Too Much Homework Can Be Counterproductive

Spy der Mann writes "An interesting study made by to two Penn State researchers shows that increases in homework may actually hinder educational achievement (Coral Cache) instead of improving it. The researchers analyzed a large amount of data collected by the Third International Study of Mathematics and Sciences (TIMSS) in 1994 from schools in 41 nations across the fourth, eighth and 12th grades. For some analyses, they used data from an identical study carried out in '99." From the article: "An unintended consequence may be that those children who need extra work and drill the most are the ones least likely to get it. Increasing homework loads is likely to aggravate tensions within the family, thereby generating more inequality and eroding the quality of overall education."

Comments

Yes and no - experience in Taiwan

[t482]

After I graduated from college I decided to take a year off and went to Taiwan to teach young kids. Most of them were about 8 years old and went to school from 7AM until 6 PM and then went home and did 3-4 hours of homework. Weekends were made up of bushibans of math, science and english.

Does repetition work? Yes mostly. Learning to write Chinese is best taught by repetition. Any sport is best learned by repetition.

Being a brilliant scientist is that learned by repetition? No. The important thing seems to me is to leave some time for creativity and that is one thing Asian schools (assuming Korea/Singapore/Japan are similar) don't seem to get.

Understanding patterns, applying information from another part of your brain and another field to the task at hand etc. This is where creativity comes from. I don't think it can 100% be taught - but I think it can be inspired by good teachers.

Where are the Asian Nobel prize winners? How come Taiwan can take 60% of the US Electrical Engineering Phds (90s stat) but not produce top line physics research? That is probabably a question for another day.

Oh, you're full of it.

[koko775]

I'll probably be modded down because I'm responding angrily to a BS post, but...

As a 16-year-old student at California's top high school (API statistics and quite literally the best AP Physics class in the world), who gets mostly A's and sometimes a B, I can verify that too much homework is really screwing things up. It's no lack of responsibility that I can't do SEVEN concurrent projects equally well. It's no lack of personal responsibility or lack of study that causes my grade to lower. It's the fact that I DON"T HAVE THE TIME TO STUDY EVERYTHING! When was the last time I came home with very litte homework, enjoying extra time to do what I love (programming)? Virtually NEVER! Two hours of math a week (from the article)? Ha! How does an hour a day sound?

Can you really say that just because I spend anywhere from five to seven hours on homework that I'm "just going through the motions" when I really try to think and put effort into my projects so they aren't just another piece of uninspired crap the teachers see all the time? Are you saying that I don't try to learn from my work? That I deserve SEVEN concurrent projects, four of which are blatantly busywork, and two of which are genuinely useful? That I can't be learning more about my subject of interest, programming, by spending more time learning about it? AND that my effort in school is wasted (I "go through the motions" and don't learn), as you so dismissively label so many students?

"Einstein" is no insult -- it's the people who irresponsibly blame their social situation on a characteristic they can't change. Blaming culture is nice, and sometimes useful, but honestly -- if the you think that the Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is exactly the problem, then I think you're misguided or unfamiliar with the amount of work today's best students have to do. The problem with attitude is at most HALF the problem. The problem with culture is usually a non-issue (unless you live in a really, really, really bad area and can't cope).

The problem with having too much to do and too little time to do it is you don't get the chance to find what you love to do and actually do it.

How much of my free time, how much of my waning childhood, how much of the free time I can enjoy are you going to metaphorically take away by justifying all of my homework?

Re:Homework sucks - but it's just the beginning of

[egburr]

My idea of using homework is to assign it, provide answers, review it in class. However, you never let it have anything to do with your grade.

One of my teachers had a great solution for this. Homework never counted towards a grade and was not checked. All the answers were in the book anyway, but not the steps to reach the answer (other than the general steps in the lessons). Homework solutions were discussed in class after it was turned in.

The catch was that if you did your homework and turned it in on time and did poorly on a test, then you could request that the teacher check your homework and he would give some extra credit if the homework was done correctly.

This gave everyone who needed to do the homework the incentive to do it, and did not penalize the people who did not need to do it.

The funny thing is this was my calculus class and was the first math/science class where I actually felt a need to do the homework to be able to do well on the tests (not for the extra credit but for the practice).

I knew the topics, I tested excellent, so I suppose I "got away" with it. I got to college and was screwed, because I adopted a policy of not needing to study or do homework.

Likewise for me, except my first year of college was basically a repeat of my senior year of high school, so it was my second year of college when I suddenly discovered a need for study and homework outside of class, and I did not have the skills or habits for doing that.

Just giving homework does not teach good study habits, especially for people who learn the subject easily and have no need to do the homework.