Find a Child Therapist
• Research finds that homework can academically benefit middle and high schoolers, but not elementary students.
• There are non-academic benefits to homework, but too much work may interfere with other areas of development.
• Research suggests students should be given about 10 minutes of homework per grade level.
• Parents can help with homework by encouraging a growth mindset and supporting their child's autonomy.

In recent years, homework has become a very hot topic. Many parents and educators have raised concerns about homework and questioned how effective it is in enhancing students’ learning. There are also concerns that students may simply be getting too much homework, which ultimately interferes with quality family time and opportunities for physical activity and play.

Research suggests that these concerns may be valid. For example, one study reported that elementary school students, on average, are assigned three times the recommended amount of homework.

What does the research say? What are the potential risks and benefits of homework, and how much is “too much”?

Academic vs. Non-Academic Benefits

First, research finds that homework is associated with higher scores on academic standardized tests for middle and high school students, but not elementary school students . A recent experimental study in Romania found some benefits for a small amount of writing homework in elementary students but not math homework. Yet, interestingly, this positive impact only occurred when students were given a moderate amount of homework (about 20 minutes on average).

Yet the goal of homework is not simply to improve academic skills. Research finds that homework may have some non-academic benefits, such as building responsibility , time management skills, and task persistence . Homework may also increase parents’ involvement in their children’s schooling.

Yet too much homework may also have some negative impacts on non-academic skills by reducing opportunities for free play , which is essential for the development of language, cognitive, self-regulation , and social-emotional skills. Homework may also interfere with physical activity ; indeed, too much homework is associated with an increased risk of being overweight . As with the research on academic benefits, this research also suggests that homework may be beneficial when it is minimal.

What is the “Right” Amount of Homework?

Research suggests that homework should not exceed 1.5 to 2.5 hours per night for high school students and no more than 1 hour per night for middle school students. Homework for elementary school students should be minimal and assigned with the aim of building self-regulation and independent work skills. Any more than this and homework may no longer have a positive impact.

The National Education Association recommends 10 minutes of homework per grade and there is also some experimental evidence that backs this up.

What Can Parents Do?

Research finds that parental help with homework is beneficial but that it matters more how the parent is helping rather than how often the parent is helping.

So how should parents help with homework (according to the research)?

• Focus on providing general monitoring, guidance, and encouragement, but allow children to complete their homework as independently as possible. Research shows that allowing children more autonomy in completing homework may benefit their academic skills.
• Only provide help when your child asks for it and step away whenever possible. Research finds that too much parental involvement or intrusive and controlling involvement with homework is associated with worse academic performance .
• Help your children to create structure and develop some routines that help your child to independently complete their homework. Research finds that providing this type of structure and responsiveness is related to improved academic skills.
• Set specific rules around homework. Research finds an association between parents setting rules around homework and academic performance.
• Help your child to view homework as an opportunity to learn and improve skills. Parents who view homework as a learning opportunity (that is, a “mastery orientation”) rather than something that they must get “right” or complete successfully to obtain a higher grade (that is, a “performance orientation”) are more likely to have children with the same attitudes.
• Encourage your child to persist in challenging assignments and emphasize difficult assignments as opportunities to grow. Research finds that this attitude is associated with student success. Research also indicates that more challenging homework is associated with enhanced academic performance.
• Stay calm and positive during homework. Research shows that mothers’ showing positive emotions while helping with homework may improve children’s motivation in homework.
• Praise your child’s hard work and effort during homework. This type of praise is likely to increase motivation. In addition, research finds that putting more effort into homework may be associated with enhanced development of conscientiousness in children.
• Communicate with your child and the teacher about any problems your child has with homework and the teacher’s learning goals. Research finds that open communication about homework is associated with increased academic performance.

Cara Goodwin, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in translating scientific research into information that is useful, accurate, and relevant for parents.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Support Group
• International
• New Zealand
• South Africa
• Switzerland
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Therapy Center NEW
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

Understanding what emotional intelligence looks like and the steps needed to improve it could light a path to a more emotionally adept world.

• Coronavirus Disease 2019
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

• 877 914 4366

• START WITH A CONSULT

How Schools Are Killing Love of Learning

by Geoff Nixon | May 5, 2015

Don’t lose sight of lifelong learning as the ultimate educational outcome for your child.

Are you concerned that your child does not love learning the way he should?  Is he reading for pleasure in a way that suggests he is on a path to lifelong learning?  For most parents the answer to both questions is no.

This really matters. There is no educational outcome more important than developing a habit of lifelong learning.  This determines how you develop as an individual and how you engage in and enjoy the world around you.  Lifelong learning means being self-directed and always in exploration and questioning mode, being able to frame problems in order to ask the right questions, to find and filter information, to think creatively, and much more.

Lifelong learning requires a careful nurturing of the love of learning throughout a school career. Unfortunately, this is not happening.  Education has changed drastically since the introduction of education reform, most notably the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.  Education has lurched towards a business-principles system , and love of learning is fading as a valued educational outcome. Love of learning is not only not being nurtured, learning is more and more associated with negative emotions — stress, frustration, failure, drudgery and a feeling of being overwhelmed.

This accumulation of stress around learning has been forced on schools and on teachers by an education reform movement focused on test results as the overwhelming measure of educational outcomes. These reforms go against what teachers know to be good teaching practice, leading to more teachers than ever leaving the profession.

Despite the not insignificant teacher push-back, they are losing the battle — every year test results gain a little more ascendancy as American politicians and regulators stay focused on surpassing Shanghai. I t’s a “sputnik moment” for education —  we are participating in the wrong race, pushing to catch up with Shanghai test scores to the detriment of love of learning and exploring individual talents.

Here’s how the schools are killing love of learning and what you can do about it.

Avoid Homework Stress

American education has always been a believer in homework.  Since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 there has been an escalation in  homework , particularly in earlier grades as the new standards require higher achievement at an earlier level.  The very tough Common Core standards will further escalate this trend, despite the efforts of BanBusy and other anti-homework movements.

There is no research to back the value of homework, certainly at elementary level. John Hattie, an educational researcher that does meta study research, aggregating all of the studies on an educational activity, like homework, concludes homework has a zero effect on reading scores, confirmed by the most recent international PIRLS reading and literacy test (done in 2011) as presented by Assessment Matters. This same report does find that homework is helpful later on in school, primarily for math.

4th graders who have no homework did best on PIRLS, an international reading test.

Anti-homework advocates go further by saying homework does not improve educational outcomes.  They will attribute a negative effect to homework due to the lost opportunities to spend time with family or participate in structured and unstructured sports and play.

We have two further concerns with homework:

• The drudgery and its impact on attitudes toward learning and love of learning
• For struggling learners who face tough days, homework provides an added opportunity to fail after school hours

If your child is one of those kids who takes too long over homework or puts a lot of energy into resisting homework, we believe it is OK to fight back. Don’t add to the pressure. And if there is more than an hour of homework in elementary or middle school, talk to the teacher. Tell them you are playing a “long game” with your children — you want them to grow up with positive relationships to learning, as lifelong learners, and all this homework is not helping!

Another way schools are killing love of learning has been through the adoption of standards over the last 20 years.  While the debate we should be having is whether we should even have standards or not, the debate today is only about which standards schools should use —  Common Core, State or district standards.

Standards come with a price.  Think about a swimming standard with three kids:  one is afraid of the water, one is just learning to swim, the last is an accomplished swimmer. The standard is to swim a length of the pool.  For the child afraid of the water swimming the length of a pool is mission impossible.  For him, it’s a FAIL — it’s a word he’s going to have to get used to.  At the other end, for the accomplished swimmer it’s a breeze — no need to stretch or push himself, he can cruise through school.  For the new swimmer the standard is an achievable and likely motivating goal.

Standards also limit individuality as outlined by Professor Yong Zhao in his extremely entertaining presentation at the The Network for Public Education National Conference.  They encourage educators to think of children as widgets — they do not allow for developing individual talents, where the most positive learning experiences occur.

A child’s relationship to standards impacts his connection to learning:

• For the struggling learners, standards define failure brightly as it compares them starkly to where society has deemed they should be.  It’s a label they will find hard to shake until they leave school or find a school that does not use standards.
• For the accomplished learners, standards are not given a second thought. They are not pushed or challenged since they are at standard. This can develop into a negative connection to learning through boredom and lack of interest in a standards-defined world.

The impact of standards on reading is even more worrying.  Reading is a skill that develops over a long time, and develops very differently from one child to the next.  More than anything, children need to maintain a positive association with reading through this process so that they have a chance of becoming avid readers in later life.

However, standards create pressures that can turn a student off reading for life.  They map out an ideal progression in reading skills that many children do not follow.  And so instead of giving a child time to get into reading, expectations are forced on these struggling readers, often leading to a negative connection that never goes away.  If this is your child, one solution is to get outside reading help to address the cognitive and other impediments to reading progress to try to break this cycle of reading futility as soon as possible.

Parents need to be aware of the risks for their child and their proximity to standards.  If your child is struggling, you may want to take action to either shield him from the failure label or find a school that does not judge in that way.  And if your child is excelling, be on the lookout for signs of boredom or a cruising mindset — it’s such a shame to see a jaded attitude, particularly in young children who are born lovers of learning.

Testing and Then More Testing

One of the realities of being a student in America is that there is always a “big” test coming up. In this respect, school life in America is very different to many other countries.

The constant test-taking takes a toll, especially in the US where the over-loaded curriculum means everything is on a fast cycle. First, the teacher lectures from the front of class (versus group format discovery learning that is taking place in many of the world’s leading education systems). This is not only boring for students, it’s a grind.

Then, there’s the testing of material, which typically involves memorization — again, joyless. In fact, nothing about this is interesting or designed to spark curiosity or creativity.  This memorize-test-forget-repeat cycle is getting even more intense as the education reform movement adds layers of teacher and school accountability that inevitably involves more tests and more test prep.

Again, your response as a parent should be to resist.  There is a large opt-out movement going on right now as covered by famous educational bloggers like Diane Ravitch and Valerie Strauss .  However, having your child opt-out of the test is only the tip of the iceberg.  The larger damage to love of learning is the time spent on test prep, the unnecessary stress around the tests, and narrowing of the curriculum to measurable outcomes, which excludes fun stuff like discovery and creativity.

Finally, testing (and standards for that matter) is limiting.  It trains children to see the world as narrow, filled with finite buckets of knowledge that need to be memorized. Students learn to study what is needed to pass the test, nothing more, nothing less.

If your school is test-obsessed, be aware that opting out of tests is not going to make much difference.  To help your child, you would need the tests themselves removed, which will hopefully free up time for imaginative teaching of things that can’t be measured — creativity, imagination, curiosity for instance.

Overloaded Curriculum

Another way schools are killing love of learning is by rushing through a huge, half-inch deep, mile-wide curriculum.  The Singapore lesson of “teach less, learn more” is lost on our schools:

• Rather than have a chance to explore a new subject, time pressures mean most students are spoon-fed by the teachers — it’s quicker and more efficient (and more boring).
• Each new topic offers a chance to think creatively about what if, why not.  Again, time pressures mean this does not happen as often as it should.

This superficial approach to content is not satisfying and does not stimulate.  Moreover the swift moving from topic to topic can be over-whelming for many students, creating another negative connection to learning.

College Applications

The surging interest in gap years by high school graduates in America is to some degree due to the cumulative pressures of high school these days.  The college admissions process puts insane pressures on students, who hear from family, peers and teachers that if they don’t get into a “good” college their life is over.

This of course is far from the truth.  While there is some correlation between happiness and education, as researched by Thomas Kastouleas and others, the arithmetical connection between college and life outcomes — the better the college the better the life — is completely imaginary.  So many other factors come into play.

And yet high school students suffer enormously about their college entrance, feeling the heat not only from parents, but also from peers and schools whose reputations depend on their graduates doing well.  This leads to burn out, as outlined starkly in the film  Race to Nowhere , and is a major reason that the US has the lowest college completion rate in the OECD, with only 55% of  2008 high school graduates completing a degree in 6 years, i..e, by the end of 2014.

Parents have a role to play here.  Go easy on your child when discussing college choices.  Don’t add to the negative connection to learning, but rather try to make the college or other choices more of an adventure and a journey of discovery rather than a high stakes endeavor.

By not pushing your child to make the grades and build the resume required to get into that stretch goal college, you are reducing the risk of him being one of the 45% that don’t complete their college course.

Creating Positive Connections To Learning

These three influences — homework, testing and college applications — combine powerfully to connect learning to negative emotions in all students.  For students that struggle in school, where disappointment and failure is a big part of their day, the negative connection to learning is even stronger.

If you are powerless to protect your child from these negative forces, you can at least work ways to counteract or lessen their impact by making learning fun and creating positive connections to learning.

This includes injecting imagination, curiosity and creativity into your home routine, possibly around school assignments or in other endeavors such as road trips, visits, participating in events that require imagination.   This WAHM article also suggests modeling enthusiasm around learning for your child.

Your Next Steps

If you want your child to be an enthusiastic lifelong learner — a person who actively engaged in learning in career and life, curious, always exploring, creative, enthusiastic, always looking for new answers — then that means leaving school with a positive connection to learning.  What you don’t want is a graduate who burned out or jaded or who isn’t interested in thinking or questioning (“especially if it’s not going to be on the test”) and who is not energized by the world around him.

If you value lifelong learning for your child, you need to recognize that the schools are not on your side here.  This is a goal you will need to pursue on your own.  This includes inoculating your child from any negative connections to learning that are occurring at school, by taking a long-term approach to reading and learning.

If your child is not a good learner, get outside help — a child will not love reading or learning if he’s not good at it .  If he is a good learner, but is jaded or worn down by the system, it is up to you to protect him as much as possible from the pressures and to model learning enthusiasm.  This is not easy, but given the school’s current preoccupations, it’s you or no one.

I feel that every couple of years, a new standerd is implemented without proper knowledge and research results to back the standard implimentation. Teachers are constantly struggling to learn a new method which takes away from reaching each individual child’s learning ability and learning style.

I love that this article not only recognizes the challenges so many families are facing due to the structure of our educational system but also shines light on the importance of parents and teachers working together as a team in order to develop a students creativity and establish a love of learning!

The real challenge for parents and teachers alike is that tests have consequences and deadlines — consequences and deadlines demand attention. Lifelong learning tends to take a back seat for most of the school year, sad to say.

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

• About Our Blog
• Parent Resources
• Auditory Processing
• Learning Issues
• Fast ForWord
• Gemm Stories & News
• Neuroplasticity
• Lifelong Learning
• Trends in Education

Does homework have any benefits for primary school children? Jen Hogan and Dr Leah O’Toole discuss

Homework is an emotive and divisive issue among parents and children. the evidence doesn’t support traditional approaches.

Homework, what is it good for? And what change should there be?

Jen Hogan: Homework instils unhealthy work and play habits

There’s a notable change in the mood in this house since homework returned. (The kids aren’t that impressed either.) Goodbye free and easy evenings of summer; we’re back to the days of kitchen table battles, once again instilling unhealthy work, rest and play habits in our children, as the single worst thing about school takes hold.

I know I’m not alone. Years of campaigning against homework has led to countless discussions with other parents and teachers who would also like to see an end to this most miserable of tasks. With studies – including one carried out by Duke University, Sydney – showing no strong links between homework and academic achievement in primary school, one would have to wonder why we’ve allowed it to continue at all.

At best, homework appears to make little to no difference to a primary schoolchild’s academic performance. At worst it is counterproductive, creating a negative association with education and learning. But we Irish are sticklers for tradition, and appear loath to let it go.

As adults, we often grapple with the difficulties of finding and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. And though many of us work beyond the hours we should, this is not something to be advocated. You’re unlikely to hear anyone tell an adult “do you know what you should do after a day’s work? You should go home and do some more”. And yet here we are, telling children who are focusing and sitting and concentrating for large parts of their day that they should go home and do some more.

Use of seclusion and restraint ‘common’ for autistic pupils, survey finds

Parenting: ‘I’m so, so lonely. . . Some mornings I could cry on waking’

The Debate: Is a total ban on screens for small children the answer?

The husband and wife medics working to spread reliable parenting truths to counter the online noise

Play is children’s work. That is what we should be advocating and that is what we should be facilitating.

Consolidation is often an argument in favour of homework, and yet research does not back this up. For a child who has already grasped a concept, doing more in the evening feels largely like “going through the motions”. For the child who hasn’t grasped a concept, it’s even worse. Trying to do so after a long day in school, when the child is tired, and maybe even cranky, is never going to be the best time to go at it again. The phrase “flogging a dead horse” springs to mind.

Many children and parents consider homework to be the most miserable of tasks. Photograph: iStock

If teachers were freed up from the time they spend allocating and correcting homework, there would be more time to revisit the concepts being studied – only this time there would be continuity to the way it’s taught.

Keeping on top of what our children are learning, and any difficulties they may be encountering, can coexist with a no-homework policy. The apps we became so familiar with during Covid, such as Aladdin, can be put to good use with a very brief weekly update. The copybooks and workbooks could come home at weekends for parents to browse.

Reading is a given. Every parent wants their child to read, and ideally for pleasure so that they’ll choose to do it more. And there is more to learning than formal academics and yet an ability to support formal academics in informal ways. Learning life skills, having time to do the things that float your boat, and having precious family time matters. As does wellbeing – the actual things children can do to support their wellbeing, rather than writing about those things in the workbook, for homework.

In Ireland one in six adults has difficulties with literacy. One in four has difficulties with maths. That’s a lot of households where parents struggle to support their children with homework, causing embarrassment, shame and further stress. For children with additional needs, the stress of homework can be unbearable for the child and family. Not every child has a suitable home environment for homework. And not every child experiences family life and its complexities and commitments the same way. Blinkered privilege often sees us oblivious to the challenges others may face. “Pull the ladder up Jack, sure mine are grand”, just doesn’t cut it any more.

Few children enjoy doing more school work after coming home from school. Photograph: iStock

Dr Leah O’Toole and Dr Joan Kiely: If homework is to have a role, it needs to be reinvented

When it comes to research on homework, there is such a range of evidence, both positive and negative, that conceivably it would be possible to champion any opinion.

The positive impacts of homework include inculcation of good study habits and skills, improved self-directed learning, and increased parental involvement in children’s education. There is also evidence that homework can lead to physical and emotional exhaustion for children, and denial of recreation time.

Homework can cause confusion for children because teachers and parents can interpret tasks differently, and sometimes parents over-assist with homework, limiting children’s independent learning. It can reinforce disparities in achievement because children experience different levels of support at home. This can be misinterpreted by schools as lack of interest by some parents, without acknowledging the differing pressures on some families in terms of poverty, lack of quiet space to work, lack of time due to work or other caring duties, or lack of capacity for some parents based on their own educational levels. There is evidence of significant stress caused by homework to children and parents alike, and some writers talk about the “colonisation of the home” by homework. Significantly, many of these studies were done with older children, and homework in the primary years is under-researched.

A few years ago, as part of a larger study of parental involvement in children’s education, we investigated experiences of homework in primary schools in Ireland. It proved to be a highly emotive and contested issue. One of the potential benefits of homework identified was the creation of links between home and school, allowing parents to understand what their children were learning, and how well (or not) they were managing. However, homework was associated with considerable stress for children and parents in our study, regardless of children’s dispositions or academic abilities.

Homework can be associated with considerable stress for children and parents

Considering the fact that homework felt mostly stressful to parents, we argued that it does not support positive parental involvement in children’s learning and may not be the best tool for schools to make links with homes. Homework set was often incongruent with practical reality, in its type, amount, purpose and time limits. Choice was crucial in the effectiveness of homework, but it was rare for children to be asked their views. When children were offered choice in the format of homework (for example, showing knowledge of the same topic through a written submission, a verbal presentation or a visual/arts-based creation) or when to do it (for example, a submission at the end of the week with homework done on days that suited them), children’s motivation and learning improved. Stress for both children and parents also reduced.

We supported schools to trial alternatives to traditional homework, including dialogic story-reading, games and oral-language activities like practising weather reports or interviewing grandparents. Children loved this type of homework and highlighted its playful nature as well as the choice provided. Parents also reported that this homework was more enjoyable and less stressful, although they did note that it still took up a lot of their time. Recommendations from our study included increased guidance on homework at a national level, a review of school homework policies, incorporation of more playful, fun activities into homework, and more choice for children.

We encouraged schools when setting homework to consider the demands on children’s and parents’ time, and the importance of free play, particularly outdoors, for learning and development. This becomes even more crucial the younger the child, and we suggested removing homework altogether for junior-infant classes except for story reading.

So overall, when it comes to homework, like many things in education and in life, it isn’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.

Dr Leah O’Toole is assistant professor in early childhood education at Maynooth University and Dr Joan Kiely is head of early childhood education at Marino Institute of Education

[  How homework can help children feel happier  ]

Ten ways schools are reinventing homework

1. Mindfulness Mondays (The only homework given is mindfulness practice)

2. Homework set at beginning of week and the child decides when to do it

3. Homework choices given

4. Homework differentiated according to children’s needs

5. Physical exercise homework only during the Active Schools Programme

6. Teddy Bear homework – bring home Teddy and record his adventures with the family

7. Child teaches something they learned at school at home to their family

8. Oral language exercises such as interviewing a family member or playing language games

9. Reading for pleasure programme. Reading only homework

10. Project – based and cross-curricular homework

IN THIS SECTION

Unionist parties are not about to merge – it’s hard enough holding them together individually, republicans who do not respect unionists or recognise state are standing in way of united ireland, i split my house with my daughter, without government help. stop shaming ‘empty nesters’, martyn turner, food-waste tips are all very well, but to save your planet be sure to vote, the irish soldiers who trained a rogue general’s army in libya, ‘a few months ago my wife left the country. the last six months have been the most traumatic of my life’, training of rogue libyan forces by ex-irish soldiers ‘deeply shocking’, tánaiste says, judge directs man to pay €1,900 maintenance per month for two children and €95,000 to ex-wife, latest stories, four treated for smoke inhalation following omagh arson attack, taiwan’s strongest earthquake in 25 years leaves at least nine dead and hundreds injured, champions cup and challenge cup last 16: tv details, kick-off times, team news and more, mayo crash: man lost ‘whole family in one go’, funeral of his wife and two daughters hears, marie kondo has fallen. tidying up is out. wall to wall tat and clutter is in.

• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Information
• Cookie Settings
• Community Standards

Why Is Homework Bad? How It Damages Students’ Mental Health

Why Is Homework Bad? Homework is considered to be an important part of the learning process. Yes, it can be helpful for students because it helps them to develop critical thinking, self-discipline, and also time management skills which are very important in life. 

Homework plays an important role in their academic life and also prepares them for future challenges. 

But on the other hand, it also has some drawbacks which are not good for students. I don’t say that homework is not good it can be good if students get enough homework. 

But some teachers give students a lot of homework to do which can lead to stress, exhaustion, and a lack of motivation for learning. 

It’s important to know these drawbacks and consider alternative ways of supporting students’ learning that do not rely so heavily on homework. 

So, let’s take a closer look at the reasons why homework is bad.

If you want to get the Best homework help service from experts, then you can contact our expert who will provide you the best & top-notch homework help service within the given deadline.

20 Reasons Why Homework Is Bad

Table of Contents

Here are reasons why too much homework is bad :

• Less important
• Consume free time
• Is less important
• Teaches nothing 
• There’s No Time for Life Outside of School
• Homework Is Busywork
• Homework Can’t Replace In-Class Education
• Because Students Can’t or Don’t Ask for Help
• Because Sometimes Parents Can’t Help
• Teaching Methods Keep Changing
• Because Homework Creates Unnecessary Struggles
• Because It Can Hurt Grades
• Because It Hurts Students With Problems
• Learning Should Be Fun
• Chronic Daily Headaches
• Lack of Socialization
• Loss of Creativity
• Too Difficult
• Distractions

10 Reasons Why Homework Is Bad?

School is an important part of students’ life. If students can’t go to school every day to gain the skills to be successful in life, this is the drawback for their entire life. It does not mean that they can’t do other think. It is also important that students should take a break from their education. In my opinion, most students get too much homework or assignment from their teachers, with a lot of homework or assignment students get unhealthy levels of stress and other health issues. Here are some reasons why homework is bad for students:

Depression 

Kill the interest to learn.

• Affects Relationships With Parents
• Homework Is Harmful To Health

When teachers give a lot of homework to the students, it gives students a high level of stress. They feel stressed if they can’t complete their homework or assignment on time. This is a major source of anxiety.

When it comes to homework (especially if you want to be an IT specialist), many people work hard and struggle with issues such as a lack of information, poor time management skills, or a poor comprehension of the subject, all of which contribute to worry. It happens even more frequently when students are having trouble with their biochemistry homework or are unsure how to finish their philosophy tasks. This was the first reason why is homework bad.

The solution: parents and teachers should provide support and mentoring to students to help them avoid anxiousness.

Bullying in schools isn’t a new concept. without a doubt, Bullying has long-term harmful psychological consequences on children’s personalities. Although youngsters always find a way to make fun of their friends, there is no doubt that homework is detrimental to students who want to enhance their grades and academic performance. Why? In college or university, students treat nerds horribly, when A+ students refuse to help their students to cheat, it becomes a major source of bullying.

The solution: it’s critical to assign kids unique home responsibilities to avoid cheating and bullying.

This is the third reason Why Is Homework Bad. It has been proven over the last few years that young people spend a significant amount of time at school learning: they attend lectures, study books and materials, work on projects, solve geometry problems, and write essays. Without a doubt, academics take a lot of time, therefore students must prioritise their activities and often sacrifice their personal lives to complete their homework to a high standard. When people are focused on completing difficult activities, they lose motivation over time. Overall, it causes burnout, which makes it difficult for them to succeed.

The solution : assigning interesting and engaging activities that promote creativity is critical.

This is the fourth reason Why Is Homework Bad. According to researchers, home assignments promote sadness, and 39% of college students experience depression on a regular basis. When children are unable to attain their goals, whether it is to improve their grades or obtain positive comments from their teachers, they are unable to meet their development needs or learn other important life skills. All of these issues can have a negative impact on one’s general health and academic performance.

The solution is for parents to understand what motivates them to do homework, and for teachers to learn the art of teaching with SCDL.

Many students feel that if they do not complete their homework, then they may fail to deliver homework on time. Students should not have to take the stress of homework. They should learn educational content in a classroom and they have to explore other things when they are outside at school. 

The solution: ensure that students fully comprehend the work or form student groups on social media to provide support.

This is the sixth reason Why Is Homework Bad. Sometimes homework kills the interest of students. As a result, homework becomes a full-time job, and a child loses interest in learning. Furthermore, a student requires a break from the instructional content in order to avoid becoming burnt out or losing interest in learning.

Affects Relationships With Parents 

This is the seventh reason Why Is Homework Bad. While teachers do their best to engage students with a variety of activities, it’s difficult to recognize the genuine value in the homework projects that students bring home. It often happens that parents complete homework assignments, and they do not necessarily receive an A because:

• The educational program has changed, and parents’ awareness has deteriorated.
• Many parents forget what they learned in school and attempt to do chores from the perspective of an adult.
• Parents aren’t always the best teachers. They aren’t professionals at explaining the content, therefore doing so at home can be worse than failing the task.
• Homework is a frequent source of contention. Children don’t want to do it, and parents don’t know how to motivate their children to do it. Joint endeavours eventually come to a halt, resulting in disagreements and conflicts. 
• As a result, the advantages of home duties as a learning tool are completely gone. Every year, the number of people who believe homework should be abolished rises.

Homework Is Harmful To Health.

This is the eighth reason Why Is Homework Bad. Every parent talks about how the ever-increasing academic load and stress testing are affecting their children’s health.

Children are sleepless due to their heavy workload, and they stay up late reading textbooks and worrying about their scores, and as a result, they have sleep issues. The relationships between sleep length, homework stress, and sleep hygiene in school-aged children.

We don’t have many healthy schoolchildren. Nearsightedness, gastritis, persistent tiredness, and postural abnormalities are all conditions that the youngster is likely to have.

So why don’t you spit on your homework and grades and do something more enjoyable?

Homework Takes Time Away

This is the nineth reason Why Is Homework Bad. Today’s kids are as busy as they’ve ever been. They spend too much time at school, then rush to the tutors, and then turn into the section on their way back. The schedule is very rigid, and every hour is taken into consideration. 

In this study, psychologist Harris Cooper presents research that shows that homework is ineffective: if a child is given too much material, he will not learn it. In elementary school, children require no more than 20 minutes of extra classes, while older students require an hour and a half of homework. 

For comparison, according to our hygienic requirements, an hour and a half is the volume for the second class. Graduates have three and a half hours to spend on lessons. After school, I was gone for over a half-day. And when is it appropriate to live?

Homework Teaches Nothing

This is the tenth reason Why Is Homework Bad. Life is completely detached from school education. Graduates who have spent years studying English are unable to link two words, have no idea which hemisphere they are in, and strongly believe in the power of homoeopathy. Homework follows the same pattern: it boggles kids’ minds with facts they can’t apply.

Consider how you learned in school and compare it to what you would learn in a Swiss school. It would be beneficial if homework helped bridge the gap between school and life. This, however, is not the case.

Why Kids Should Not Have Homework

When it comes to institutions that work with children, the effects of too much homework are even more severe than when it comes to high school students. Trainers should look for innovative ways to engage students and guarantee that they can easily relate to what they’re learning and find every subject enjoyable. The following are the primary reasons why children should not be assigned any homework:

Your Kid Should Read For Pleasure

Kids are always learning, your kid needs ample time outdoors.

If your child is busy with doing homework, he or she will not have time to broaden his or her knowledge base. Rather than assigning a large amount of homework, teachers should encourage students to read good books for enjoyment, practice poetry, paint images of familiar items, and pursue their own interests.

You are incorrect if you believe that a child can only learn through doing homework. Children in the twenty-first century learn in stages. Kids are constantly learning through the use of smartphones, computers at home, and reading platforms such as Kindle. For example, if you want your child to practice using specific terms, let him or her use the smartphone to seek up those words and create sentences about them. So, let’s get clever and let the kids be kids.

While the amount of time a child spends learning is important, so are outside activities. Giving children more time outside, according to education experts, is beneficial because it allows them to experiment with what they have learnt in class.

Take, for example, a scientific topic such as plant parts. Giving your child a lot of homework will result in a lot of homework stress. Instead, the teacher should have the students use their iPhones to identify flora in their complex. What’s more, you know what? “That tree looks like the one I read about yesterday,” the child will say to his or her guardian as they are being driven to school.

How Does Homework Affect Students And Their Social Life?

Outside of class, students have time for social and other activities, which allows them to clear their minds and bodies. on the other hand, Students who have several assignments to complete, have less time for their friends and relatives. Statistics show that too much homework has a detrimental impact on developing relationships and forming better bonds with classmates.

Students miss out on holidays and gatherings, which isolates them and makes them feel unsupported and discouraged. Combining coursework and jobs makes it even more difficult for college or university students to find time for themselves. Stress levels rise as a result of not having enough time to rest and socialize, which has an impact on academic performance and family relationships.

Submit Homework

In this blog, you have learned why is homework bad in detail. I hope you have understood why is homework bad easily. In my opinion, too much homework is bad students should not have so much homework to do. Students should also have time for outside activities because no one is intelligent in their studies. Some students are good at outdoor activities. Now if you need homework help from experts, then contact our experts for help.

Why Is Homework Bad FAQs

What are the negative effects of homework on students.

There are a lot of reasons homework can be affected negatively on students such as leading to stress, anxiety, depression, and sleep deprivation.

Why homework is bad for mental health?

Homework can contribute to students’ stress levels and anxiety which can lead to mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.

Why Is Homework A Waste Of Time?

Homework is a waste of time. It takes the enjoyment out of school and it takes up teacher time. Students need more free time for other activities such as sports, homework takes it away from spending time with family and friends.

Similar Articles

Top 19 Tips & Tricks On How To Improve Grades?

Do you want to improve your grades? If yes, then don’t worry! In this blog, I have provided 19 tips…

How To Study For Final Exam – 12 Proven Tips You Must Know

How To Study For Final Exam? Studying for the final exam is very important for academic success because they test…

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Is Homework Good for Kids? Here’s What the Research Says

A s kids return to school, debate is heating up once again over how they should spend their time after they leave the classroom for the day.

The no-homework policy of a second-grade teacher in Texas went viral last week , earning praise from parents across the country who lament the heavy workload often assigned to young students. Brandy Young told parents she would not formally assign any homework this year, asking students instead to eat dinner with their families, play outside and go to bed early.

But the question of how much work children should be doing outside of school remains controversial, and plenty of parents take issue with no-homework policies, worried their kids are losing a potential academic advantage. Here’s what you need to know:

For decades, the homework standard has been a “10-minute rule,” which recommends a daily maximum of 10 minutes of homework per grade level. Second graders, for example, should do about 20 minutes of homework each night. High school seniors should complete about two hours of homework each night. The National PTA and the National Education Association both support that guideline.

But some schools have begun to give their youngest students a break. A Massachusetts elementary school has announced a no-homework pilot program for the coming school year, lengthening the school day by two hours to provide more in-class instruction. “We really want kids to go home at 4 o’clock, tired. We want their brain to be tired,” Kelly Elementary School Principal Jackie Glasheen said in an interview with a local TV station . “We want them to enjoy their families. We want them to go to soccer practice or football practice, and we want them to go to bed. And that’s it.”

A New York City public elementary school implemented a similar policy last year, eliminating traditional homework assignments in favor of family time. The change was quickly met with outrage from some parents, though it earned support from other education leaders.

New solutions and approaches to homework differ by community, and these local debates are complicated by the fact that even education experts disagree about what’s best for kids.

The research

The most comprehensive research on homework to date comes from a 2006 meta-analysis by Duke University psychology professor Harris Cooper, who found evidence of a positive correlation between homework and student achievement, meaning students who did homework performed better in school. The correlation was stronger for older students—in seventh through 12th grade—than for those in younger grades, for whom there was a weak relationship between homework and performance.

Cooper’s analysis focused on how homework impacts academic achievement—test scores, for example. His report noted that homework is also thought to improve study habits, attitudes toward school, self-discipline, inquisitiveness and independent problem solving skills. On the other hand, some studies he examined showed that homework can cause physical and emotional fatigue, fuel negative attitudes about learning and limit leisure time for children. At the end of his analysis, Cooper recommended further study of such potential effects of homework.

Despite the weak correlation between homework and performance for young children, Cooper argues that a small amount of homework is useful for all students. Second-graders should not be doing two hours of homework each night, he said, but they also shouldn’t be doing no homework.

Not all education experts agree entirely with Cooper’s assessment.

Cathy Vatterott, an education professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, supports the “10-minute rule” as a maximum, but she thinks there is not sufficient proof that homework is helpful for students in elementary school.

“Correlation is not causation,” she said. “Does homework cause achievement, or do high achievers do more homework?”

Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs , thinks there should be more emphasis on improving the quality of homework tasks, and she supports efforts to eliminate homework for younger kids.

“I have no concerns about students not starting homework until fourth grade or fifth grade,” she said, noting that while the debate over homework will undoubtedly continue, she has noticed a trend toward limiting, if not eliminating, homework in elementary school.

The issue has been debated for decades. A TIME cover in 1999 read: “Too much homework! How it’s hurting our kids, and what parents should do about it.” The accompanying story noted that the launch of Sputnik in 1957 led to a push for better math and science education in the U.S. The ensuing pressure to be competitive on a global scale, plus the increasingly demanding college admissions process, fueled the practice of assigning homework.

“The complaints are cyclical, and we’re in the part of the cycle now where the concern is for too much,” Cooper said. “You can go back to the 1970s, when you’ll find there were concerns that there was too little, when we were concerned about our global competitiveness.”

Cooper acknowledged that some students really are bringing home too much homework, and their parents are right to be concerned.

“A good way to think about homework is the way you think about medications or dietary supplements,” he said. “If you take too little, they’ll have no effect. If you take too much, they can kill you. If you take the right amount, you’ll get better.”

More Must-Reads From TIME

• Jane Fonda Champions Climate Action for Every Generation
• Passengers Are Flying up to 30 Hours to See Four Minutes of the Eclipse
• Biden’s Campaign Is In Trouble. Will the Turnaround Plan Work?
• Essay: The Complicated Dread of Early Spring
• Why Walking Isn’t Enough When It Comes to Exercise
• The Financial Influencers Women Actually Want to Listen To
• The Best TV Shows to Watch on Peacock
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Write to Katie Reilly at [email protected]

You May Also Like

The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Homework makes kids hate learning.

Time Magazine has an article on why homework is a bad thing for school kids. They cite Alfie Kohn whose work is a constant inspiration to me both when it relates to our workplaces and schools.

Kohn’s claim is simple: There is not one single study that shows that homework helps kids learn. At the same time kids have less and less time to just be kids – time spent on homework has gone up 50% since 1981.

And if your first thought is “But how could you have a school without homework” you’ll be glad to hear that the Sudbury Valley schools have been doing just fine without homework for 35 years now. I previously wrote about these radically different schools and why I would love to have gone to one of them .

You know what this fixation on homework is? It’s The Cult of Overwork forced on children. Let’s stop it.

A big thank you to Leandro N. Camargo from Brazil for sending me the link :o)

Share this:

145 thoughts on “homework makes kids hate learning”.

Hm. Finally someone from Big Media stepped up to say that homeworks are bad. Wee! :)

Yeah, weeee :o)

If I get rich (without aiming that xD), in a unknown future, I think I will invest my money in a new education method, based on these stuff above. Creating a “new wave education” at school by founding my own web of schools…in my country and then all over the world. xD

I recognize it’s a kind of dream, but all the great ideas start like that.

And thanks, Alex, for the cite and for the article.

Well I already don’t send my kids to school, which we can do here in Canada. It’s called unschooling (you can Google that).

BUT if for some reason my kids did go to school I would do what I have advocated others do and that is, I would refuse to allow the school to assign them homework. It is not simply the fact that kids are overworked. There are four other reason why homework would be banned at my house.

1. They learn nothing from doing it. It is not homework that reinforces an idea or a skil, it is developing a passion for something and then having the time to follow it through that does the trick. Homework is a waste of time.

2. Schools already steal six hours or more a day from a child’s life. If they can’t do what they need to do in six hours, it is not my child’s responsibility to gives them more time. Homework is not for kids to learn, it’s for schools to shift the responsibility. Teachers don’t get marked on how useful classroom time is, but kids get marked on whether they did their homework or not. THat means a lot of classroom stuff that isn’t working is allowed to congtinue as long as kids do their homework.

3. Homework is an infringemnent on family time. Many of the big media that would otherwise say that homework is important also decry the fact that kids aren’t spending enough time talking with their families. It is not possible to create an atmosphere of deep family connection when mom, dad and the kids are all working three or four hours a night at home. You need many hours together, playing games, reading books, fixing the house together, going to movies, cooking for friends to have a balanced family life. Being togethe ronly on weekends is a crime.

4. Homework robs children of the time they need to develop real skills and passions. When I was in school for example, I taught myself music theory and theology during my grade 11 year. I wasn’t taking either of these subjects at school, and I set aside a lot of homework to learn them. I failed several exams in Christmas 1985 because instead of studying, I was writing four part harmony arrangments of Queen songs and reading Martin Buber. Both of those experiences have stayed with me long after I can even remember what classes I took at school that year.

I agree with Chris. My kids go to private Jewish day school. They study the full gamut of Jewish studies, and then tackle “regular” classes as well. This is something I went through in my child hood, and agree that I am no better for it. Currently my 6 year old goes to school from 8:00 – 4:30, and then has an average of 1 hour of homework. After eating dinner, it is basically bath time and into bed. No fun, no relaxation, I feel bad for him. I felt bad for me when I did it. The hours are unavoidable, but the homework certainly is.

Leandro: Go for it man! The world needs it.

Chris: Cool to hear some practical experiences from someone who already does without homework. And great to hear from you. Gotta check out unschooling.

Ezrie: Man that’s a long day for a six year old! What about playing and goofing off and staring into space and … Good to hear that you’re aware of it and don’t aim to put him through what you went through.

Alexander, You are absolutely right, it is long. They do have breaks for lunch and recess, but it is not enough. It will also only get worse. When I went to high School, my day was 7:45- 6:30 — including Sundays. It sucked, and if there is another way, I would welcome it. In the religious school context, I am not sure if there is. One consolation: College was easy. After 11 hour days in high school, not including time for homework, college at 4-5 hours per day, every other day, was easy. But I guess the culture of overwork can prepare you for a culture of relatively less over work. Is that really progress?

Then there are the long breaks, like Christmas and Easter, when teachers get the idea that this is a fine time to assign a big, fat book to read. Two or three teachers, two or three books, bye bye vacation.

What students could and should learn from homework is how to structure their time to balance their workload to meet deadlines. These time management skills do not come from structured classroom time but must be discovered outside the classroom.

I don’t think homework is necessarily a product of the cult of the overworked. A reasonable amount of homework will cause the student to manage their own time around deadlines and if they occasionally have to miss a little league game because they waited until the day before a paper was due to start it that’s the breaks.

The key words there are “reasonable amount.”

I agree with Mr Emmons above. Six hours of school is hardly killing your children, considering that it’s likely less than a full six hours of intensive study and learning. I don’t know what schools you went to, but I talked to friends, went to different classes each period, ate lunch, had gym class, etc.

Homework was my own deal with my parents: as long as I got As, I could handle it when I wanted . If I slacked, then homework right after school before dinner (we ate at 5pm, so 90 minutes to get it done).

Then again, I read an encyclopedia one rainy summer, so my data point might be a flier.

Still, homework in moderation helps keep the day’s instruction fresh and gives a student a chance to absorb the lesson(s) and maybe figure it out. I solve problems for a living and I hardly ever just go from problem “A” to solution “B”. For hard problems, I have to sleep on them or minimally get away from them for awhile.

Jon: I agree, that is the key learning kids should get from homework. I can safely say that in 19 years of school, high school and university I never learned it. I’m more the aaargh-it’s-due-tomorrow type.

Next question: If we really want kids to learn to structure their own time and work, why is school time so structured? That’s what the Sudbury Valley schools I linked to in the post are doing – the school days themselves are structured by the kids.

Christopher: You read encyclopedias too as a kid? I’m not alone!

I still think that dropping homework would make kids learn more. What we need to instill in kids is not the self-discipline to learn and study – it’s the desire to do it. A kid whose heart isn’t in it, will have to fight to learn even the simplest things. Kids who want to learn, can be taught a subject in no time.

Right now most schools fail at this.

I agree that schools fail to get most students excited about learning. As a student I was very excited about and very good at learning and the schools weren’t ready to handle that either.

As for doing stuff last minute, that’s fine. Hopefully school taught you what you can accomplish last minute and that there are consequences like sleepless nights.

Why is school time so structured? That’s a good question. That may be old-school corporate culture sneaking in. The “show up and do what you’re told” mentality. This will prepare you just fine for a job on an assembly line somewhere but certainly won’t teach you the interpersonal or problem-solving skills you will need for a good 21st century job.

I was never too good about doing what I was told, or doing my homework for that matter. In fact the best way to make sure I won’t do something is to tell me to do it.

I guess my fundamental disagreement is that I don’t believe that children should learn to structure time around meaningless activities. When you are working with passion on something you care about, you learn self-discipline. Childhood is about trying out all these different kinds of ways of doing what you love.

There is an implicit assumption that schools teach kids how to be good workers in a system where they don;t care for the work. And I think that is true, because I think most adults work in these types of environments. But if we are trying to chart a new shift from a system of drudgery to a system of passionate livelihood, I would think that we need to examine this assumption about the value of homework.

13 years of doing meaningless stuff after hours just to learn how to structure time and meet deadlines with false consequences? Better to do what I did when I was ten years old and start a bike maintenance business. I put up a flier at the store across the street to fix up people’s bikes. I got customers who had demands and were willing to pay me for my time. But they wanted their bikes back quickly. I couldn’t sit around playing video games if I wanted to get paid, and I loved doing the work on the bikes and learning about different types of brakes and gears and pedals. School does not prepare you for this – it is not designed to. That was only chapter one in my own entrepreneurial self-education.

THanks to this discussion and a subsequent post on my blog, we have reached the front page of one of Canada’s national newspapers this morning.

Just thought you’d like to know…more here:

http://chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/?p=1013

My opinion on this whole homework scheme as a father of a son who barely got through high school because of his homework completion rate–I still get burned over homework. He got A’s on his exams but was nearly failed for lack of homework. Now really what is the point? Isn’t the homework to reinforce content for the final exam or at least the big ideas that you want students to understand. If they can do that….arrgghh. I felt most homework was busy work–he did too unfortunately.

My opinion on this whole homework scheme is a bunch of crap!!! as a father of 6 children i am strongly againtst it because i can never spend time with my children who were born from five different mothers,.

i say ABOLISH HOME WORK FOR GOOD!!!!!!!

• Pingback: Let’s not settle for any less any more
• Pingback: The Great Canadian Homework Ban
• Pingback: Seattle’s Rain City Real Estate Guide » Moving Forward…

Hey, I am a public school teacher and believe it or not the board of education requires that we give homework. So, having the same type of view as most of you do about homework and family time being very valuable, I let the kids choose their homework. Believe it or not, most do more than I would ever, ever require. But like you said, it is about passion. I have a girl who takes 3 or 4 math papers every night – because she loves math. I have some kids that like puzzles, reading and other things. I tell the parents that a good guideline is 10 minutes for every grade they are in. In other words, 1st graders should do 10 minutes, 2nd graders 20 minutes etc. Work your way up to one hour and then stop. Also, they do not have to do anything on the nights they have other activities. But sometimes they do anyway – go figure.

alilovestoteach

I am another parent who is alarmed at the increase of homework that my kids bring home every night…and they haven’t even started middle school yet! What really gets me is that my daughter even has homework on the weekends now and we are just supposed to accept this. NO!!! It takes time away from her, from us and gets her stressed out. She is a good student, not a slacker or disruptive but I worry that school will turn into nothing but drudgery for her and not the place of discovery and joyful learning that it was for me.

My question is: is there an organization here in California I can join to lobby against this increasingly insane way of teaching kids??? Thank you!

ali: I love your approach. And of course there are straaaange children out there who actually enjoy homework :o)

stickybeak: I’m with you. I know of no organization in California. Maybe Chris Corrigan (the man behind the Canadian ban) has some contants..?

You can ask him here: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot

I whole-heartedly agree and accept what all of you are saying! I’m in grade 8 (in Canada), and I know and understand everything I’m INTERESTED in, but honestly, when will I ever need to know about phytoplankton or how to give directions to a casino in French? Okay, I need to know a lot of what they’re teaching, but I am just not interested in a lot of it! Also, when kids get stressed out (which we all do sometimes) a lot of us eat. I’m not overweight, but I’m concerned about the rate of obesity in Canada and the USA. And right now, in the teen years, the media today is pressing down on us very uncomfortably to be skinny and successful. So, when we don’t finish our homework, we get bad grades, then we get stressed out, then some of us eat comfort food, get overweight, and with lower self-esteem, we don’t feel like doing homework, so we feel like failures for not getting excellent grades and not having the “perfect idea of beauty” skinny look. All because of excessive homework. I think we should cut homework out of our lives. As some of you mentioned, we don’t have enough time to hang out with friends and develop skills and passions we like. I don’t even remember what I learned in grade 6. I just know I didn’t enjoy it. I remember when I was doing stuff I loved doing, though. When you put it together, its quite a vicious circle. PLEASE STOP PUTTING PRESSURE ON US KIDS, AND GET RID OF HOMEWORK. !!

Pesky intrusive government.

Get the kids out of the schools and back into the fields, the factories and the mines.

Kids should be paying their own way, not be parasites upon parents and society.

Sydney: Thank you for the inside look at school life these days. I share your concern and I think the greats failure of our school system is, that we haven’t been able to create schools that are so much fun, that students go there voluntarily. Homework is one of the biggest issues here and it should go!

Obbop: I never even though of that: Remove homework, and kids will have more time for hard manual labor. Good thinking :o)

I would like to thank everyone that has replied to this, especially chris corrigan for his input, it has helped me with my english debait assignment about banning homework alot.

Also, this debait was the first link on google when i was looking for opioions about banning homework so whoever created this did a good job :)

and i aggree that my life has been alot easier when i got to high school and had no more homework to do, it has been much eaiser to complete work without the stress of having to do homework when i get home.

Thanks again. Joel Cox.

Thanks for all the great comments – it’s clear that there is some real energy around this topic.

There are a few interesting things going on: Th NY Times has an article on unschooling: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/education/26unschool.html

Lars Kolind, Denmark’s most respected business leader is on a crusade to fix Danish schools. I’ve told him about this conversation and that step 1 must be to abolish homework.

i hate homework so much and if anybody gives me any more i’m gunna pop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Homework Blows!!! Ban It!!! *WOOT*

i think hoework should be banned at all costs!!!!!

Homework really gets in the way of wanting to have a social life and do things that interest you. I have no time to do anything I really want to do, for I always seem to have some homework or a prokect due soon.

And plus a lot of teenagers have jobs they have to go to right after school. It definity is hard to get homework done, when you go to school for seven hours and then come home, change and go to work for another four to six hours. By the time you get home you just want to eat and then sleep. I work at a daycare, and I help supervise two year olds, which is a lot of work when you can be in a room with seven at a time. When I get home I just want to sleep, I don’t even think about eating. I haven’t eatin a decent meal in over two months, due to my job and the pile of homework I always seem to have.

So I think school districts should limit the amount of homework (total) we should be given and//or get rid of it altogether. It would create less stress and give me more time to just relax and read one of the many books I get from the library.

Hey Piper, I’ve a friend in Texas who had to step in and have a conference with all the teachers and lay the law down. It was so bad because she has several kids who were having work piled on them. These kids were involved in other worthwhile pursuits after school, which actually have greater affect on their future. Anyway, she went to the teachers and said that each of her children were going to spend 45 minutes at the most on homework and if the teachers homework assignments were not completed in 45 minutes, along with all the other teachers homework assignments, then that is just the way it was going to be. If she hadn’t have done this, with all the classes each individual child takes, they would be there for hours doing homework. It is a broken system that encroaches upon family time.

I am in the IB program and I hate it have no time for extracurricular activities because I get home at four and I am doing homework till 6 and I am still not getting straight A’s. I am not a stupid person at all but no matter how hard I work I still can’t get the grade. I hate how much homework I have to do I think I would be happier and a lot less stressed if I had less homework.

Homework is usually a review of what you learned throughout the school day, but its when the teachers assign you a load of homework to do thats just the same thing over and over, it can be a waste of time unless the student really needs to review that much. Even though my schools dean wanted me to go into the IB program I refused because I thought I would even have more homework then I already have, which keeps me busy for atleast 2-4 hours depending on the subject or if you didnt finish classwork in class youll do it as homework which can make you lose some time to your free time at home.

A couple of my friends are in the IB program, and they say its easy and say the teachers are laid back and dont assign too much homework but they assign a lot of classwork. Work can be done faster in a more calming, less distractive atmosphere, like a classroom rather being in your home, where theres T.V., computers and other things like that to distract you. Thats why if I have a hard time doing my work at home Id sit out on my patio where I can do where I can concentrate.

Hey Katie and you too Lee, Katie, first I have to say that I’m not clear what the IB program is and please accept my apologies for not being more informed. I’m the kind also who could not make the grade no matter how much I tried. Like you, I’m smart but I also accept the fact that I do not learn a subject until I’m really interested in it or, until I’m in a position to where I’m going to use it and apply it immediately. That is just the way I am and I’m beginning to believe that is the way a lot of people are.

I made very good grades in college but maybe it’s because I had a ton of work experience behind me and it was immediately applicable. When I was going to school, if you didn’t “get it” you were considered stupid or as my parents and teachers would say, “slow”. Math was a big issue with me. Okay, I can multiply, divide, add and subtract, but when I came up against college algebra, I experienced the same emotional hell I felt while I was a kid in school. How does this relate to homework you might ask?

I believe it compounds the stress after having to sit, stuffed in classroom after classroom hour after hour day in and day out. After school, just like after work you like to sit down with friends and enjoy a conversation or get out and do something that diverts the mind and actually refreshes the mind to face another day.

What I would like to see is more opportunity to see what’s taught in the classroom put to practical use more immediately so the application of the theory taught in school could actually be witnessed by the students.

When I was a kid, it was just the opposite. Learning made me hate homework. If I could use a time machine to offer some 20/20 hindsight to my youthful self, I’d advise her to put up and shut up, as school represents the best years of one’s life when it comes to intellectual stimulation.

I’m an 8th grader in the USA right now. I had to visit China to see my relatives which I haven’t seen in TEN YEARS! When I came back, I was slammed with THREE RESEARCH PROJECTS. One of them was some useless class called Big Six that taught us how to PLAN MAKING PROJECTS. And the homework there was EXCRUCIATING. It was POINTLESS. I also got science projects… which wasn’t THAT bad… But give us a break! I agree… I have to chew gum so much to keep myself from eating the whole refridgerator when I’m under all of this homework stress. I can’t even do what I enjoy… And I know I can be lazy sometimes and just not want to do my homework… but I feel so dead sometimes… (Maybe it’s because i’m a freshh teenager…) but I just stare at my homework for sometimes an hour!

I really don’t see the point in homework… and if I need help… then i’ll get it! the stuff I do get however shouldnt be mandatory.

Oh.. I wasn’t done my rant… Whoops…

Well, not only that but the day I got back from China… my Science and English teacher decided to slam me with the assessments. I had a mental breakdown then and there. I mean… what do they think I did in China? STUDY? I also believe that testing is … useless… I’m in accelerated programs… so some of the state assessments we actually have to sTOP learning and go back to review what we did two years ago,,,,

Lori, if I’m understanding you correctly, school was the best years of your life. Unfortunately for some of us it is not. I want to make it my son’s best years by being there for him. He brings homework home and we treat homework more as a time for discussion of the subject and instruction rather than standing over him making him do it all on his own.

• Pingback: leer tonneau cover

does anybody have 3 reasons why there should be less homework? respond quick!!!

Dear Sami, I am a teacher. I hope you do well on your assignment! As to the three reasons: One, Kids need time away from school things to pursue other interests such as sports, music lessons, reading a novel of their choice for fun, spending time with family, listening to music, or just time to relax. We have developed a strange attitude in our country that if you are not working all the time, you are being lazy. Not true! Two: Students already spend a minimum of six hours in school studying. That should be enough. Particularly the youngest students. Three: Many students start their day between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m. and do not get back home until 6:00 p.m. each night. The majority of parents work and the time they have to spend enjoying their children and vice versa is minimal. We hear too much anxiety expressed about not having enough family time as it is. For homework assignments, particularly the busy work assigned just for the sake of giving homework because it is expected, to take away from what little time families have together, should be abolished. I hope this helps. ali rae

i hate hw so much man i hateeeeeeeeeeeee it

E-mail: [email protected] name: Paula work: Sorrento Valley city: San Diego info: I am a mother of two elementary students, one 6th grader and a kindergartener. On the homework subject: Times have changed and there are many more two parent working families. One of the big arguments of a short school day is because children are unable to focus for extended periods of time, this being said. The CV schools that my kids attend have half days every Friday, and only go to school from 8 to 2:45 the rest of the week. We were told to expect 2-3 hours of homework each night. Both children go to day care, where there are too many kids for them to get one on one help with their homework, so our house can not begin homework time until 6pm when we get home. That time also includes dinner and chores, our kids do not have play time in the evenings anymore. Where did our family time go? Well it leaves the weekends… no both children are regularly given homework on the weekends and even are required to do it while on vacation. I understand that they need to be responsible adults one day, but when do I teach my daughter how to cook? shop? be a team member. We have foregone the cable since there is no time anyway, there is not a place for extra circular activities such as sports, and we have gone as far as not going to dinner on Valentine’s day due to the homework. My solution is to extend the school day. Yes it sounds bad but in real life we do not work 6 hours a day. And we certainly do not do so on our vacation. When long ago every home had one parent stay home it was different. I am for teachers that want us parents to be a part of the learning process, but we all know you need time to learn more than just what is taught at school. Wholesome learning means you will need more than just book smarts.

I’m partucularly against homework!!!!!!! And if anybody gives me more on it, i’ll certainly explode!!!!!! arghhhh!!!!! my spm…

I HATE homework………………at last i found some people who agree with me!!!!!!!!!

well, what can we do? We are all against homework, but so many people out there will disagree with us and call us dumb on this issue. How can we speak up? If homework really takes a child away from his dad or mom causing stress, hate and depression, than what can we do to stop it? Posting here is a good thing, at least we know we’re not alone, but as of right now, our words speak louder than our actions.

By the way, I had to deal with homosexuality because my father was never there for me to make a man out of me. My mom spent hours of useless homework with me and if I failed, she would be the one crying and making me feel bad. My father wasn’t in the picture at all, because he has a heart of a man, and real men have wild hearts of lions, not geeks!

What can be done is to approach not the teachers but the school board. They seem to be most isolated from the front lines (the classroom). It needs to be approached in an organized manner and must have the support of many parents. I see two classes of people in this world. Those who see something is not right and accept it with shoulder shrugging resignation and the second class are those who stand up and say something about it and do something about it. Those of the class just perpetuate the problem. Remember, most teachers don’t like to assign homework, it’s those who are removed from the front line. I find that those in academia, those who are farthest up on the food chain have strange idea’s about how things get done.

I absolutely hate hw. it bores me and it is too hard for me. why can’t all the schools in th world not have homework

As an 11th Gr academic (as in avoiding applied courses) student in high school I in fact agree with the homework issue. I guess I can say that homework is an absolute waste of time especially when what’s to be learned is an absolutely worthless item for the next to come in learning. I always get math hw after those classes, but at least they’re short enough I can do it during lunch since I have nothing better to do than my remaining 5 hours. What irritates me the most is my English class work, involving reading literature. It improves my reading? I can learn everything that the average person can learn by reading it in less than half the amount of time, and improve others such as grammer and writing style without actually writing. I must say I never read an entire novel up to now since I failed grade 8 english. I in fact had to learn the stuff in 1996-2002 in 2003-2004 inclusive so that the “knowledge:P” becomes a skill instead of ordinary memorization. In fact that’s how my many senses and skills grew to when I can invoke them to my will, i.e. my eight favorites: limit, judgment, emotion contain, and implement for senses; change will, focus sense, anonymity, math for skill; all improving by USING them (more specifically not during exertion). Since I could not afford the time to allow myself to liking literature accompanied to logic, even with my tendency to read anything until I understand it, I can no longer be induced emotionally by any sort of writing [and advertisements, I’m doing terribly in english media studies as well] (unless it’s fanfiction, since they are based from games, anime, etc) and never understand the importance of reading it. Do I care about the play Macbeth, and all the characters, as well as the main plot themes? The answer lies on this question: Does this play even matter next week? I refuse to learn though in a snail’s pace, more on topic of homework, in repitition. It’s how I decided to abandon my native language and try to learn one that I feel I actually like.

My experience with class time vs homework is: Best: Teacher teaches only important or note-worthy things (even not class subjected), makes sure all students understand without stressing them, and gives a limited amount of work for home or none at all, which are selected by the teacher rather just a page of random questions. The teacher shows the students his/her own skill of the information as well as sending the students the knowledge.

Luckily for me I have 3 teachers like that; for math, chemistry, and gr11 accounting. This is the reason logic is the best path over literature. Though others are also available (athletics; music: instrumental, vocal, composition; etc.) as well, I will not compare them today.

Practical: Teacher teaches important things, makes sure all students understand, and gives a limited amount of work for home or none at all.

I have 2 teachers like this; gr11 programming and communication technology. Pretty much expected for general learning, so its still great.

Worst: Teacher teaches at a limited amount or nothing learned at all due to disorganization and thus becoming slow or worthless information, and gives an excessive amount of work for home which have no point in doing.

My last 3 teachers are like this; physics (DAMN), english (like I said), english media studies (do not watch/listen to the news, and unaffected by media so there)

The third one I don’t care about. English however, I still don’t get why they incorporated the study of writing composition with the damned literature! And finally physics, an important course, I usually get high grades in any science, but here my teacher does not teach well, so since I have no time to learn out of class, I began bad this year, but at least I rose after, avoiding a failure. English however, I started at 81, which is an A- I suppose, but because of the worthless hours that has accumulated my time for living as I do right now, I dropped 20%!. That’s right, I’m now at 61, a C-. Homework will not help at all in this, on topic. I must read, and it’s difficult to memorize the story’s detail. The most irritating thing is that you must use a repetitive focus to do any of it, and there is practically nothing to learn to help.

Anyway(s) my point is that homework is does not help learning, only improve what’s already learned. However according to this article, teachers give homework so that the students will learn.

(More simple) Homework is 1:1 gain/cost, more homework does not increase gain but increases cost.

Time managements skill is more effectively learned without it.

I understand the frustration you face. I would have to say this on the subject of learning…actually two things. History is a subject that is sorely lacking in the agenda. But, I believe the way history is taught is what drives students away from it. This is all due to the teachers approach on the subject. Too many times the subject is taught by those who teach memorization of dates and places when in fact history is so much more. I think in order to make subjects more palatable it needs to be taught in a more holistic manner. Let me explain. Why not teach math with related history and teach math in relation to the subject being taught. My whole issue with math with it’s application. This would require teachers to learn more about their subject but actually make it much more interesting. At least if I had my own school that’s the way I would approach subjects instead of dissecting the subjects.

I am in the 7th grade and i have to say i agree with a little bit of what everyone is saying. I think homework does help with time management and organization and all that stuff but what a lot of people don’t remember to mention, unlike this website, is that homework tends to be a main stressor in kid’s lives and they are loosing the kid in them that much faster. I honestly would love to see them ban homework but i have to say i don’t see that happening anytime fast because of all this research on how it is beneficial. And this goes a way back, but i think vacations don’t actually exist! At least i never get a REAL vacation. But what i really wanted to say was thanks Dan and thanks to everyone else who put a comment on this website because now i don’t feel like its my fault that i want to ignore it, or that i have no time for my friends And family on the weekends. I mean i always knew that other kids were stuggling too, but this really put everything in perspective for me.

i hate homework its ment to be a break when your not at school!

I currently have 7 school projects all given to me on the same day. It’s annoying because they are also all due in next week. I don’t seem to have time for it and it’s stressing me out…

Damn homework…

Let’s all give a round of applause for Melissa. I too can see the benefits of researching subjects, not only because I love research work, but because this is what is expected in the job market. Ryan on the other hand said he has been assigned 7 projects and they are all due by the next week. Has anyone in this group ever heard of the term

HOMEWORK, I DO ONT LIKE!!! BAN IT!!! IT TAKES UP ALL MY TIME TO HAVE FUN!!!

I LOVE HOMEOWRK DONT BAN IT PLEASE

Hi, I’m a 9th grade student at a school where they firmly believe in homework and dont care about the students opinion because they can always replace you. I got a 99% on my physics mid-term and B+’s and A-‘s on all my other subjects and yet my averages were way, WAY lower than that because of all the zeros I got on homework assignments. I think that right there says something about homework… IT ISN’T NEEDED!!!!!!! I was getting strait A’s until I realized in 7th grade that I was doing homework for the sake of not failing rather than learning. Since then I slowly started missing homework assignments and now I have stopped doing them alltogether. I’m now failing out of that school even though I could easily get A’s and B’s in all of my classes if there was no homework. The current way of schooling has messed me up big time and I wish there were more schools that were open to change or have gotten rid of homework completely. If any of you know of schools like this in the U.S please tell me because i want to transfer to a school like that rather than homeschool which would suck!

Hi Daniel! I feel compelled to try to answer you because you seem to be a very bright student and I am a teacher. I just hate to see you pull bad grades because of something like homework. I have a few questions if you don’t mind. I wonder why you think homeschool would not be desirable? How do your parents feel about the homework issue? And what kind of homework are we talking about? I do know that as you get older and more study is required, sometimes reading assignments are necessary because there just is not enough time during class. This will be true even more so in college. Do you get any time in study hall? I am truly against piling on homework for the sake of giving students ‘busy work’. Would it be possible for you to do just enough to get the A’s in your classes?

However, I would like to make a few suggestions. I know you mentioned you did not want to be homeschooled, but are you aware that many states now have high school on the internet? Would you be interested in something like that? Also, some community colleges allow a double enrollment. You can finish your HS at the same time you are attending college. Some school systems have magnet schools, where you can go if you have a special interest in something?

It is hard for me to give you an answer without knowing you better;but please don’t give up. You sound like you have great potential! Some students just don’t do well in a traditional setting and that sounds like maybe that is what you are facing. You may not know this, but many gifted students have the same problems that you are describing. Has anyone ever suggested that you be tested for a gifted program?

Just some things to think about; I hope it helps.

Good luck to you!

Does anyone know the ratio between the kids that do homework to those who don”t

I LOVE HOMEWORK IM FOR IT

Christina, I’m not sure where to find those statistics on the ratio.

Frank, are you a student or a teacher? I’d like to know a little about you. I have to admit there are those kids who just get a bang out of school and the whole system and I take it you’re one of them.

Thanks Ali Rae. I think homeschool and internet schooling wouldn’t be perfect for me because of the social issue with it. I like being in an environment with lots of people so that might not be fun. (That said, I am ready to give that up for a few hours a day if it’s the only way I can pass high school, haha.) The reading homework and studying are fine with me… it’s just the 15 math problems a night where I could do and have done just as well with 2 math problems that makes me annoyed. That goes for all subjects. My parents think close to the same as me about homework, because my dad had similar problems when he was in school. They can’t confront the school about it as much as I would like them to because my sister goes there and she isnt having any problems so a good relationship between my parents and the school is benefiting her, and they dont want to screw that up (neither do I). I’m in gifted programs at my school they call it advanced placement but even so the homework problem is still there. I really appreciate all of your help and I am going to look into all of your suggestions!

Hey Daniel,

First of all, your parents can approach the instructors with the concerns. You would be surprised at how teachers appreciate feedback. That

hi, I’m in school writing about why we shouldn’t have homework. Thank you for providing me with the information i need. ;)

we hate mbhs so bad its hell we get bullied by the teachers Miss titley miss

I’m doing a persuasive essay on why to ban homework and it sucked until i found this website. THANK YOU!!!!!!!

Also i would like to add that this assignment has taken the entire weekend away from me and my family. i have barely had time to take a shower!!

the IB website: http://www.ibo.org

i need help on an assignment i need really good facts on why we should ban homework

Yes homework kills our life. Yes i would love to have all homework banned. Most kids fail classes because they forget or just dont do thier homework. This really makes me want to move to Sudbury Valley XD

ye i agree wat does home work do….? nothing its pointless why have it we learn enough in school great argument :-)

im in year 10and ye i agree wat does home work do….? nothing its pointless why have it we learn enough in school…. great argument :-) some 1 should do somthing about it, it puts us of learning

If those schools are doing fine without homework for 35 years then why can’t all the schools not have homework. Why they get to have all the time in the world to be a kid. And we have barely any or not doing homework to be a kid. We even have homework in the fricken summer. SUMMER READING. its so gay. please out a stop to it.

i completly believe that. its true/ homework makes you not want to learn. because if you hate doing the homework.. oyu wont want to do the work =)

I think homework is super fantastic,I wish it not to be banned!! But I hate it. Yay! I am a confuzing wannagofruit.

hey, im with all of you saying your against homework. every monday,wennsday,and thursday i have activities after school. i eat dinner at 400 and get home around 2. that leaves 2 hours to do ss spanish, science, english, math, and we have to read 3 ch from a book every night. IT’S SOOO HARD TO DO!!after my activities if i ahdnt finished my homework i work from when i get home(8:00) till about 11:30 then i have to get up again at 5:00. im always soo tired! plus most of the time it’s so hard!! ecpecially math which is my weakest subect. o and im also doing a powerpiont in computers about homework and all u guys really helped! thank you!!

Ever since I started doing homwork, my IQ dropped from 140, down to 120. I hate homework. Beer and drugs had nothing to do with my IQ dropping.

Murray, I can believe it. It’s called brain overload. The mind needs respite and rest. When you don’t get the time away from the daily grind, you become the grinded.

Homework wastes my time. Every afternoon i come from school and my dad tells me to go straight to my room and don’t come out do your homework. Im sick of it.

I agree with idiot, homework does nothing but waste your time, because your only repeating what the teachers taught you in class.

No matter how much homeowrk school throws at you, if your not interested in what your doing your mind just doesnt process the information.

I believe that when school finishes at the end of the day then thats what it should stay…FINISHED!

homework interferes with young people’s social lives which is equally as important (if not alot more so) than algebra etc….

Children and young people need time to go out and actually experience the world they are living in.They will not learn how to become successfull adults by sitting in their house day in day out doing usless assignments and not interacting with other people.

A child can learn to work to a scedule without homework FULL STOP!

I AGREE WITH YOU TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY I’m from Australia and in year nine. The teachers are seriously scaring me about year 10 and VCE and IB and exams and all that rubbish. Oh yeah, and i get 9 hours of homework a week. Sometimes more. The stress from all my homework has physically impacted on me, I am constantly sick and I’m absent from school sick, every one or two weeks. I really hate homework, I would seriously sell my soul to get rid of homework at my school, although my soul has been eaten up by all the work any way so it wouldn’t make much difference.

i hate homework because i have to play tennis every day after school and i dont have any time thanx for trying to stop it but my school isnt listening

I am in 8th Grade IB with lots of homework. I take an online class, 10th Grade Geometry, because I do well in school. But at my school we have Flight School which, if you dont: -Do your homework -Be on time -Have your materials you have to stay for an hour, and thats if you just miss one thing. You get a stamp if you do these three things for eight classes. We got loaded with homwork the first day, and are school is pretty big so its hard to not be late. But I do it, but the FLIGHT SCHOOl IS SO STUPID. I get discouraged every day because you cant forget anything. ITs system after system and more and more homework every day. Plus I have to practice my instrument, and later I start Karate. Last year I stayed up till 11o clock doing HW, I dont know how much Im gonna have this year. I like reading and sports and stuff but HW doesnt allow it. Its one threat after another, you have flight school because you were one second late, or you didnt do the HW correctly, or your binder is organized the wrong way. ITS OUR SCHOOL CAREER AND they are trying to punish and threaten us like we cant be responsible ourselves!

BAN HOMEWORK

im back again and its summer vacation…and guess what..i STILL have school work to do. every summer from when you enter 6th grade u have to read two books and do a report on each, and their books the school chooses which makes it worse!But thats not all we also have to complete a math packet with 80+ questions!!!! im mean come on give us a brake, didnt we already do enough of that crap in school?!!! it STINKS!!!!!!!!

I am in an IB school and in 12th grade. I have at least 6 hours of homework a night, 3 extra essays to do for my diploma, 150 community, action, and service hours, and 3 advanced and diffcult IB courses. I stress about homework, school, doing homework, tests, essays, and finding time to relax for 1 minute. 12th grade at an IB school is hell. Kids at public schools have it easier. My friends are at public schools and they have 2 courses: math or english( they’re in 12th grade too!), while I have higher biology, higher english, higher history, chemistry, swedish, and math. School consumes all my energy, and my class is ultra competitive. I get Saturdays off, if I’m lucky. I am not joking, my highschool experiance has been hell. They say highschool is supposed to be fun, while mine has been IB, stress, and hell. It makes me hate school, I’m so negative, but how can’t you be when all you do is work and the assignments are so difficult? They are long and drawn out. For instance, I have a math test over at least 100 pages out the text book. This is not normal. I’ve had enough. It goes beyond just homework.

I am certainly past my highschool years, but this may offer some insight as to what is on the otherside of your frustration. You do sound very overwhelmed but at the same token, your results will offer you opportunities beyond those that take a relaxed approach. I fiddled around during my highschool years and was lucky to show up for a class, when I did do an assignment I may have done well but the late marks knocked the marks down so much it hardly seemed an accomplishment. Nonetheless, my brother is the lawyer and living in a house that he built for himself and though his lifestyle is structured and in some instances anally so, in reflection I am the one struggling to complete courses at 38 with less energy and a 4 year old child. You CAN do this. It does get harder as you get older, because those little jobs expect a great deal of committment for that 9.00 an hour pay scale. The more you can handle, the better equipped you are to juggle the adult world. Unfortunately, you do sacrifice a small part of the teenage world to make this happen, but the gains are REMARKABLE as a 20 and 30 year old and you won’t regret it. Best things to destress, post positive sayings off the web on your wall and keep looking at it. FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS OR SUCCESS SUCCESS SUCCESS or whatever it is that you want. Do meditation for 10 minutes between visualizing what you want and then 10 minutes to just repeat a word that allows your mind to rest. I find talking myself back into my goals through books works best, just opening up a book and reading a page after I have asked a question of something I need. Never think it’s for nothing. Because starting at 40 to get a life is a whole lot more challenging when your day consists of 2 jobs @ 9.00 to 16.00 an hour racing home to make dinner then speeding off to do errands like banking etc. You are a strong capable lady who has a bright future that only comes with DISCIPLINE. What you focus on you get more of, just remember it’s only a struggle until your brain catches up and it becomes second nature. DO NOT GIVE UP!! It’s a breath of fresh air to have more empowering woman challenging life, and it is much harder for woman. You really need to have the edge. HANG IN THERE! Let me know how your doing.

Hi Kendral, Thanks for your words of wisdom. You make very good points, and I will try to keep everthing in perspective. Thanks again for your kind words of encouragement. Sincerely, Anne

This is great! I hated homework growing up… homework is a way for the school/teacher system to direct kids with needless busy work.. .’idle hands are the work of the…’ i’m sure everyone’s heard that saying at least a few times from those all knowing ancient leaders. …maybe our homework assignments have evolved and mutated from the early farm and field assignments given to our forefathers by their puritanical and slightly misguided efforts to ensure the salvation of our souls in the afterlife. So we would then sleep easier at knight (from sheer tiredness) and the comfort we were going to rest easily in the hereafter by working ourselves to death! Amen!

Who Ever Made This Is Pure Gold,Homework Sucks!Lame!,Lame!,Lame!.It Takes Are Time.WTF IS THAT $HIT!?Please Ban The Crap.Everyone Hates It.And Mabye Im the One Who Hates It the Worst.It A Load Of Crap.Please E-mail Me At [email protected] Or Atlease Replay!Thank You!

Woops My Spealing Is Wrong!Sorry!

I take it you are all American. Well, I am a New Zealander. I am doing year 10 (I am 14 years old) and the amount of work expected by me from my teachers is incredible. I am in a higher streamed class therefore the work rate is higher than that of a normal class.

On top of academic work, I have music lessons and recitals to attend. Also my Dad is a Hindu Priest. I am expected to be at every Puja (Hindu prayer service) every weekend.

Holiday and weekend homework is unacceptable in my books.

Holidays and weekends are there for students to relax and re cuperate.

I hate homework. I never have time to complete it and whenever I do, I get a bad mark from the teacher.

So thank you all out there for starting this forum. It has helped me with my Formal Writing Assessment.

Good Luck on your Crusade!!

my two kids come home upset and crying they have so much homework they are discouraged and hate school because of it. they have no family time at all to speak of. i think this should go before congress to pass a bill that schools will not enforce homework as they do.

i just love homework even though my friends say is an enemy of them

y do i have do do homework it’s just not fair because my mum said she didn’t do homework and in english nextweek and we have to write a topic we hate and i am going to do mine on homework

I am so happy to have found these postings, I am a working/ single mom, with a lovely, smart son, 12 yrs old, in the honor class, athletic, quiet shy,we live in NY, the amount of h.w. is outrageous and very frustrating, the teachers are mean and demanding, they do not coordinate h.w. schedules, and we spend hours trying to comply with all their request, although, my son has a beatiful mind, and his state test scores are very high, he now hates school. I feel that these teachers are abusive, and power hungry. last nite, he had to study for a math test, spanish test (which is new for him), the months, the alphabet, the colors and the days (in spanish), and spelling counts on the test, he had 2 social studies assignments that required four essays, he had math homework, science homework on the scientific process, and after he was totally exhausted and frustrated we had to study, there is no family time, sure they encourage good nutrition and exercise, when is he supposed to get it, they rob us of all our quality time together, and the teachers really think they have more power than the parents, hey what happened to land of the free, school is not feeling very “free thinking”, it’s a list of must do, must have, if not zero, failure, embarassment, humiliation.I am done with these teachers, and I would love to see parents rise against the system. Let our children be children, let them play, take the homework abuse away, homework should be given in moderation.

thanks for hearing me out, I needed that.

Being in highschool myself i find it is incredibly hard to manage school, a part time job working around 25 hours a week, family time and a social life. I need to have money to save for university, but thanks to homework and getting lates on everything i hand in, it is sooooo hard to manage everything and not get stressed out. Thankfully my school has introduced a 0 late policy, meaning you will not get penalized for being late. you have a week to hand in the assignment, and then after that a detention and then after that a conference with the parents. I still find it hard working until 9 or even 10 some nights to save money, and then have 3 or 4 hours of homework and trying to get a good sleep. I believe it would be beneficial to get rid of some homework, and only have it if it is completely nessicary. By the way, i stumbled upon this website doing a paper for my anthropology class on how homework is killing kids :)

homework is a complete waste of time i never do it so why teachers give it me i dont know but oh well thats school init really. mum and dad are always at me trying to get me to do my homework but im a child and i just want to spend time out with my friends like anybody else does why dont the teachers do homework instead of us and then they wil know why we hate it so much especially if u have 5 pieces due in the next day its un fair! x

I’m in england in year 8 ( I think grade 9 for you) and I finish school at six, get home at seven and do homework. you see, we have prep that is one hour where two subjects set you half hour pieces of work. But, in my year, the final year, the teachers suddenly thought, hold on, why don’t we give them two hour preps to do at home and the have to hand it in the next day! DOWN ON PREP (homework).

By the way, our prep is at school, that is why we finish late…

homework S U X!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

atleast someone big like a father knowa that homework is no use and very annoying atleast you have taste in not working and i sware if you were a father you will be the best for childeren for ages 3 -17 i think your the best.. hehe …….. XD———- i wish they’re erent homework———– !!!!

Hey…um i completely agree with all of this talk about banning homework…as an 8th grade student in jr. high, homework is the thing that keeps me off the phone with my friends…off the computer..away from the fresh snow to play in outside…today i spent 3 hours on english homework alone…it stinks i think that homework is a waste of time and that you dont learn anything from it…i have found that most homework is only a repeat of what teachers just taught you in class, making homework, pointless, i have also found that math is the subject that is most gulty of this. I hardly get any time to just chill with my family and play a board game or go to the movies, it really sux. School without homework would ba a kids dream come true. But with all this global warming, and all this iraq issues, it seems like no one really cares.

right now im doing my social studies honors homework, its just killing me! im in 8th grade have been doing this homework since a total of 10 hours including research, and i just need some sleep, my mom is just sick of seeing me awake but cant help it because homework is “important” not one day we have no math homework, we just read a book in english and just as it finished another one has started, after this i have to do a 3 page book report which is due tomorrow and i didnt even start the 400 page book yet. i understand that we were supposed to start the book a month ago but then what about the other homeworks we have to do in that month its not like we are not doing anything in that time. no one i know started reading the book before only one week was left. im in 8th grade and i have dark circles around my eyes due to lack of sleep and my head hurts like hell! im an a student in every subject, didnt get below a 98 in any of my math tests, getting everything they teach in class and totally sick of homework! why doesnt anyone understand we are teens and we need time to do stuff besides homework and i mean including sleep! its like 11:30 at night and i’ll probably be awake atleast until 2 or 3 in the morning and go to school at 7! i love going to school but hate coming home because then its time to do what…………………HOMEWORK! I have never been so stressed that i had to take a day off because i had to get some sleep. it was heaven i slept full 12 hours! and we are not allowed to talk in class, looks like we are not even allowed to talk at home! no time at all! geez its been a week since i watched tv. that was on the weekend! tomorrow is friday. im so happy! but sad because everything is due tomorrow. a book report, an immigration project, math homework!, science extra cridits which i was not able to do!, english journal ( i didnt even start writing the new journals we were supposed to), english chapters we were supposed to read and some other stuff im too sick to care about! my uncle is in collage and im and im more stresses out than him! someone tell our teachers they are killing us!! plz someone put a word out!!!!!! thnx so much for doing this u totally understand out pain! and for real its really bad i cant take it anymore i just wish there was no school!!!!!!! its so annoying i just cant take this homework rubbish! 8th grade sucks like hell!

i absolutely hate homework,it drains happiness out of you and all there is left is sadness,I would say to extend school hours just a little bit (1 hour?) just for the sake of some leisure time,doing the things you love. As a teenager,im forced to do homework to the max.. i have so much homework, i only get to normally have 2 hours of leisure time for saturday and sunday… the rest is revision and sleep. i have heard alot of stories about students commiting suicide,hitting the streets,taking drugs, because of school and stress. its the homework thats stressful!!! right now i feel like hitting the streets,my parents are too strict on me,they didn’t do well at school,so why are they pushing me to the extreme? i normally hit the streets for a while,but right now i feel like staying there SERIOUSLY,i feel like finding myself a homeless shelter,or finding a teenager job. I don’t hit the streets as a punishment,its just freedom.

I’m a year 9 student at an Australian private school. I don’t even do my homework anymore. The only work I do is the major assessment tasks, and a little studying for tests that I care about getting good results in. Otherwise, I do nothing. I refuse to let school impose itself upon my life. 2 years ago i was really conscientious about all my schoolwork, but now all of it has just burnt me out, i don’t have the motivation to do it, and in the long run, no one gives a f*** if you did it or not. These days, homework worries my parents more than it worries me. I can safely say that homework is responsible for destroying the relationship between me and my parents. They don’t trust me with anything now, and they accuse me of getting mediocre grades and that I’m lazy and will fail at school. I’m not getting mediocre grades, I’m getting straight As, they just want something to yell at me for. The thing about private schools is, on top of the homework, they make you get involved in extracorricular activities that take up your weekend. Private schools assume you are a robot with no interests or personality, and that you do nothing besides go to school. They make you play sport every Saturday in a different venue each week. It is a very unreasonable demand to meet, because they assume that you have parents available to drive you 100km to some shitty outer suburb wasteland. Wake up f***ers, my parents are too busy bossing me around and working to pay thousands of dollars in school fees.

HOW CAN WE GET HOMEWORK BANNED PERIOD? SCHOOL WORK SHOULD BE LEFT AT SCHOOL. LET ME LOVE MY CHILD AND DO FAMILY THINGS AT HOME. CHARLENE HII, SAVANNAH,GA

Please join this forum if you feel homework is unfair: http://z3.invisionfree.com/No_Homework_Forum/index.php?act=idx

ok I am doing an essay that is going to be posted in the paper about how homework is bad.Anyone waant to help just email me at [email protected]

Okay here is my opinion. I am currently in 8th grade in a private international school in Sweden and I only agree with half of the things you said. Yeah, it’s weird. I’m a teenager thinking that it’s good to get homework. Dont think i’m a nerd -.- haha(far from it). Anyways, I get it. Homework is a time consuming process of writing down stuff we already know, and sometimes I just want to tell the teachers to take their precious homework and shove it up there a$$ because I have a LIFE. Though, generally homework does help me remember somethings and it’s not something new for us to learn, but it always helps to know that we are capable of learning and knowing that we can get into good universities. Plus, it’s kind of gay to think its like a cult to force us to do homework, unless you’re a crazy person with no common sense. This part, I am sorry for saying this, but parents, if you think that we want to ban homework because we absolutely adore spending time with our family, you’re not entirely correct. Don’t get me wrong, everyone loves spending time with their families, I love too myself. It’s just that I think most teenagers would rather go out with their friends to a party then stay at home and play monopoly with their parents. Not all, but a lot do. It’s the sad truth, and I have to admit myself that it’s how I think too. Yepps thats all i got to say. Tell me whatcha think, kay? ;)

Sounds like the teachers are the only ones who care if kids are held accountalbe these days. You gripers are just lazy and you are raising lazy children who will be disrepectful because of you griping in front of them. They would never question homework if you bad influences would shut up and let people who are trained to do their job “do their job”

Oh yeah, You gripers probably wouldn’t spend time with your kids even if homework was cut back. You are too self absorbed.

And that comment about 6 children with 5 different woman. That was funny, I got that.

i Hate Home work im at school right now doing it

Let’s nuke all of the homework stuff… underground…. :)

• Pingback: Chick With Brains’ Blog » blog archive » 30- minute blogging session: Homework should be banned

Oh Crap homework stinks really alot !! First , teachers scold us when we dont do homework. oK so we do , but we dont know how . we wan to go tommorow to school to ask teachers how to do ? before u can ask get scolded like mad le. i do like homework , but i seriously dont like it when theres too much.when its exam time , those teachers just throw those practice paper at us , and when we dont do it ? they complain they have lots of stuff to mark. they think only their teaching. WE HAF SCIENCE ENGLISH MATHS CHINESE AND MUCH MORE IN SECONDARY SCHOOL ZZZ , THOSE TEACHERS THINK ONLY GOT THEIR HOMEWORK . BESIDES , SO MANY A FEW PAGE FEW PAGE HOMEWORK ADDS UP TO ALOT . that whats make us forget homework easily. cant they put something like . maths homework today , english tmr . not all on the same day . so those who likes homework can look forward to the day , and those who dont know how to do can call up their friends who’re good at the subject to help them out? better than all subjects on one day and u haf like 2 questions on each subject u dont know how to do ? then u haf to call 10 ppl ? ok then ur mom will scold u for using the phone too much ? and when we explain to teacher do they care?

hi everybody im glad to hear alot of people hate homework as much as i do i am in 9th grade ib programe and the amount of homework we get is unbelievable i come home at night and have so much homework i dont even have enough time to eat dinnner. homew is a useless thing all it is is the exact same work we do in class and now alll the teacher mark by homework so if u deside to do no homework in one term your mark is 0% homework is puttin alot of stesson us student and it is affecting our mark dramaticly

I myself am a kid and I really hate homework. I have 8 periods and in about 5 of them I can expect to get homework. Even if each teacher only gives me a little homework I end up with a whole lot. Once I got some sort of flu and missed school for 2 days. I had to make up 2 math assignments, a small social studies project 2 science worksheets and 2 spanish worksheets. Lots of parents and adults think that homework is a useless waste of time, but it seems nobody gets around to doing anything about it. If I could I would abolish homework.

I am a student at a school which likes to give out alot of homework.

and let me just say i agree with this 100 %. it makes me not want to learn if i have to learn in this form. there should be much more classwork than homework. it just waists time in my opinion, so thank you for posting this for everyone to read.

Yeah i hate homework. im doing it right now and its pretty much gonna kill me. stuff from school should stay at school so i have time to actually go to church and have good family time.

I agree with the comments above…Right now I am in my computer lab typing a stupid paper on this topic that I agree with strongly, We deffinetly need more SCHOOL work and LESS homework! I never have time to hang out with my girlfreind, or my neighbors….I am trying to grab my teachers opinions on this aswell…Because I am writing a persusaive paper on Abolished homewok!

Hey michael, im doing the same thing. Im in 10th grade and am currently in 2nd period, ENGLISH 10. My teacher is making me look up articles on something i want do write about. I am suppose to write a persuasaive paper on something also, and I choose to write a paper on banning homework and this whole page will go great. I hate homework and it never leaves times for anything. I love with my uncle and he is kind of a hardass and makes me do chores so when i go home my agenda normally looks like this… 1.Get home 2.Get mail 3.Collect eggs from chicken coupe 4.shovel the path around the house if theres any snow 5.load the dishwasher 6.clean the kitchen 7.wipe off the table 8.sweep the floor 9.do homework till im done I learned I actually have to do my homework because he checks my grades online with skyward every day and it has a calender now thats updated daily that shows any missing work and If i tell him I did all my homework and he see’s a missing assignment I get grounded. 10.unload the dishwasher 11.every other night I have to cook On the nights he cooks, I am aloud to use the computer or play video games on the ps3 until he is done(normally about 10-25minutes) 12.clean up any messes that i made since i got home 13…….. Finally a little fun in my busy day.. I get home at 4:00(1 hr bus ride) chores last me till about 10:00 He then goes to bed and i can stay up as late as I want but it is my responsability to wake up in the morning and if i miss the bus I have to walk 10miles to school and deal with the school about showing up 3hrs late.

Around 10-11pm i get to do whatever I want so theres some fun in my day but it is extremely anoying because all my friends get to hang out in the day so if i want i can get online and play with nerds on the other side of the world that i dont no around midnight my time.

I would love to see the school ban homework because it is pointless. I exetremely agree with chris(the second person who posted on the top of this page) about all his reasons

i totally want to go to that school it sounds amazing and totally stress free!

This is what lacks horribly out of all school I had. I want active engagement with problems. Lectures are useless, they are a waste of everyones time because it is a repeat of the textbook. When I am solving a problem, there are times when I will be stuck, thats what a teacher should be for! Actively doing problems makes you learn, there is no substitute.

i hate homework which makes me hate school which makes me not want to learn

Hello everyone, I am currently in year 11 in high school in Australia, and I must say I absolutely hate homework, and see no point in having it.

Almost all the time the homework I do is pointless, meaning that I don’t learn anything from it, and even if I do, I forget it shortly afterwards.

In my spare time, I like to do things such as play around with electronics, write computer programs, play chess, play computer games and read books about physics(believe it or not).

Sometimes I seem like a geek, but I am also into sports and I’m athletic.

During the holidays my hobbies thrive, I learn all about physics, I make cool things and I actually learn heaps. However, as soon as homework starts, this all stops.

Even if I am not handed a lot of homework, the mere stress of it prevents me from enjoying my hobbies.

People need to understand that you cannot force learning in such a way. People also need to understand that kids and teenagers actualy ENJOY learning, but they enjoy learning in its purest form, not pointless excercises with a dull piece of paper and a pen.

Homework stunts my social life and you could say it’s the number 1 cause of stress in my life.

Anyway, how is it any of their business what I do at home in my OWN SPARE TIME?

Who nlikes homework? I bet no one does. its pointless. Even if u learn something u forget it !!!

i really love going to school but the only thing that i dont like is homework. and our parents dont even understand….why? because when they were young, they didnt get as much homework and that much work! all those experts say that kids are spending too much time on video games or just having fun. well they dont understand that they are from a whole different generation and they didnt have the same kind of work or the same amount of work! i hardly get any sleep! i cant even go out and have fun just because i have to do a lot of homework! i wouldnt mind if they extended the school an hour and a half and we had really little or no homework at all!

i love this rule

I totally agree with you! I wish homework would die off like the dinosaurs did!! (well not by a big meteor! lol) But seriously, homework is nothing but a time waster! What do you learn from it? NOTHING!! Absolutely nothing!! Hard to belive homework has gone up 50% in the past 27 years!!! Thats a crime right there! As a 9th grade student, I should know! BAN HOMEWORK 4-EVER!!!

What’s the point if your just going to forget what you did in your homwork assignment like, 6 years later? It’s just POINTLESS!!!

MAKE IT ALL JUST GO AWAY FOR GOOD!!!!

HOME is a place where we can relax, not do more work for school.

SCHOOL is a place where work should be done, not at home.

Finally someone who’s on this side, homework makes kids stressful and tired, it’s a waste of time and gets kids in trouble for not havng the time to do it.

Your right about that Abbbbbbbbbbbbby(:!!!

Stressed spelt backwards is Desserts!! LOL

Let’s eat cake to relieve our stress from homework! ^_^

I am 16 years old, and currently a Junior at the Bronx High School of Science. I would absolutely LOVE school if there was no homework. I dont mind school, its not a bad place. But I really do not want to deal with an extra 4-5 hrs of work after. I wake up at 5:30am and I get home at approximately 5:30 pm. Then I spend the rest of my time doing hw. Then studying for exams, college applicaitons, studying for the SAT + ACT + SAT II subject tests. Then I go to bed, and the same cycle continues. Homework has robbed me of my life. Homework doesnt teach time management skills. The night before a large paper is due, I see everyone from that particular class up and online nearly all night trying to finish it. Homework is horrible and should not be administered =/

What’s the point in doing homework if you’re just going to get more the very next day?! Home is a place were you can RELAX. School on the other hand is were the work should be completed. When kids/teens/college graduates get home from school, that is a time in when they should unwind from the hard work they put into there school work. If SAT/ ACT/ SAT II

What’s the point in doing homework if you’re just going to get more the very next day?! Home is a place were you can RELAX. School on the other hand is were the work should be completed. When kids/teens/college graduates get home from school, that is a time in when they should unwind from the hard work they put into there school work. If SAT/ ACT/ SAT II are comming up, there should be a school schedual change so that all of the classes for that day/ week/ month should only be study hall. That would give them over 7.5 hours to study. At home there can be MANY distractions if studying for those kind of upcoming events; like loud TV, noisy siblings/ parents, etc. So I think that homework should be banned.

i think that you are right because i am a kid tht is searching why homework is bad and i know how it feels that it is soooooooooo depress!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!FINALLY SOMEONE AGREES WITH ME!!!!!!! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

You’re Right.

Homework DOES make me hate learning!!!!!!!

Homework has gone up 50% since 1981?! YIPES!!!

Ai yi yi! X(

I wish that schools LITERALY had learning caps!

I mean, You just put it on, press the “ON” button, and over 3.5 textbooks of a school subject in hewn into your brain permenantly!

Heck, if THOSE were real, the average school day would be like, 5 seconds!!!

And our homework: DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, WHENEVER YOU WANT!!!

I wish THAT was our homework everyday!

• Pingback: No more homework! | Crista's Work Blog

Comments are closed.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Subscriber-only Newsletter

Jessica Grose

Screens are everywhere in schools. do they actually help kids learn.

By Jessica Grose

Opinion Writer

A few weeks ago, a parent who lives in Texas asked me how much my kids were using screens to do schoolwork in their classrooms. She wasn’t talking about personal devices. (Smartwatches and smartphones are banned in my children’s schools during the school day, which I’m very happy about; I find any argument for allowing these devices in the classroom to be risible.) No, this parent was talking about screens that are school sanctioned, like iPads and Chromebooks issued to children individually for educational activities.

I’m embarrassed to say that I couldn’t answer her question because I had never asked or even thought about asking. Partly because the Covid-19 era made screens imperative in an instant — as one ed-tech executive told my colleague Natasha Singer in 2021, the pandemic “sped the adoption of technology in education by easily five to 10 years.” In the early Covid years, when my older daughter started using a Chromebook to do assignments for second and third grade, I was mostly just relieved that she had great teachers and seemed to be learning what she needed to know. By the time she was in fifth grade and the world was mostly back to normal, I knew she took her laptop to school for in-class assignments, but I never asked for specifics about how devices were being used. I trusted her teachers and her school implicitly.

In New York State, ed tech is often discussed as an equity problem — with good reason: At home, less privileged children might not have access to personal devices and high-speed internet that would allow them to complete digital assignments. But in our learn-to-code society, in which computer skills are seen as a meal ticket and the humanities as a ticket to the unemployment line, there seems to be less chatter about whether there are too many screens in our kids’ day-to-day educational environment beyond the classes that are specifically tech focused. I rarely heard details about what these screens are adding to our children’s literacy, math, science or history skills.

And screens truly are everywhere. For example, according to 2022 data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only about 8 percent of eighth graders in public schools said their math teachers “never or hardly ever” used computers or digital devices to teach math, 37 percent said their math teachers used this technology half or more than half the time, and 44 percent said their math teachers used this technology all or most of the time.

As is often the case with rapid change, “the speed at which new technologies and intervention models are reaching the market has far outpaced the ability of policy researchers to keep up with evaluating them,” according to a dazzlingly thorough review of the research on education technology by Maya Escueta, Andre Joshua Nickow, Philip Oreopoulos and Vincent Quan published in The Journal of Economic Literature in 2020.

Despite the relative paucity of research, particularly on in-class use of tech, Escueta and her co-authors put together “a comprehensive list of all publicly available studies on technology-based education interventions that report findings from studies following either of two research designs, randomized controlled trials or regression discontinuity designs.”

They found that increasing access to devices didn’t always lead to positive academic outcomes. In a couple of cases, it just increased the amount of time kids were spending on devices playing games. They wrote, “We found that simply providing students with access to technology yields largely mixed results. At the K-12 level, much of the experimental evidence suggests that giving a child a computer may have limited impacts on learning outcomes but generally improves computer proficiency and other cognitive outcomes.”

Some of the most promising research is around computer-assisted learning, which the researchers defined as “computer programs and other software applications designed to improve academic skills.” They cited a 2016 randomized study of 2,850 seventh-grade math students in Maine who used an online homework tool. The authors of that study “found that the program improved math scores for treatment students by 0.18 standard deviations. This impact is particularly noteworthy, given that treatment students used the program, on average, for less than 10 minutes per night, three to four nights per week,” according to Escueta and her co-authors.

They also explained that in the classroom, computer programs may help teachers meet the needs of students who are at different levels, since “when confronted with a wide range of student ability, teachers often end up teaching the core curriculum and tailoring instruction to the middle of the class.” A good program, they found, could help provide individual attention and skill building for kids at the bottom and the top, as well. There are computer programs for reading comprehension that have shown similar positive results in the research. Anecdotally: My older daughter practices her Spanish language skills using an app, and she hand-writes Spanish vocabulary words on index cards. The combination seems to be working well for her.

Though their review was published in 2020, before the data was out on our grand remote-learning experiment, Escueta and her co-authors found that fully online remote learning did not work as well as hybrid or in-person school. I called Thomas Dee, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, who said that in light of earlier studies “and what we’re coming to understand about the long-lived effects of the pandemic on learning, it underscores for me that there’s a social dimension to learning that we ignore at our peril. And I think technology can often strip that away.”

Still, Dee summarized the entire topic of ed tech to me this way: “I don’t want to be black and white about this. I think there are really positive things coming from technology.” But he said that they are “meaningful supports on the margins, not fundamental changes in the modality of how people learn.”

I’d add that the implementation of any technology also matters a great deal; any educational tool can be great or awful, depending on how it’s used.

I’m neither a tech evangelist nor a Luddite. (Though I haven’t even touched on the potential implications of classroom teaching with artificial intelligence, a technology that, in other contexts, has so much destructive potential .) What I do want is the most effective educational experience for all kids.

Because there’s such a lag in the data and a lack of granularity to the information we do have, I want to hear from my readers: If you’re a teacher or a parent of a current K-12 student, I want to know how you and they are using technology — the good and the bad. Please complete the questionnaire below and let me know. I may reach out to you for further conversation.

Do your children or your students use technology in the classroom?

If you’re a parent, an educator or both, I want to hear from you.

Jessica Grose is an Opinion writer for The Times, covering family, religion, education, culture and the way we live now.