Students who feel like they are shouldering a growing burden may have scientific backing to bolster their claims.
Children feel like they do more homework now than ever before, said Harris Cooper, chair and professor of psychology and neuroscience. Two factors are responsible, he said—intense pressure on teachers to surpass national testing standards and parents’ belief that excessive homework is conducive to a rigorous education, which will get their children into selective universities.
Although Americans are not happy with the sharp increase in the amount of homework, researchers still believe that, in general, homework is an effective way to reinforce material learned in the classroom.
In fact, increased amounts of homework have been linked to better achievement outcomes, such as higher standardized scores, Erika Patall, assistant professor of learning, cognition and instruction at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote in an email.
The findings hold true for younger as well as older children—albeit in different ways. For younger children, Cooper said early exposure to skills such as reading and writing is important because it can help lend these skills to students for a lifetime.
For older children, homework seems to be geared more towards helping them learn skills that are important for doing well on standardized tests. This focus has contributed to the increase in the amount of work high schoolers have.
“I think there has been an increase [in homework] for some students at the high school level that’s based on the competitiveness of getting into select colleges and universities,” Cooper said. “But at the high school level there’s great variability.”
He noted that this variability exists because a high school student’s schedule depends largely on the amount of honors, advanced placement or International Baccalaureate classes that the student is taking. More difficult or faster paced classes mean more homework and independent learning, he said.
Sophomore Minshu Deng agreed.
“If there was anything questionable about how much homework teachers were giving, it was really just due to the rigor of the class,” she said.
Although some students have a degree of control over their schedule, parents with students in classes as varied as advanced placement to honors and below still are not satisfied with the workload placed on their children.
“I do hear from those disgruntled parents,” said Cooper, speaking of his research. “But do we have a firm idea of how frequently [their kids are assigned too much homework]? Probably not.”
College is an exception to the amount of homework a student should expect to receive.
“It is the structure of college that students spend less time in class and more time learning outside of class,” Patall wrote. “Much learning becomes ‘homework,’ so, yes, college students will benefit from doing more rather than less homework.”
Whatever the case, completing homework is often just one of a student’s many priorities.
“Along with taking all those AP classes, students are also expected or liked to take part in extracurricular activities, volunteering, sports and clubs, taking part in church or scouts,” Cooper said. “The frustration that parents and kids feel today is that there just isn’t enough time to fit this all in.”
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