studies about homework being good

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.

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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

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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.

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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 .

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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.”

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Credit: August de Richelieu

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

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

By Vicky Hallett

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

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

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

What kind of homework training do teachers typically get?

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

Why do students need more interactive homework?

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

Is family engagement really that important?

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

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

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

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

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

Did COVID change how schools and parents view homework?

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

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

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

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

Posted in Voices+Opinion

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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

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Duke Study: Homework Helps Students Succeed in School, As Long as There Isn't Too Much

The study, led by professor Harris Cooper, also shows that the positive correlation is much stronger for secondary students than elementary students

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It turns out that parents are right to nag: To succeed in school, kids should do their homework.

Duke University researchers have reviewed more than 60 research studies on homework between 1987 and 2003 and concluded that homework does have a positive effect on student achievement.

Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology, said the research synthesis that he led showed the positive correlation was much stronger for secondary students --- those in grades 7 through 12 --- than those in elementary school.

READ MORE: Harris Cooper offers tips for teaching children in the next school year in this USA Today op-ed published Monday.

"With only rare exception, the relationship between the amount of homework students do and their achievement outcomes was found to be positive and statistically significant," the researchers report in a paper that appears in the spring 2006 edition of "Review of Educational Research."

Cooper is the lead author; Jorgianne Civey Robinson, a Ph.D. student in psychology, and Erika Patall, a graduate student in psychology, are co-authors. The research was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

While it's clear that homework is a critical part of the learning process, Cooper said the analysis also showed that too much homework can be counter-productive for students at all levels.

"Even for high school students, overloading them with homework is not associated with higher grades," Cooper said.

Cooper said the research is consistent with the "10-minute rule" suggesting the optimum amount of homework that teachers ought to assign. The "10-minute rule," Cooper said, is a commonly accepted practice in which teachers add 10 minutes of homework as students progress one grade. In other words, a fourth-grader would be assigned 40 minutes of homework a night, while a high school senior would be assigned about two hours. For upper high school students, after about two hours' worth, more homework was not associated with higher achievement.

The authors suggest a number of reasons why older students benefit more from homework than younger students. First, the authors note, younger children are less able than older children to tune out distractions in their environment. Younger children also have less effective study habits.

But the reason also could have to do with why elementary teachers assign homework. Perhaps it is used more often to help young students develop better time management and study skills, not to immediately affect their achievement in particular subject areas.

"Kids burn out," Cooper said. "The bottom line really is all kids should be doing homework, but the amount and type should vary according to their developmental level and home circumstances. Homework for young students should be short, lead to success without much struggle, occasionally involve parents and, when possible, use out-of-school activities that kids enjoy, such as their sports teams or high-interest reading."

Cooper pointed out that there are limitations to current research on homework. For instance, little research has been done to assess whether a student's race, socioeconomic status or ability level affects the importance of homework in his or her achievement.

This is Cooper's second synthesis of homework research. His first was published in 1989 and covered nearly 120 studies in the 20 years before 1987. Cooper's recent paper reconfirms many of the findings from the earlier study.

Cooper is the author of "The Battle over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents" (Corwin Press, 2001).

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Does homework really work?

by: Leslie Crawford | Updated: December 12, 2023

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

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

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

Homework haterz

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

Nothing more than common kid bellyaching?

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

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

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

How much is too much?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Less is often more

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

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

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

More family time

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

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

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Research Trends: Why Homework Should Be Balanced

Research suggests that while homework can be an effective learning tool, assigning too much can lower student performance and interfere with other important activities.

Homework: effective learning tool or waste of time?

Since the average high school student spends almost seven hours each week doing homework, it’s surprising that there’s no clear answer. Homework is generally recognized as an effective way to reinforce what students learn in class, but claims that it may cause more harm than good, especially for younger students, are common.

Here’s what the research says:

• In general, homework has substantial benefits at the high school level, with decreased benefits for middle school students and few benefits for elementary students (Cooper, 1989; Cooper et al., 2006).
• While assigning homework may have academic benefits, it can also cut into important personal and family time (Cooper et al., 2006).
• Assigning too much homework can result in poor performance (Fernández-Alonso et al., 2015).
• A student’s ability to complete homework may depend on factors that are outside their control (Cooper et al., 2006; OECD, 2014; Eren & Henderson, 2011).
• The goal shouldn’t be to eliminate homework, but to make it authentic, meaningful, and engaging (Darling-Hammond & Ifill-Lynch, 2006).

Why Homework Should Be Balanced

Homework can boost learning, but doing too much can be detrimental. The National PTA and National Education Association support the “10-minute homework rule,” which recommends 10 minutes of homework per grade level, per night (10 minutes for first grade, 20 minutes for second grade, and so on, up to two hours for 12th grade) (Cooper, 2010). A recent study found that when middle school students were assigned more than 90–100 minutes of homework per day, their math and science scores began to decline (Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muñiz, 2015). Giving students too much homework can lead to fatigue, stress, and a loss of interest in academics—something that we all want to avoid.

Homework Pros and Cons

Homework has many benefits, ranging from higher academic performance to improved study skills and stronger school-parent connections. However, it can also result in a loss of interest in academics, fatigue, and a loss of important personal and family time.

Grade Level Makes a Difference

Although the debate about homework generally falls in the “it works” vs. “it doesn’t work” camps, research shows that grade level makes a difference. High school students generally get the biggest benefits from homework, with middle school students getting about half the benefits, and elementary school students getting few benefits (Cooper et al., 2006). Since young students are still developing study habits like concentration and self-regulation, assigning a lot of homework isn’t all that helpful.

Parents Should Be Supportive, Not Intrusive

Well-designed homework not only strengthens student learning, it also provides ways to create connections between a student’s family and school. Homework offers parents insight into what their children are learning, provides opportunities to talk with children about their learning, and helps create conversations with school communities about ways to support student learning (Walker et al., 2004).

However, parent involvement can also hurt student learning. Patall, Cooper, and Robinson (2008) found that students did worse when their parents were perceived as intrusive or controlling. Motivation plays a key role in learning, and parents can cause unintentional harm by not giving their children enough space and autonomy to do their homework.

Homework Across the Globe

OECD , the developers of the international PISA test, published a 2014 report looking at homework around the world. They found that 15-year-olds worldwide spend an average of five hours per week doing homework (the U.S. average is about six hours). Surprisingly, countries like Finland and Singapore spend less time on homework (two to three hours per week) but still have high PISA rankings. These countries, the report explains, have support systems in place that allow students to rely less on homework to succeed. If a country like the U.S. were to decrease the amount of homework assigned to high school students, test scores would likely decrease unless additional supports were added.

Homework Is About Quality, Not Quantity

Whether you’re pro- or anti-homework, keep in mind that research gives a big-picture idea of what works and what doesn’t, and a capable teacher can make almost anything work. The question isn’t  homework vs. no homework ; instead, we should be asking ourselves, “How can we transform homework so that it’s engaging and relevant and supports learning?”

Cooper, H. (1989). Synthesis of research on homework . Educational leadership, 47 (3), 85-91.

Cooper, H. (2010). Homework’s Diminishing Returns . The New York Times .

Cooper, H., Robinson, J. C., & Patall, E. A. (2006). Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research, 1987–2003 . Review of Educational Research, 76 (1), 1-62.

Darling-Hammond, L., & Ifill-Lynch, O. (2006). If They'd Only Do Their Work! Educational Leadership, 63 (5), 8-13.

Eren, O., & Henderson, D. J. (2011). Are we wasting our children's time by giving them more homework? Economics of Education Review, 30 (5), 950-961.

Fernández-Alonso, R., Suárez-Álvarez, J., & Muñiz, J. (2015, March 16). Adolescents’ Homework Performance in Mathematics and Science: Personal Factors and Teaching Practices . Journal of Educational Psychology. Advance online publication.

OECD (2014). Does Homework Perpetuate Inequities in Education? PISA in Focus , No. 46, OECD Publishing, Paris.

Patall, E. A., Cooper, H., & Robinson, J. C. (2008). Parent involvement in homework: A research synthesis . Review of Educational Research, 78 (4), 1039-1101.

Van Voorhis, F. L. (2003). Interactive homework in middle school: Effects on family involvement and science achievement . The Journal of Educational Research, 96 (6), 323-338.

Walker, J. M., Hoover-Dempsey, K. V., Whetsel, D. R., & Green, C. L. (2004). Parental involvement in homework: A review of current research and its implications for teachers, after school program staff, and parent leaders . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Family Research Project.

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Student Opinion

Should We Get Rid of Homework?

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

By Jeremy Engle and Michael Gonchar

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

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

Should we get rid of homework?

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

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

Mr. Kang argues:

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

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

Should we get rid of homework? Why, or why not?

Is homework an outdated, ineffective or counterproductive tool for learning? Do you agree with the authors of the paper that homework is harmful and worsens inequalities that exist between students’ home circumstances?

Or do you agree with Mr. Kang that homework still has real educational value?

When you get home after school, how much homework will you do? Do you think the amount is appropriate, too much or too little? Is homework, including the projects and writing assignments you do at home, an important part of your learning experience? Or, in your opinion, is it not a good use of time? Explain.

In these letters to the editor , one reader makes a distinction between elementary school and high school:

Homework’s value is unclear for younger students. But by high school and college, homework is absolutely essential for any student who wishes to excel. There simply isn’t time to digest Dostoyevsky if you only ever read him in class.

What do you think? How much does grade level matter when discussing the value of homework?

Is there a way to make homework more effective?

If you were a teacher, would you assign homework? What kind of assignments would you give and why?

Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column . Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Their study found that too much homework is associated with:

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

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

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

A balancing act

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

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

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

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

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

High-performing paradox

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

Student perspectives

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

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

Media Contacts

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

Science of mind

Why is homework good for your brain?

Did you know that homework has a profound impact on brain development? It’s not just about completing assignments; homework can actually improve brain function and enhance cognitive abilities.

Homework is designed to help students prepare for the future and develop skills that are essential for success in life. It offers several cognitive benefits, including the development of memory and critical thinking skills. By practicing and repeating new skills through homework, students can enhance their memory and retain knowledge for exams and future tests.

But that’s not all. Homework also helps students build suitable study habits, learn time management, realize personal responsibility, work independently, and improve their ability to use resources and conduct research.

Key Takeaways:

• Homework improves brain function and enhances cognitive abilities.
• By practicing and repeating new skills through homework, students can enhance their memory and retain knowledge.
• Homework helps students build suitable study habits, learn time management, and realize personal responsibility.
• Homework fosters independence and the ability to use resources effectively.
• Research shows that designing and assigning homework correctly can optimize its effectiveness as a learning tool.

The Cognitive Benefits of Homework

Homework is not just a task assigned by teachers to keep students occupied after school; it has far-reaching cognitive benefits and contributes to brain growth and development. Through various homework assignments, students have the opportunity to enhance critical thinking skills, memory retention, and problem-solving abilities.

One essential cognitive benefit of homework is its ability to challenge and develop critical thinking skills. By applying the concepts they’ve learned in class to real-life situations, students can deepen their understanding and improve their analytical thinking abilities. This practice fosters a deeper level of comprehension and encourages students to actively engage with the material.

Another cognitive benefit of homework is its positive impact on memory retention. Through practice and repetition of new skills and knowledge, students reinforce the neural connections in their brains, making the information more accessible and easier to recall. This improved memory retention helps students perform better on exams and enhances their overall academic performance.

Homework also plays a crucial role in developing problem-solving abilities. Assignments that require students to think critically and find innovative solutions to complex problems help cultivate their analytical and logical thinking skills. These problem-solving abilities are essential for success in various aspects of life, from academic pursuits to professional careers.

Overall, homework has a profound impact on cognitive development, providing students with opportunities to enhance critical thinking, memory retention, and problem-solving abilities. By engaging in regular homework assignments, students can nurture these essential cognitive skills and lay a solid foundation for their future academic and professional success.

Building Essential Skills Through Homework

Homework plays a vital role in building essential skills that are crucial for academic success and beyond. It provides students with the opportunity to develop effective study habits, learn time management, cultivate personal responsibility, and engage in independent work.

One of the key benefits of homework is the development of study habits. Through regular homework assignments, students learn how to plan their study sessions, set realistic goals, and effectively organize their time. By following consistent study routines, students can maximize their learning potential and improve their overall academic performance.

Time management is another vital skill that homework helps students develop. By juggling multiple assignments and deadlines, students learn to prioritize tasks, allocate their time effectively, and meet their academic obligations. These skills are essential not only for academic success but also for managing responsibilities in other areas of life.

Homework also fosters a sense of personal responsibility. Being accountable for completing assignments on time and to the best of their ability teaches students the importance of taking ownership of their education. It instills a work ethic that can significantly impact their future success, both inside and outside the classroom.

Furthermore, homework promotes independent work and critical thinking skills. Through assignments that require students to apply concepts learned in class, they develop their problem-solving abilities and deepen their understanding of the subject matter. This type of independent work encourages students to think creatively, analyze information critically, and develop their own perspectives.

By engaging in homework, students are actively building these essential skills that will benefit them throughout their education and beyond. The combination of effective study habits, time management, personal responsibility, and independent work fosters self-discipline, resilience, and a lifelong love of learning.

Testimonial:

“Homework has been instrumental in developing my study habits and time management skills. It has taught me the importance of setting goals and staying organized. Through homework, I’ve become more accountable and independent in my learning.” – Jane Smith, High School Student

Homework and Research Skills

When it comes to homework, research skills are essential for academic success. Homework assignments often require students to explore various resources, such as research papers, books, websites, and videos. By delving into these resources, students develop the ability to effectively use different information sources and enhance their understanding of the subject matter.

Research skills acquired through homework not only improve students’ academic performance but also prepare them to navigate the vast amount of information available in the digital age. By honing their research skills, students become adept at finding relevant and reliable information, analyzing different sources, and critically evaluating the credibility and validity of the information they come across.

Research skills acquired through homework contribute to academic success and prepare students for future challenges.

Through homework, students develop the persistence and resilience necessary to delve deep into a topic, locate relevant information, and synthesize their findings in a coherent manner. These skills are not only valuable during their academic journey but will also benefit them throughout their lives as they continue to learn and grow.

Moreover, conducting research for homework assignments instills a sense of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge in students. It encourages them to explore beyond the textbook and develop a broader perspective on the topics they are studying. They learn to ask questions, seek answers, and develop a lifelong love for learning.

Overall, homework assignments that require research skills play a vital role in shaping students’ intellectual growth, fostering critical thinking, and preparing them for the challenges they will face in their future academic and professional endeavors.

The Science of Homework Efficiency

When it comes to homework, there is a science behind ensuring its maximum effectiveness as a learning tool. Research has shown that the way homework is designed and assigned can have a significant impact on student performance. To optimize learning outcomes, homework should provide independent learning opportunities and present challenges that facilitate deliberate practice of essential content and skills.

One factor that can greatly affect the efficiency of homework is task switching. Constantly switching between homework and distractions like social media can significantly prolong the time spent on assignments. To overcome this, it is crucial to encourage students to delay gratification by using social media as a reward after completing their assignments. By eliminating distractions and focusing on the task at hand, students can deepen their learning and complete their homework more efficiently.

Adopting a scientific approach to tackling homework can lead to improved academic performance. By implementing strategies that optimize learning, such as organizing study sessions, setting goals, and utilizing resources effectively, students can enhance their understanding of the subject matter and improve their overall learning outcomes. By prioritizing uninterrupted focus and disciplined work, students can transform homework into a valuable learning experience that prepares them for success in their academic endeavors.

Source Links

• https://www.crispebooks.org/
• http://www.math.usf.edu/~mccolm/pedagogy/HWgood.html
• https://www.edutopia.org/blog/homework-sleep-and-student-brain-glenn-whitman

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Are You Down With or Done With Homework?

• Posted January 17, 2012
• By Lory Hough

The debate over how much schoolwork students should be doing at home has flared again, with one side saying it's too much, the other side saying in our competitive world, it's just not enough.

It was a move that doesn't happen very often in American public schools: The principal got rid of homework.

This past September, Stephanie Brant, principal of Gaithersburg Elementary School in Gaithersburg, Md., decided that instead of teachers sending kids home with math worksheets and spelling flash cards, students would instead go home and read. Every day for 30 minutes, more if they had time or the inclination, with parents or on their own.

"I knew this would be a big shift for my community," she says. But she also strongly believed it was a necessary one. Twenty-first-century learners, especially those in elementary school, need to think critically and understand their own learning — not spend night after night doing rote homework drills.

Brant's move may not be common, but she isn't alone in her questioning. The value of doing schoolwork at home has gone in and out of fashion in the United States among educators, policymakers, the media, and, more recently, parents. As far back as the late 1800s, with the rise of the Progressive Era, doctors such as Joseph Mayer Rice began pushing for a limit on what he called "mechanical homework," saying it caused childhood nervous conditions and eyestrain. Around that time, the then-influential Ladies Home Journal began publishing a series of anti-homework articles, stating that five hours of brain work a day was "the most we should ask of our children," and that homework was an intrusion on family life. In response, states like California passed laws abolishing homework for students under a certain age.

But, as is often the case with education, the tide eventually turned. After the Russians launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, a space race emerged, and, writes Brian Gill in the journal Theory Into Practice, "The homework problem was reconceived as part of a national crisis; the U.S. was losing the Cold War because Russian children were smarter." Many earlier laws limiting homework were abolished, and the longterm trend toward less homework came to an end.

The debate re-emerged a decade later when parents of the late '60s and '70s argued that children should be free to play and explore — similar anti-homework wellness arguments echoed nearly a century earlier. By the early-1980s, however, the pendulum swung again with the publication of A Nation at Risk , which blamed poor education for a "rising tide of mediocrity." Students needed to work harder, the report said, and one way to do this was more homework.

For the most part, this pro-homework sentiment is still going strong today, in part because of mandatory testing and continued economic concerns about the nation's competitiveness. Many believe that today's students are falling behind their peers in places like Korea and Finland and are paying more attention to Angry Birds than to ancient Babylonia.

But there are also a growing number of Stephanie Brants out there, educators and parents who believe that students are stressed and missing out on valuable family time. Students, they say, particularly younger students who have seen a rise in the amount of take-home work and already put in a six- to nine-hour "work" day, need less, not more homework.

Who is right? Are students not working hard enough or is homework not working for them? Here's where the story gets a little tricky: It depends on whom you ask and what research you're looking at. As Cathy Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework , points out, "Homework has generated enough research so that a study can be found to support almost any position, as long as conflicting studies are ignored." Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth and a strong believer in eliminating all homework, writes that, "The fact that there isn't anything close to unanimity among experts belies the widespread assumption that homework helps." At best, he says, homework shows only an association, not a causal relationship, with academic achievement. In other words, it's hard to tease out how homework is really affecting test scores and grades. Did one teacher give better homework than another? Was one teacher more effective in the classroom? Do certain students test better or just try harder?

"It is difficult to separate where the effect of classroom teaching ends," Vatterott writes, "and the effect of homework begins."

Putting research aside, however, much of the current debate over homework is focused less on how homework affects academic achievement and more on time. Parents in particular have been saying that the amount of time children spend in school, especially with afterschool programs, combined with the amount of homework given — as early as kindergarten — is leaving students with little time to run around, eat dinner with their families, or even get enough sleep.

Certainly, for some parents, homework is a way to stay connected to their children's learning. But for others, homework creates a tug-of-war between parents and children, says Liz Goodenough, M.A.T.'71, creator of a documentary called Where Do the Children Play?

"Ideally homework should be about taking something home, spending a few curious and interesting moments in which children might engage with parents, and then getting that project back to school — an organizational triumph," she says. "A nag-free activity could engage family time: Ask a parent about his or her own childhood. Interview siblings."

Instead, as the authors of The Case Against Homework write, "Homework overload is turning many of us into the types of parents we never wanted to be: nags, bribers, and taskmasters."

Leslie Butchko saw it happen a few years ago when her son started sixth grade in the Santa Monica-Malibu (Calif.) United School District. She remembers him getting two to four hours of homework a night, plus weekend and vacation projects. He was overwhelmed and struggled to finish assignments, especially on nights when he also had an extracurricular activity.

"Ultimately, we felt compelled to have Bobby quit karate — he's a black belt — to allow more time for homework," she says. And then, with all of their attention focused on Bobby's homework, she and her husband started sending their youngest to his room so that Bobby could focus. "One day, my younger son gave us 15-minute coupons as a present for us to use to send him to play in the back room. … It was then that we realized there had to be something wrong with the amount of homework we were facing."

Butchko joined forces with another mother who was having similar struggles and ultimately helped get the homework policy in her district changed, limiting homework on weekends and holidays, setting time guidelines for daily homework, and broadening the definition of homework to include projects and studying for tests. As she told the school board at one meeting when the policy was first being discussed, "In closing, I just want to say that I had more free time at Harvard Law School than my son has in middle school, and that is not in the best interests of our children."

One barrier that Butchko had to overcome initially was convincing many teachers and parents that more homework doesn't necessarily equal rigor.

"Most of the parents that were against the homework policy felt that students need a large quantity of homework to prepare them for the rigorous AP classes in high school and to get them into Harvard," she says.

Stephanie Conklin, Ed.M.'06, sees this at Another Course to College, the Boston pilot school where she teaches math. "When a student is not completing [his or her] homework, parents usually are frustrated by this and agree with me that homework is an important part of their child's learning," she says.

As Timothy Jarman, Ed.M.'10, a ninth-grade English teacher at Eugene Ashley High School in Wilmington, N.C., says, "Parents think it is strange when their children are not assigned a substantial amount of homework."

That's because, writes Vatterott, in her chapter, "The Cult(ure) of Homework," the concept of homework "has become so engrained in U.S. culture that the word homework is part of the common vernacular."

These days, nightly homework is a given in American schools, writes Kohn.

"Homework isn't limited to those occasions when it seems appropriate and important. Most teachers and administrators aren't saying, 'It may be useful to do this particular project at home,'" he writes. "Rather, the point of departure seems to be, 'We've decided ahead of time that children will have to do something every night (or several times a week). … This commitment to the idea of homework in the abstract is accepted by the overwhelming majority of schools — public and private, elementary and secondary."

Brant had to confront this when she cut homework at Gaithersburg Elementary.

"A lot of my parents have this idea that homework is part of life. This is what I had to do when I was young," she says, and so, too, will our kids. "So I had to shift their thinking." She did this slowly, first by asking her teachers last year to really think about what they were sending home. And this year, in addition to forming a parent advisory group around the issue, she also holds events to answer questions.

Still, not everyone is convinced that homework as a given is a bad thing. "Any pursuit of excellence, be it in sports, the arts, or academics, requires hard work. That our culture finds it okay for kids to spend hours a day in a sport but not equal time on academics is part of the problem," wrote one pro-homework parent on the blog for the documentary Race to Nowhere , which looks at the stress American students are under. "Homework has always been an issue for parents and children. It is now and it was 20 years ago. I think when people decide to have children that it is their responsibility to educate them," wrote another.

And part of educating them, some believe, is helping them develop skills they will eventually need in adulthood. "Homework can help students develop study skills that will be of value even after they leave school," reads a publication on the U.S. Department of Education website called Homework Tips for Parents. "It can teach them that learning takes place anywhere, not just in the classroom. … It can foster positive character traits such as independence and responsibility. Homework can teach children how to manage time."

Annie Brown, Ed.M.'01, feels this is particularly critical at less affluent schools like the ones she has worked at in Boston, Cambridge, Mass., and Los Angeles as a literacy coach.

"It feels important that my students do homework because they will ultimately be competing for college placement and jobs with students who have done homework and have developed a work ethic," she says. "Also it will get them ready for independently taking responsibility for their learning, which will need to happen for them to go to college."

The problem with this thinking, writes Vatterott, is that homework becomes a way to practice being a worker.

"Which begs the question," she writes. "Is our job as educators to produce learners or workers?"

Slate magazine editor Emily Bazelon, in a piece about homework, says this makes no sense for younger kids.

"Why should we think that practicing homework in first grade will make you better at doing it in middle school?" she writes. "Doesn't the opposite seem equally plausible: that it's counterproductive to ask children to sit down and work at night before they're developmentally ready because you'll just make them tired and cross?"

Kohn writes in the American School Board Journal that this "premature exposure" to practices like homework (and sit-and-listen lessons and tests) "are clearly a bad match for younger children and of questionable value at any age." He calls it BGUTI: Better Get Used to It. "The logic here is that we have to prepare you for the bad things that are going to be done to you later … by doing them to you now."

According to a recent University of Michigan study, daily homework for six- to eight-year-olds increased on average from about 8 minutes in 1981 to 22 minutes in 2003. A review of research by Duke University Professor Harris Cooper found that for elementary school students, "the average correlation between time spent on homework and achievement … hovered around zero."

So should homework be eliminated? Of course not, say many Ed School graduates who are teaching. Not only would students not have time for essays and long projects, but also teachers would not be able to get all students to grade level or to cover critical material, says Brett Pangburn, Ed.M.'06, a sixth-grade English teacher at Excel Academy Charter School in Boston. Still, he says, homework has to be relevant.

"Kids need to practice the skills being taught in class, especially where, like the kids I teach at Excel, they are behind and need to catch up," he says. "Our results at Excel have demonstrated that kids can catch up and view themselves as in control of their academic futures, but this requires hard work, and homework is a part of it."

Ed School Professor Howard Gardner basically agrees.

"America and Americans lurch between too little homework in many of our schools to an excess of homework in our most competitive environments — Li'l Abner vs. Tiger Mother," he says. "Neither approach makes sense. Homework should build on what happens in class, consolidating skills and helping students to answer new questions."

So how can schools come to a happy medium, a way that allows teachers to cover everything they need while not overwhelming students? Conklin says she often gives online math assignments that act as labs and students have two or three days to complete them, including some in-class time. Students at Pangburn's school have a 50-minute silent period during regular school hours where homework can be started, and where teachers pull individual or small groups of students aside for tutoring, often on that night's homework. Afterschool homework clubs can help.

Some schools and districts have adapted time limits rather than nix homework completely, with the 10-minute per grade rule being the standard — 10 minutes a night for first-graders, 30 minutes for third-graders, and so on. (This remedy, however, is often met with mixed results since not all students work at the same pace.) Other schools offer an extended day that allows teachers to cover more material in school, in turn requiring fewer take-home assignments. And for others, like Stephanie Brant's elementary school in Maryland, more reading with a few targeted project assignments has been the answer.

"The routine of reading is so much more important than the routine of homework," she says. "Let's have kids reflect. You can still have the routine and you can still have your workspace, but now it's for reading. I often say to parents, if we can put a man on the moon, we can put a man or woman on Mars and that person is now a second-grader. We don't know what skills that person will need. At the end of the day, we have to feel confident that we're giving them something they can use on Mars."

Read a January 2014 update.

Homework Policy Still Going Strong

Ed. Magazine

The magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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Is Homework Necessary? Education Inequity and Its Impact on Students

The Problem with Homework: It Highlights Inequalities

How much homework is too much homework, when does homework actually help, negative effects of homework for students, how teachers can help.

Schools are getting rid of homework from Essex, Mass., to Los Angeles, Calif. Although the no-homework trend may sound alarming, especially to parents dreaming of their child’s acceptance to Harvard, Stanford or Yale, there is mounting evidence that eliminating homework in grade school may actually have great benefits , especially with regard to educational equity.

In fact, while the push to eliminate homework may come as a surprise to many adults, the debate is not new . Parents and educators have been talking about this subject for the last century, so that the educational pendulum continues to swing back and forth between the need for homework and the need to eliminate homework.

One of the most pressing talking points around homework is how it disproportionately affects students from less affluent families. The American Psychological Association (APA) explained:

“Kids from wealthier homes are more likely to have resources such as computers, internet connections, dedicated areas to do schoolwork and parents who tend to be more educated and more available to help them with tricky assignments. Kids from disadvantaged homes are more likely to work at afterschool jobs, or to be home without supervision in the evenings while their parents work multiple jobs.”

[RELATED] How to Advance Your Career: A Guide for Educators >> 

While students growing up in more affluent areas are likely playing sports, participating in other recreational activities after school, or receiving additional tutoring, children in disadvantaged areas are more likely headed to work after school, taking care of siblings while their parents work or dealing with an unstable home life. Adding homework into the mix is one more thing to deal with — and if the student is struggling, the task of completing homework can be too much to consider at the end of an already long school day.

While all students may groan at the mention of homework, it may be more than just a nuisance for poor and disadvantaged children, instead becoming another burden to carry and contend with.

Beyond the logistical issues, homework can negatively impact physical health and stress — and once again this may be a more significant problem among economically disadvantaged youth who typically already have a higher stress level than peers from more financially stable families .

Yet, today, it is not just the disadvantaged who suffer from the stressors that homework inflicts. A 2014 CNN article, “Is Homework Making Your Child Sick?” , covered the issue of extreme pressure placed on children of the affluent. The article looked at the results of a study surveying more than 4,300 students from 10 high-performing public and private high schools in upper-middle-class California communities.

“Their findings were troubling: Research showed that excessive homework is associated with high stress levels, physical health problems and lack of balance in children’s lives; 56% of the students in the study cited homework as a primary stressor in their lives,” according to the CNN story. “That children growing up in poverty are at-risk for a number of ailments is both intuitive and well-supported by research. More difficult to believe is the growing consensus that children on the other end of the spectrum, children raised in affluence, may also be at risk.”

When it comes to health and stress it is clear that excessive homework, for children at both ends of the spectrum, can be damaging. Which begs the question, how much homework is too much?

The National Education Association and the National Parent Teacher Association recommend that students spend 10 minutes per grade level per night on homework . That means that first graders should spend 10 minutes on homework, second graders 20 minutes and so on. But a study published by The American Journal of Family Therapy found that students are getting much more than that.

While 10 minutes per day doesn’t sound like much, that quickly adds up to an hour per night by sixth grade. The National Center for Education Statistics found that high school students get an average of 6.8 hours of homework per week, a figure that is much too high according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It is also to be noted that this figure does not take into consideration the needs of underprivileged student populations.

In a study conducted by the OECD it was found that “after around four hours of homework per week, the additional time invested in homework has a negligible impact on performance .” That means that by asking our children to put in an hour or more per day of dedicated homework time, we are not only not helping them, but — according to the aforementioned studies — we are hurting them, both physically and emotionally.

What’s more is that homework is, as the name implies, to be completed at home, after a full day of learning that is typically six to seven hours long with breaks and lunch included. However, a study by the APA on how people develop expertise found that elite musicians, scientists and athletes do their most productive work for about only four hours per day. Similarly, companies like Tower Paddle Boards are experimenting with a five-hour workday, under the assumption that people are not able to be truly productive for much longer than that. CEO Stephan Aarstol told CNBC that he believes most Americans only get about two to three hours of work done in an eight-hour day.

In the scope of world history, homework is a fairly new construct in the U.S. Students of all ages have been receiving work to complete at home for centuries, but it was educational reformer Horace Mann who first brought the concept to America from Prussia. 

Since then, homework’s popularity has ebbed and flowed in the court of public opinion. In the 1930s, it was considered child labor (as, ironically, it compromised children’s ability to do chores at home). Then, in the 1950s, implementing mandatory homework was hailed as a way to ensure America’s youth were always one step ahead of Soviet children during the Cold War. Homework was formally mandated as a tool for boosting educational quality in 1986 by the U.S. Department of Education, and has remained in common practice ever since.  

School work assigned and completed outside of school hours is not without its benefits. Numerous studies have shown that regular homework has a hand in improving student performance and connecting students to their learning. When reviewing these studies, take them with a grain of salt; there are strong arguments for both sides, and only you will know which solution is best for your students or school. 

Homework improves student achievement.

• Source: The High School Journal, “ When is Homework Worth the Time?: Evaluating the Association between Homework and Achievement in High School Science and Math ,” 2012. 
• Source: IZA.org, “ Does High School Homework Increase Academic Achievement? ,” 2014. **Note: Study sample comprised only high school boys. 

Homework helps reinforce classroom learning.

• Source: “ Debunk This: People Remember 10 Percent of What They Read ,” 2015.

Homework helps students develop good study habits and life skills.

• Sources: The Repository @ St. Cloud State, “ Types of Homework and Their Effect on Student Achievement ,” 2017; Journal of Advanced Academics, “ Developing Self-Regulation Skills: The Important Role of Homework ,” 2011.
• Source: Journal of Advanced Academics, “ Developing Self-Regulation Skills: The Important Role of Homework ,” 2011.

Homework allows parents to be involved with their children’s learning.

• Parents can see what their children are learning and working on in school every day. 
• Parents can participate in their children’s learning by guiding them through homework assignments and reinforcing positive study and research habits.
• Homework observation and participation can help parents understand their children’s academic strengths and weaknesses, and even identify possible learning difficulties.
• Source: Phys.org, “ Sociologist Upends Notions about Parental Help with Homework ,” 2018.

While some amount of homework may help students connect to their learning and enhance their in-class performance, too much homework can have damaging effects. 

Students with too much homework have elevated stress levels. 

• Source: USA Today, “ Is It Time to Get Rid of Homework? Mental Health Experts Weigh In ,” 2021.
• Source: Stanford University, “ Stanford Research Shows Pitfalls of Homework ,” 2014.

Students with too much homework may be tempted to cheat. 

• Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education, “ High-Tech Cheating Abounds, and Professors Bear Some Blame ,” 2010.
• Source: The American Journal of Family Therapy, “ Homework and Family Stress: With Consideration of Parents’ Self Confidence, Educational Level, and Cultural Background ,” 2015.

Homework highlights digital inequity. 

• Sources: NEAToday.org, “ The Homework Gap: The ‘Cruelest Part of the Digital Divide’ ,” 2016; CNET.com, “ The Digital Divide Has Left Millions of School Kids Behind ,” 2021.
• Source: Investopedia, “ Digital Divide ,” 2022; International Journal of Education and Social Science, “ Getting the Homework Done: Social Class and Parents’ Relationship to Homework ,” 2015.
• Source: World Economic Forum, “ COVID-19 exposed the digital divide. Here’s how we can close it ,” 2021.

Homework does not help younger students.

• Source: Review of Educational Research, “ Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement? A Synthesis of Researcher, 1987-2003 ,” 2006.

To help students find the right balance and succeed, teachers and educators must start the homework conversation, both internally at their school and with parents. But in order to successfully advocate on behalf of students, teachers must be well educated on the subject, fully understanding the research and the outcomes that can be achieved by eliminating or reducing the homework burden. There is a plethora of research and writing on the subject for those interested in self-study.

For teachers looking for a more in-depth approach or for educators with a keen interest in educational equity, formal education may be the best route. If this latter option sounds appealing, there are now many reputable schools offering online master of education degree programs to help educators balance the demands of work and family life while furthering their education in the quest to help others.

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11 Surprising Homework Statistics, Facts & Data

The age-old question of whether homework is good or bad for students is unanswerable because there are so many “ it depends ” factors.

For example, it depends on the age of the child, the type of homework being assigned, and even the child’s needs.

There are also many conflicting reports on whether homework is good or bad. This is a topic that largely relies on data interpretation for the researcher to come to their conclusions.

To cut through some of the fog, below I’ve outlined some great homework statistics that can help us understand the effects of homework on children.

Homework Statistics List

1. 45% of parents think homework is too easy for their children.

A study by the Center for American Progress found that parents are almost twice as likely to believe their children’s homework is too easy than to disagree with that statement.

Here are the figures for math homework:

• 46% of parents think their child’s math homework is too easy.
• 25% of parents think their child’s math homework is not too easy.
• 29% of parents offered no opinion.

Here are the figures for language arts homework:

• 44% of parents think their child’s language arts homework is too easy.
• 28% of parents think their child’s language arts homework is not too easy.
• 28% of parents offered no opinion.

These findings are based on online surveys of 372 parents of school-aged children conducted in 2018.

2. 93% of Fourth Grade Children Worldwide are Assigned Homework

The prestigious worldwide math assessment Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS) took a survey of worldwide homework trends in 2007. Their study concluded that 93% of fourth-grade children are regularly assigned homework, while just 7% never or rarely have homework assigned.

3. 17% of Teens Regularly Miss Homework due to Lack of High-Speed Internet Access

A 2018 Pew Research poll of 743 US teens found that 17%, or almost 2 in every 5 students, regularly struggled to complete homework because they didn’t have reliable access to the internet.

This figure rose to 25% of Black American teens and 24% of teens whose families have an income of less than $30,000 per year.

4. Parents Spend 6.7 Hours Per Week on their Children’s Homework

A 2018 study of 27,500 parents around the world found that the average amount of time parents spend on homework with their child is 6.7 hours per week. Furthermore, 25% of parents spend more than 7 hours per week on their child’s homework.

American parents spend slightly below average at 6.2 hours per week, while Indian parents spend 12 hours per week and Japanese parents spend 2.6 hours per week.

5. Students in High-Performing High Schools Spend on Average 3.1 Hours per night Doing Homework

A study by Galloway, Conner & Pope (2013) conducted a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California. 

Across these high-performing schools, students self-reported that they did 3.1 hours per night of homework.

Graduates from those schools also ended up going on to college 93% of the time.

6. One to Two Hours is the Optimal Duration for Homework

A 2012 peer-reviewed study in the High School Journal found that students who conducted between one and two hours achieved higher results in tests than any other group.

However, the authors were quick to highlight that this “t is an oversimplification of a much more complex problem.” I’m inclined to agree. The greater variable is likely the quality of the homework than time spent on it.

Nevertheless, one result was unequivocal: that some homework is better than none at all : “students who complete any amount of homework earn higher test scores than their peers who do not complete homework.”

7. 74% of Teens cite Homework as a Source of Stress

A study by the Better Sleep Council found that homework is a source of stress for 74% of students. Only school grades, at 75%, rated higher in the study.

That figure rises for girls, with 80% of girls citing homework as a source of stress.

Similarly, the study by Galloway, Conner & Pope (2013) found that 56% of students cite homework as a “primary stressor” in their lives.

8. US Teens Spend more than 15 Hours per Week on Homework

The same study by the Better Sleep Council also found that US teens spend over 2 hours per school night on homework, and overall this added up to over 15 hours per week.

Surprisingly, 4% of US teens say they do more than 6 hours of homework per night. That’s almost as much homework as there are hours in the school day.

The only activity that teens self-reported as doing more than homework was engaging in electronics, which included using phones, playing video games, and watching TV.

9. The 10-Minute Rule

The National Education Association (USA) endorses the concept of doing 10 minutes of homework per night per grade.

For example, if you are in 3rd grade, you should do 30 minutes of homework per night. If you are in 4th grade, you should do 40 minutes of homework per night.

However, this ‘rule’ appears not to be based in sound research. Nevertheless, it is true that homework benefits (no matter the quality of the homework) will likely wane after 2 hours (120 minutes) per night, which would be the NEA guidelines’ peak in grade 12.

10. 21.9% of Parents are Too Busy for their Children’s Homework

An online poll of nearly 300 parents found that 21.9% are too busy to review their children’s homework. On top of this, 31.6% of parents do not look at their children’s homework because their children do not want their help. For these parents, their children’s unwillingness to accept their support is a key source of frustration.

11. 46.5% of Parents find Homework too Hard

The same online poll of parents of children from grades 1 to 12 also found that many parents struggle to help their children with homework because parents find it confusing themselves. Unfortunately, the study did not ask the age of the students so more data is required here to get a full picture of the issue.

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Interpreting the Data

Unfortunately, homework is one of those topics that can be interpreted by different people pursuing differing agendas. All studies of homework have a wide range of variables, such as:

• What age were the children in the study?
• What was the homework they were assigned?
• What tools were available to them?
• What were the cultural attitudes to homework and how did they impact the study?
• Is the study replicable?

The more questions we ask about the data, the more we realize that it’s hard to come to firm conclusions about the pros and cons of homework .

Furthermore, questions about the opportunity cost of homework remain. Even if homework is good for children’s test scores, is it worthwhile if the children consequently do less exercise or experience more stress?

Thus, this ends up becoming a largely qualitative exercise. If parents and teachers zoom in on an individual child’s needs, they’ll be able to more effectively understand how much homework a child needs as well as the type of homework they should be assigned.

Related: Funny Homework Excuses

The debate over whether homework should be banned will not be resolved with these homework statistics. But, these facts and figures can help you to pursue a position in a school debate on the topic – and with that, I hope your debate goes well and you develop some great debating skills!

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 15 Animism Examples
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• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ Social-Emotional Learning (Definition, Examples, Pros & Cons)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ What is Educational Psychology?

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School Life Balance , Tips for Online Students

The Pros and Cons of Homework

Updated: December 7, 2023

Published: January 23, 2020

Homework is a word that most students dread hearing. After hours upon hours of sitting in class , the last thing we want is more schoolwork over our precious weekends. While it’s known to be a staple of traditional schooling, homework has also become a rather divise topic. Some feel as though homework is a necessary part of school, while others believe that the time could be better invested. Should students have homework? Have a closer look into the arguments on both sides to decide for yourself.

Photo by  energepic.com  from  Pexels

Why should students have homework, 1. homework encourages practice.

Many people believe that one of the positive effects of homework is that it encourages the discipline of practice. While it may be time consuming and boring compared to other activities, repetition is needed to get better at skills. Homework helps make concepts more clear, and gives students more opportunities when starting their career .

2. Homework Gets Parents Involved

Homework can be something that gets parents involved in their children’s lives if the environment is a healthy one. A parent helping their child with homework makes them take part in their academic success, and allows for the parent to keep up with what the child is doing in school. It can also be a chance to connect together.

3. Homework Teaches Time Management

Homework is much more than just completing the assigned tasks. Homework can develop time management skills , forcing students to plan their time and make sure that all of their homework assignments are done on time. By learning to manage their time, students also practice their problem-solving skills and independent thinking. One of the positive effects of homework is that it forces decision making and compromises to be made.

4. Homework Opens A Bridge Of Communication

Homework creates a connection between the student, the teacher, the school, and the parents. It allows everyone to get to know each other better, and parents can see where their children are struggling. In the same sense, parents can also see where their children are excelling. Homework in turn can allow for a better, more targeted educational plan for the student.

5. Homework Allows For More Learning Time

Homework allows for more time to complete the learning process. School hours are not always enough time for students to really understand core concepts, and homework can counter the effects of time shortages, benefiting students in the long run, even if they can’t see it in the moment.

6. Homework Reduces Screen Time

Many students in North America spend far too many hours watching TV. If they weren’t in school, these numbers would likely increase even more. Although homework is usually undesired, it encourages better study habits and discourages spending time in front of the TV. Homework can be seen as another extracurricular activity, and many families already invest a lot of time and money in different clubs and lessons to fill up their children’s extra time. Just like extracurricular activities, homework can be fit into one’s schedule.

The Other Side: Why Homework Is Bad

1. homework encourages a sedentary lifestyle.

Should students have homework? Well, that depends on where you stand. There are arguments both for the advantages and the disadvantages of homework.

While classroom time is important, playground time is just as important. If children are given too much homework, they won’t have enough playtime, which can impact their social development and learning. Studies have found that those who get more play get better grades in school , as it can help them pay closer attention in the classroom.

Children are already sitting long hours in the classroom, and homework assignments only add to these hours. Sedentary lifestyles can be dangerous and can cause health problems such as obesity. Homework takes away from time that could be spent investing in physical activity.

2. Homework Isn’t Healthy In Every Home

While many people that think homes are a beneficial environment for children to learn, not all homes provide a healthy environment, and there may be very little investment from parents. Some parents do not provide any kind of support or homework help, and even if they would like to, due to personal barriers, they sometimes cannot. Homework can create friction between children and their parents, which is one of the reasons why homework is bad .

3. Homework Adds To An Already Full-Time Job

School is already a full-time job for students, as they generally spend over 6 hours each day in class. Students also often have extracurricular activities such as sports, music, or art that are just as important as their traditional courses. Adding on extra hours to all of these demands is a lot for children to manage, and prevents students from having extra time to themselves for a variety of creative endeavors. Homework prevents self discovery and having the time to learn new skills outside of the school system. This is one of the main disadvantages of homework.

4. Homework Has Not Been Proven To Provide Results

Endless surveys have found that homework creates a negative attitude towards school, and homework has not been found to be linked to a higher level of academic success.

The positive effects of homework have not been backed up enough. While homework may help some students improve in specific subjects, if they have outside help there is no real proof that homework makes for improvements.

It can be a challenge to really enforce the completion of homework, and students can still get decent grades without doing their homework. Extra school time does not necessarily mean better grades — quality must always come before quantity.

Accurate practice when it comes to homework simply isn’t reliable. Homework could even cause opposite effects if misunderstood, especially since the reliance is placed on the student and their parents — one of the major reasons as to why homework is bad. Many students would rather cheat in class to avoid doing their homework at home, and children often just copy off of each other or from what they read on the internet.

5. Homework Assignments Are Overdone

The general agreement is that students should not be given more than 10 minutes a day per grade level. What this means is that a first grader should be given a maximum of 10 minutes of homework, while a second grader receives 20 minutes, etc. Many students are given a lot more homework than the recommended amount, however.

On average, college students spend as much as 3 hours per night on homework . By giving too much homework, it can increase stress levels and lead to burn out. This in turn provides an opposite effect when it comes to academic success.

The pros and cons of homework are both valid, and it seems as though the question of ‘‘should students have homework?’ is not a simple, straightforward one. Parents and teachers often are found to be clashing heads, while the student is left in the middle without much say.

It’s important to understand all the advantages and disadvantages of homework, taking both perspectives into conversation to find a common ground. At the end of the day, everyone’s goal is the success of the student.

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