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.
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."
Source:
huffingtonpost.com/Photo: sodahead.com
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