Both the National Education Association and National Parent Teacher Association support that limit.īeyond that point, kids don't absorb much useful information, Cooper says. He agrees with an oft-cited rule of thumb that students should do no more than 10 minutes a night per grade level - from about 10 minutes in first grade up to a maximum of about two hours in high school. "There is a limit to how much kids can benefit from home study," Cooper says. But we don't know for sure that's the case."Įven when homework is helpful, there can be too much of a good thing. "I think there's a focus on assigning homework because think it has these positive outcomes for study skills and habits. But as to hard evidence of those benefits, "the jury is still out," says Mollie Galloway, PhD, associate professor of educational leadership at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Homework proponents also cite the nonacademic advantages it might confer, such as the development of personal responsibility, good study habits and time-management skills. Then again, test scores aren't everything. Yet they found only faint evidence that homework provided academic benefit in elementary school ( Review of Educational Research, 2006). In a review of studies published from 1987 to 2003, Cooper and his colleagues found that homework was linked to better test scores in high school and, to a lesser degree, in middle school. Homework can indeed produce academic benefits, such as increased understanding and retention of the material, says Duke University social psychologist Harris Cooper, PhD, one of the nation's leading homework researchers. Spend more time practicing multiplication or studying Spanish vocabulary and you should get better at math or Spanish. In many ways, homework seems like common sense. Now, as schools are shifting to the new (and hotly debated) Common Core curriculum standards, educators, administrators and researchers are turning a fresh eye toward the question of homework's value.īut when it comes to deciphering the research literature on the subject, homework is anything but an open book. Meanwhile many teachers argue that take-home lessons are key to helping students learn.
For as long as kids have been whining about doing their homework, parents and education reformers have complained that homework's benefits are dubious.
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