Too Much Homework Can Be Counterproductive 573
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."
Re:Scholarly researchers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, but if the homework were only boring repetitions, the students will feel like working chore and that's bad in planting the value of discipline. Discipline ought to be fostered through the love of what the student doing and through challenge of the given problems. Definitely not chore. If you ask people who excel in their field, this is almost always the case.
Re:Scholarly researchers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Regarding your comment. I've been one of the best students in my class back in school, and knew a few others. The general pattern was the following: those who did all their homework were those who also get high marks, but simply because they just memorized a lot. When confronted with an unusual question, they were lost. Of course, since tests usually didn't have any such questions (as they were made by those same people who written the textbooks used for homework assignments), it wasn't a problem. On the contrary, those who didn't do homework but still scored high were usually the students who could actually think for themselves, and find solutions to new types of problems.
Another example off... (Score:2, Interesting)
I feel they're just stating the obvious here - I'm currently a high school student, and I do NOT do homework, unless I feel I need to. If there's subject concepts or theories that I'm already aware of and understand, why do the homework? It just adds more to the pile that I have every night. It doesn't take a grad student to work out doing the work that applies to yourself is more relevant and useful than just doing everything in the book. My teachers also share this view and only collect work that goes towards the report card - if you don't do the work to at least understand it, you'll fuck up the exam, end of story.
However, I'm currently in year 11 and I can work out my own study regime - what needs to be done in years 7-10, is students need to receive a constant inflow work, getting a routine at home happening. It doesn't need to be a truck load, but sufficient enough to keep the student busy for an hour at the least.
Re:Scholarly researchers? (Score:2, Interesting)
If by "excelling in classes", you mean getting a good grade then yeah, thats by design. Homework counts towards your grade, so if you do it you get a better grade. On the other hand if you mean better overall understanding of the material then I call BS. Until you show some solid evidence, I'm sticking to my personal experience which dictates exactly the opposite.
Re:Scholarly researchers? (Score:2, Interesting)
I stopped doing homework when I was around 12-13 (don't remember exactly), I've almost always been in top 5 of the class (and in logical stuff, like maths and physics and things like that, usually the best).
Having the ability to trudge through what sometimes seems to be busywork leads to stronger self-control
Now there's where the gotcha lies. I have terrible self-control, and really have to push myself to get just about anything done. I even have so low attention span that I often get bored of a movie before the intro is finished and go do something else (and that's MEANT to be entertaining, can you imagine what that will do to boring work?)
So the morale of my tale? Homework isn't neccesary connected with grades, but it's connected with the ability to get actual work done.
Re:need better teachers, not more work (Score:1, Interesting)
I second the parent poster's claim that heavy homework loads cause kids to lose sleep. The kids I knew with the heaviest workloads (around 3 hours of homework a night) would rarely, if ever, get enough sleep. While I only had 1 to 2 hours of regular work per night, I frequently had to work on some project or another for class that added another hour or two to the nightly load. My friends usually stayed up two or three hours late to do their work (often getting only 5 hours of sleep); I stayed up for an hour or two and then woke up two hours early (many times I would run on four hours' sleep). One could argue that it's entirely our fault for putting it off, but to be perfectly honest, almost nobody sees homework as their top priority. Even teenagers have better things to do than another fifty variations on the same math problem.
Heavy homework loads also gave rise to a different problem: cheating. In AP Chemistry, the teacher assigned one to two hours of homework a night, all repetitive busywork problems from the textbook. About one third of the students actually did the work - the rest copied their work. It wasn't a fixed group supplying everyone else with the answers, either. Every day, the kids who'd found time to do the work in another class or hadn't had much other homework would bring in the answers and hook up the kids who hadn't done it. These were honors students who would never cheat on a test, and often knew the material extremely well - but just didn't feel like balancing another sixty-two chemical reactions.
The problem here is both the amount of the work and the nature of the work. Simply doing the work without procrastinating would mean spending half the free time we get each night on tedious, repetitive busywork. It really doesn't help that we're doing it at home, either. Would you like it if your boss sent you home every day with another two hours' worth of paperwork to do?
Re:need better teachers, not more work (Score:2, Interesting)
As a (former) high school student, I can tell you a number of things about homework and its current state in schools.
Facts where I came from:
1) Too much homework is assigned.
2) Very few people do homework.
3) Those that do homework rarely do it well.
1 - Teachers give too much homework, and the problem only increases if the student is in "honors"/AP/GT/K-Level/"upper-level" classes. The alarming misconception is that students who choose to take a harder/more strenuous curriculum need more homework. Regardless, my personal experience had me doing, at times, eight-ten hours of homework a night (granted, I was taking all honors courses). I was spending more time DOING HOMEWORK than I was AT SCHOOL. Granted, those were the especially bad nights that only happened once every two weeks or so, usually when two teachers decided to make two major grades due on the same day. I'd say average homework for a night was three hours of homework.
2 - I was one of the few students who actually completed my homework (yes, I'm your definitive nerd (I mean, I AM posting on slashdot)). Most students simply cheat/copy homework. Usually one friend does the work (usually poorly) and the others simply hand-transfer the answers/work over to their own paper and put their name on it. They easily get away with this because a) the teachers are assigning so much homework that they never bother to actually _check_ any of it and b) its so commonplace that many teachers have gotten accustomed to accepting copied homework.
3 - The ones that do the homework rarely do it well because what is assigned is usually an exercise in tedium (read: "busy work"). Outlining the textbook, vocabulary lists, posters, pointless worksheets. All the work with none of the lessons - the teachers assign something that the student can subsequently complete and it's assumed that both parties are doing their job. Unfortunately, that's not the case.
Bad teachers are a huge part of the problem, and most homework is the lazy way of working. Of course, I'm not a vindictive student against work - I acknowledge that some homework is beneficial. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the novels for my English class, practicing my Spanish speaking, learning algorithms for Computer Science, and practicing my instrument for Band. Unfortunately, I have piles of worksheets, summaries, and assignments that have absolutely no bearing on the course or on understanding the subject material.
Having said all this, I don't think the main problem is with the teachers however. Students themselves are the main problem. Day after day I watched people sleep through classes even though they'd just awoken from their eight hour nightly snooze - I've seen countless students copy homework, cheat on tests, "share" projects - I've watched hormones supersede learning as students spend class flirting and holding hands. Today's students are just purely apathetic to the educational system, regardless of the teaching quality. Even the most intelligent, insightful teachers can hardly break the shell of teenagers these days - all the students do is fabricate elaborate ways to listen to their iPods during class or figure out how to surreptitiously change the ink barrel of their pen from red to black (and vice versa).
No wonder the teachers don't feel like teaching when the students don't feel like _learning_. Student discussion is limited to pop culture, with learning experiences coming when a senior finds out that the word is pronounced "conscience" rather than "con-science" (this was in the honors course, by the way). Literature is all but abhored among students - I'd wager that I could count the number of students in my English course that actually finished Dostoevsky's _Crime and Punishment_ on one hand. Shakespeare recieved even less attention and many students were even too lazy to read the Spark/Cliff/PinkMonkey notes. Get the students to care, and maybe the teachers would.
Of course, students might care if they weren't suffocating under the massive amounts of homework given, but I doubt it.
Re:Scholarly researchers? (Score:3, Interesting)
There is almost a direct one-to-one correlation between doing homework and excelling in classes.
I have lots of anecdotal evidence that this is bullshit. I have better grades than many, many of those who did homework in upper secondary.Yes and no - experience in Taiwan (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Homework sucks - but it's just the beginning of (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was in high school, I hated homework; it was the same drivel over and over. So I just stopped doing it. If I thought I didn't know the topic, then I would try a few and see. Lucky, my teachers weren't idiots and didn't try to cause me trouble for some stupid thing like homework. 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.
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. Build that with projects, papers, tests, etc. This lets kids that don't like needless repetition do something more productive with their time.
Re:need better teachers, not more work (Score:3, Interesting)
Bollocks!
If you want kids to do better - get better parents! The push for more homework assignments has the tendency to keep students off the streets and out of trouble. Which is more than many parents are willing (or able) to do. How many of these parents have let the TV (boob-tube) do their babysitting for them, instead of reading a book to their kids, or actually digging in to help them understand their homework? The three R's are the vitally important bedrock of children learning, but how many parents will run flashcard drills with their kids, or sit down and play Scrabble (or some other educational game) with them?
Teachers these days are expected to be teachers, babysitters, truancy officers, and substitute adult role models for their students. If there are not enough hours in the day to cover all these duties, more homework is a partial solution. The USA's public school systems need to break away from the agrarian-based 9 month school year, and switch to year-round schooling. Several short breaks in the instruction cycle are far more productive than a mind numbing 3 month break. Requiring school uniforms instead of rampant competition over name-brand clothing would help, also.
Re:Homework sucks - but it's just the beginning of (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, you're full of it. (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
So you didn't do the assigned work (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't care if you're acing every test, the homework is part of your grade too.
Re:Homework sucks - but it's just the beginning of (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
personally (Score:3, Interesting)
1) it gets kids conditioned to what they should expect in real life.
2) the school day is only about 30% (or less) actual work right now, most of it is mindless and useless repetition. it's not like this extension of the day would be grueling
3) IMO the time between the end of school and the end of (parents') workday is when you have the most 'issues' with school-age children
4) teachers could work a full day. I hear a lot of teachers complain that they need 'prep' time - well, most of the schools around here are DESERTED by 4 pm, and if you did year-round school teachers could use the 1 wk/mo or 2 wk/quarter to do their 'prep' instead of painting houses all summer.
Re:Actually, you do illustrate just the point (Score:3, Interesting)
I think people not wanting to do homework is a bit more complicated then being lazy, I wanted to learn somethings in highschool but some of the classes, materials and teachers were so substandard and out of date I skipped the classes entirely because I knew they were a waste of my time and the publics money. Think UNISYS icons, and basic, and a network of 8088's with TURING programming language which had teachers of which, no one was qualified to teach it so we just ended up dicking around the entire semester and this was in _highschool_. If schools can't afford to keep their curriculum and teachers up to date, then thats a real problem that isn't the student's fault. Schools are better now then when I went to school, but they still have those transitional problems that last a lifetime for the students caught in times of small budgets and lack of quality of teachers and teachig material in their eduction. I was one of the unlucky ones.
Let's face it though education as it is currently practiced is pretty unscientific, we do not really understand how the brain works and how people learn different things make those connections between memory elements that makes them "see" and understand something.
Most importantly making work interesting is difficult unless you really like to grind. Why should people want to be forced to learn ever more increasingly complicated crap that they aren't going to remember the bulk of next year anyway? Once you're out of school, how much do you really remember? I mean truly, without an encyclopedia of math equations or references to look up stuff you've forgotten or simply because there was too much stuff to keep all in your head?