Jesse Winslow

Is Homework harmful or helpful?

Want a fast way to increase stress, lower family and extracurricular time, and lose sleep?
Then try out four to five hours of homework each night! Itll guarantee all three by the first or
second installment of three core classes of homework due the next day! Yes, most students can
agree that homework sucks, but why? Research says that more and more published research tells
us that excessive homework does not necessarily contribute to learning and may even negatively
impact students lives.
Homework does not contribute to retaining information after the test. Policy homework
is often assigned to fulfill mandates from school or district administration, such as requirements
for a specified amount of daily or weekly homework. What Research Says about the Value of
Homework: Research Review? Getting homework just to have something to do after class and/
or when you get homework is not productive for the teacher nor the student. So why give busy
work? Little or no research has been conducted on the effects of no instructional homework.
However, as mentioned earlier, homework assigned to younger students may have its main
effects on nonacademic outcomes, and teachers may be assigning young students homework for
no instructional purposes. What Research Says about the Value of Homework: Research
Review? Several other studies examining teacher feedback have focused on its effects on
student achievement. Cooper's (2001) review of studies that included teacher feedback measures
found no significant impact on student achievement from the type of feedback provided by
teachers. While the use of incentives has been shown to increase homework completion rates,
most such studies have focused on learning disabled students in math classes and failed to
examine the effects of teacher feedback on other groups of students or in other content areas.
What Research Says about the Value of Homework: Research Review? What Research Says
about the Value of Homework: Research Review. Web. 10 May 2016.
Excessive homework can lead to more stress, health problems, little time to socialize or
pursue activities important to emotional and social development. Homework affects the mental
state of the students to the point that they get into more arguments with their parents and they
sleep less, due to the stress of just getting homework done regardless of quality. The less
interested the student is in completing the homework the longer it takes to complete. This makes
the student lose more time to being doing other things, such as sleeping or free time. Bryan,
Nelson, and Mathru (1995) claim that homework overexposes children to academic duties,
decreasing their interest and increasing their physical and emotional fatigue; researchers call this
the satiation effect. Similarly, in an examination of parent and student perceptions, Coutts (2004)
found that homework may take away leisure time and may not be as varied or useful as work
done in class.
Many people feel that homework has positive benefits, because the American education
system feels that we are behind in rigor to other countries. People feel that parental involvement
makes students better and faster with homework, it helps students learn time management skills,
and some research isnt done by impartial officials which creates a bias. Ever since the 1950s
American educators have promoted that homework helps students achieve. This trend was
reversed in the late 1950s when the Soviets' launch of Sputnik led to concern that U.S. education
lacked rigor; schools viewed more rigorous homework as a partial solution to the problem.

Jesse Winslow

Schoolteachers, rather than impartial researchers, do a lot of research for homework and say that
it is helpful due to some unknown biases. According to the Center for Public Educations
research review from 2007, In fact, studies that have included longitudinal data or other checks
and balances in the research design have found that homework has a negative effect on
achievement (Cooper et al. 2006; Trautwein and Koller 2003).
Homework helps students to work quickly and efficiently and manage their time better.
By examining taped sessions and interviews with parents and students, they discovered that
homework helped third graders learn responsibility and develop time-management and jobmanagement skills. These and similar benefits, such as good study habits and independent
learning, have been found by other researchers as well (Johnson and Pontius 1989; Warton
2001). Although not explicitly linked to achievement, it is logical to assume that these factors
lead to improved achievement. Parents can become socially involved with their childrens
homework and it helps them finish faster and create more of a bond with each other. Some
researchers have found that homework has a positive effect on parents and families by allowing
them to show an interest in their children's academic progress (Hoover-Dempsey et al. 2001).
What Research Says about the Value of Homework: Research Review.
There are more effective negative arguments against homework then there are effective
positive arguments for homework. It is time for our educators, parents, and students to take a
closer look at traditional assumptions about homework and re-evaluate them in light of
arguments on both sides of the issue. By drawing positives and benefits from both sides of the
topic, homework can be approached in a new light which would be much more effective to all
concerned.

"Is Homework Helpful (yes) or Harmful (no)?" The Premier Online Debate Website. Web. 09 May 2016.
http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-homework-helpful-yes-or-harmful-no
"Is Homework Helpful?: The 5 Questions Every Teacher Should Ask." Brian Sztabnik Edutopia. Web. 10
May 2016. http://www.edutopia.org/discussion/homework-helpful-5-questions-every-teacher-should-ask
"Special Topic / The Case For and Against Homework." Educational Leadership: Responding to
Changing Demographics: The Case For and Against Homework. Robert J. Marzano and Debra J.
Pickering Web. 10 May 2016. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educationalleadership/mar07/vol64/num06/The-Case-For-and-Against-Homework.aspx
Stanford University Communications. Mar.10, 2014. Clifton B. Parker, Accessed May 9, 2016 at
https://news.stanford.edu/2014/03/10/too-much-homework-031014/
"What Research Says about the Value of Homework: Research Review." What Research Says about the
Value of Homework: Research Review. Web. 10 May 2016.
http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Instruction/What-research-says-about-the-value-ofhomework-At-a-glance/What-research-says-about-the-value-of-homework-Research-review.html

Jesse Winslow