Too Much Homework Can Lower Test Scores, Researchers Say

By: Natalie Wolchover
Published: 03/30/2012 09:42 AM EDT on Lifes Little Mysteries

Piling on the homework doesn't help kids do better in school. In fact, it can lower their test scores.

That's the conclusion of a group of Australian researchers, who have taken the aggregate results of several recent studies investigating the relationship between time spent on homework and students' academic performance.

According to Richard Walker, an educational psychologist at Sydney University, data shows that in countries where more time is spent on homework, students score lower on a standardized test called the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. The same correlation is also seen when comparing homework time and test performance at schools within countries. Past studies have also demonstrated this basic trend.

Inundating children with hours of homework each night is detrimental, the research suggests, while an hour or two per week usually doesn't impact test scores one way or the other. However, homework only bolsters students' academic performance during their last three years of grade school. "There is little benefit for most students until senior high school (grades 10-12)," Walker told Life's Little Mysteries.

The research is detailed in his new book, "Reforming Homework: Practices, Learning and Policies" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

The same basic finding holds true across the globe, including in the U.S., according to Gerald LeTendre of Pennsylvania State University. He and his colleagues have found that teachers typically give take-home assignments that are unhelpful busy work. Assigning homework "appeared to be a remedial strategy (a consequence of not covering topics in class, exercises for students struggling, a way to supplement poor quality educational settings), and not an advancement strategy (work designed to accelerate, improve or get students to excel)," LeTendre wrote in an email. [Kids Believe Literally Everything They Read Online, Even Tree Octopuses]

This type of remedial homework tends to produce marginally lower test scores compared with children who are not given the work. Even the helpful, advancing kind of assignments ought to be limited; Harris Cooper, a professor of education at Duke University, has recommended that students be given no more than 10 to 15 minutes of homework per night in second grade, with an increase of no more than 10 to 15 minutes in each successive year.

Most homework's neutral or negative impact on students' academic performance implies there are better ways for them to spend their after school hours than completing worksheets. So, what should they be doing? According to LeTendre, learning to play a musical instrument or participating in clubs and sports all seem beneficial, but there's no one answer that applies to everyone.

"These after-school activities have much more diffuse goals than single subject test scores," he wrote. "When I talk to parents … they want their kids to be well-rounded, creative, happy individuals — not just kids who ace the tests."

Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.

• Easy Answers to the Top 5 Science Questions Kids Ask
• Smart Answers for Crazy Hypothetical Questions
• Pointing Your Finger Makes You Credible to Kids

Copyright 2012 Lifes Little Mysteries, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Comments

[ashdunn95]

11:52 AM on 03/18/2013

I am sitting in a class right now and this article is now a part of my homework... I'm in high school and have about 3 hours of home work a night, plus a job and after school activities. Teachers are expecting the students to know/learn it in our own time. I do more work at home than at school. Some work is understandable, review the information you learned, not learn it to take a test the next day, we need some guidance and a direction, that's why students are not reaching their potential.

[cgert88888]

10:56 PM on 10/28/2012

I adopted my son soon after marrying his mother (don't fret, he knows it) and because my wife was a single working mother, he spent most of his first 7 years with grandma, who is a wonderful woman but not much of a disciplinarian. He was/is a great kid but I felt he could use some discipline and I didn't want to always be the "bad guy", so we enrolled him in a non-resident military school where we live in Colombia. He had homework all night, every night. He was miserable; his grades were so-so, and he had no after-school social life. When we to the park on weekends, he laid down on a bench and slept. I kept thinking it was just a period of adjustment and would imporve but, after 4 years of that, I had enough. I enrolled him in another private school with a wonderful reputation. He has an hour or so of homework nearly every night: a social life; his grades are way up; and he is a happy, normal 14 yr old now. Schools need to do more teaching during the day and let kids be kids after school. I would favor cutting summer vacation to 1 month and eliminating homework altogether.

[KenGoldbergPHD]

11:33 PM on 05/31/2012

We need to keep in mind two things about “piling up homework.” Most of the discussion about the volume of homework has to do with the amount that is assigned. We need to also consider the amount of time it takes the individual student to complete the assignment. Keep in mind that students don’t all work at the same pace. Even if we could come to an agreement to limit the amount of homework (which we certainly should do), that will not solve the problem for the individual student who takes a long time to get the assignments done. That student will still be overburdened with work as long as we think about the “amount” of homework being the amount assigned, rather than the actual time it takes each student to get the work done. Kenneth Goldberg, Ph.D. www.thehomeworktrap.com.

[PenAndInkPrincess]

03:08 AM on 05/30/2012

I go to an advanced high school. I don't mind homework; I like to be challenged. But I do NOT like being overwhelmed. I wish that teachers could somehow network and find out who is assigning what on a given night. I wish that we could have rotating subject nights. Because of the volume of homework that I am given, I have been forced to drop my extracurriculars and skip out of marching band, simply because I don't have time.

And most of the homework has no point as far as I can see. That's not for all assignments; some are incredibly helpful and I appreciate them, but for others it just seems that the teacher is assigning homework because s/he is just expected to.

[Hepsiba]

12:03 AM on 05/30/2012

What a gigantic farce! Homework to produce "ace" students...THAT is not the goal of homework. Homework is assigned to reenforce skills learned that day.

Homework doesn't make a significant impact. Really? That's the complete opposite of my findings after twenty-two years of education in upper elementary and middle school.

With rare exception, I've found students who've not had at least a minimal amount of homework, especially in math and English, unable to compete on grade level; they cannot work at their grade level.

This is one of the most ridiculous articles I have read recently.

In the last fifteen years, many public schools have greatly reduced or completely eliminated homework altogether. We now have a generation of students who cannot operate at the college freshman level when they should be able to after high school. Many freshmen are being required to take remedials to equip them for college level work.

Yep, that's it. Let's continue rolling as we have been...we will continue to be surpassed by second and now third world nations academically.

Perhaps the parents who are so upset about the homework should stop doing the work for their student and make the student responsible to do the work that us required.

On days when homework is issued in math or English, it is at most a fifteen minute- to max twenty minute amount. When students do not do their work in class, they have more homework than they should.

As I said, ridiculous!

[RagesFury]

02:29 AM on 09/28/2012

What is ridiculous is student going to School all day then coming home to work on homework until 2am with a short break for dinner. That is not skill reinforcement, it is busy work and nothing more...
Maybe you issue 15-20 minute homework assignments, but then you are not the losers at the High School my kids attend...

[jpnkk]

08:07 PM on 05/29/2012

Well, time for another study seems to be in order. Let do a study of kids who do little to no home work and see where they stand on the academic scale. The Australian study would seem to suggest these student would be near or at the top of the scale.

[fredflinstone]

09:55 AM on 05/30/2012

It would not seem to suggest, it did suggest.

"According to Richard Walker, an educational psychologist at Sydney University, data shows that in countries where more time is spent on homework, students score lower on a standardized test called the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. The same correlation is also seen when comparing homework time and test performance at schools within countries. Past studies have also demonstrated this basic trend."

[rckstrmnk472]

07:43 PM on 05/29/2012

As a high school student, I think I speak for most of my peers when I say I do not enjoy homework, however I do see benefits. But I feel learning responsibility and getting ahead are far outweighed by getting enough sleep, and being happy. The amount of depression in teenagers is very great, and a study was done at my school that averaged the hours of sleep for each student at 5-6, which is insane, and when asked why they sleep that much, more than half of the the students answered I have to do homework! I feel that an hour of homework is not bad, but when students are skipping sleep, and I know people who skip meals, just to do a worksheet or something like it, is insane, I would rather have a longer school day and be healthy than have a short school day and sacrifice sleep and meals.

[Hepsiba]

12:16 AM on 05/30/2012

Very insightful rckstrmnk472!

I am a teacher. I do understand that homework can be overdone, especially since teachers have no way of knowing what other teachers are assigning. I believe what you have shared was spoken in sincere truth...at least for students who are conscientious about their school work.

Sadly, you and I will have to disagree about why students are losing sleep and going without eating well. Just reflecting over the past twelve years since the web became a super hit, I can in all truthfulness state that there is a vast majority of students...the older the worse it gets...who spend FAR TOO much time allowing themselves to be distracted with social networks, the internet in general (YouTube, etc.), gaming, and other things that steal time they could use to complete their homework in a reasonable amount of time.

I believe every teacher should teach homework and studying strategies beginning with students in fourth grade. I've been teaching these skills to my middle students and have seen a marked improvement in student homework, and their "awake" states of being. :)

Again, great post! As a teacher, my hat is off to you for speaking up and sharing your thoughts!

Continue to pursue academic excellence-- it does pay off!

[guitarfitch]

06:24 PM on 05/29/2012

"Researchers" Yeah right. Actually it's the not homework but what kind it is. If it's busy work then=waste of time. Of course a gradual increase over the years and an awareness of what the other teachers assign would be helpful. If you are not taught study and homework habits early then good luck in college.

[Craigers61]

04:21 PM on 05/29/2012

I find it interesting that when the educational philosophy was far different, say back before 1965, the amount of homework given, which was quite a bit, helped grades go higher, but since 1965 they have caused grades to plummet. Since the text books were once written so that you could easily understand a subject and not purposely changed so that the student would become overly frustrated, which is what began to happen after 1965, it makes perfect since why the more homework you give today has far more detrimental results. It isn’t the studying that causes the problems, its studying in an environment that increases the students frustration that causes the grade to plummet.

[bren0917]

04:05 PM on 05/29/2012

I see homework of a way to teach young children RESPONSIBILITY.....If my children are assigned 3 pages of homework a night....I do not care if it takes them 3 hours to complete..they will turn in their complete homework assignment the next day. What kind of parent will I be allowing them to stop or give up on homework after 30 minutes....that in life it is okay to give up after attempting to complete a task after a certain time? No! But we make sure we are right next to them helping them. Parents need to stop complaining about homework....when their children grow up and enter the real world...do you think the are going to be sble to go to work and inform their employer that they are being given too much work? No! We need to prepare our children for the real world...bcz unfortunately...they are only children for 18 yrs....technically.....but adults much..much longer. :)

[Cheesetony]

08:16 PM on 05/29/2012

There are so many better ways to teach your children responsibility than forcing them to do worksheets for 3 hours. That's not the real world. Real world responsibility is taking care of a pet, helping with household chores, or other familial activities that bond rather than cause conflict in the home.
If an adult is in a job that was mindless busywork that he/she hated, he/she could always seek out another job. Children don't have that option, so we as parents and educators need to advocate for them.

[bren0917]

09:31 PM on 05/29/2012

We are all entitled to teach our children responsibility as we prefer. As long as I am not hurting my children or others. My 6 and 7 yr old wake up and make their beds, brush their teeth and get dress on their own since they were 3 & 4 yrs old. Of course we did not expect a perfect bed and we still brushef their teeth afterwards to make sure we brushed their teeth properly...now they do this chore without a problem...their beds are better then my bed sometimes...lol. Homework is the same way...my kids took longer in the beginning...but now they understand that they must fully complete it before engaging in any other activity after school. When it comes to math...we want them to show their work. Which they do. My kids are not being tortured..they actually enjoy doing homework. I do not understand how expecting homework to be completed cause conflict in my home?

[KenGoldbergPHD]

07:35 AM on 04/09/2012

The question of how much homework is too much homework depends greatly on how we define the amount of homework – by the assignment or by the clock. As long as we are talking about volumes of assignments, we will always have children who are been harmed by having too much homework because they cannot get the work done within reasonable periods of time. Once we cap homework by time, we dramatically increase the numbers of children who no longer get too much homework, and actually become interested in the work they get, and are learning something through the process. Kenneth Goldberg, Ph.D. author of The Homework Trap: How to Save the Sanity of Parents, Students and Teachers. www.thehomeworktrap.com.

[Hepsiba]

12:33 AM on 05/30/2012

Excellent post Dr. Goldberg!

That's one of my favorite websites!

An appreciative teacher in middle school. :)

[acumenguy]

10:32 PM on 04/08/2012

Test, test, test, test, test ....!!!!!
DURN IT!!!!!
Every kid does not need college. Every kid does not neeed a degree.
There are many happy fork lift drivers, truck drivers, retail workers, ware house workers, construction workers, bus drivers, restaurant workers, land scapers, plumbers, electricians and other tradesmen, masons,hotel workers....
I could go on.
These people enjoy their work and MANY of the above mentioned make a LOT more than school teachers.
So Stop with the test craze!!!!!
And yes, I WILL say it. School IS supposed to be fun. I have fun teaching!
Homework should have a direct correlation to the lesson of the day.
Jeeze ......

[percheron1]

04:34 PM on 05/29/2012

We have illegal immigrants for all the jobs you mentioned...LOL

[MJinCanada]

02:15 PM on 04/08/2012

Makes perfect sense to me. Why make younger students hate subjects by pushing those subjects into their play time?

Homework should always have a clearly defined purpose: practice; review for exams; groundwork for in-class projects; essays and other writing assignments that have to be done at the students' own pace.

[mlaiuppa]

12:39 PM on 04/06/2012

You can forget about learning to play a musical instrument or other arts.

Those classes are gone as are the teachers who taught them. They needed the money to pay for the standardized tests and pay to score them.

[tjimison]

10:24 AM on 04/06/2012

The LSAC (Longitudinal Study of Australian Children) was mostly an interview, survey type study done across several levels of respondants. It was NOT primarily an educational study, but rather a general overview of family issues. The conclusions drawn by this 'researcher' are extremely suspect mainly because the 'data' was self reported rather than observed. Even with cross referencing, perceptions of time spent doing homework is very different from time spent doing homework.

[CabinAgue]

01:11 PM on 04/06/2012

"who have taken the aggregate results of several recent studies"
"data shows that in countries where more time is spent on homework"

I don't see how the one study you cite fits with these statements from the article.

[tjimison]

01:39 PM on 04/06/2012

That's because the conclusions cited are not backed up with any evidence. The 'researcher' being quoted used data from the LSAC to draw conclusions in education.

Real scientists use the scientific method to test theories, they set up a null hypothesis, experiment, collect data and use statistical analysis to back up any conclusions. Many educationalists use 'data' like responses on surveys to draw conclusions about real data like test scores.