Students have complained about homework for a very long time. But most parents and teachers have argued that homework is vital as a tool in the learning process. However, studies show conflicting results which are also inconclusive concerning the effectiveness of homework, and this has led to some adults voicing their dissenting opinions arguing that outlawing homework is the best approach to helping children develop.
Research Findings Concerning Homework
The Duke professor, Cooper Harris, notes that it is vital for students to do homework. Through his homework meta-analysis, showed that there is a correlation in completing homework and succeeding in academics, especially for the older grades. He further goes on to recommend a ten-minute regulation where grade one students receive a ten-minute assignment every day and further ten minutes for subsequent grades. By the twelfth grade, students have to complete a hundred and twenty homework minutes daily.
His analysis, however, didn’t give proof of better performance but rather, only a correlation. Which can mean homework only works for kids who commit to doing well in school. The analysis also showed homework as a source of emotional and physical stress to students which eventually led to the development of undesirable attitudes about the learning process. He also suggested more research for a better understanding of the effect of homework on kids.
Some researchers argue that the focus should get directed to the kind and amount of homework students get assigned and not about non-issuance of homework. They further state that homework needs to address the needs of students to get considered effective. Students, mostly from middle school, for instance, had better success with online math adapted to their specific comprehension level. But a sharp drop in their science and math scores when they got subjected to more than ninety minutes of homework.
Indiana University researchers discovered science and math homework to improve test grades that have standardization with no difference in course grades among learners who did or didn’t do homework. They theorize that assignments don’t necessarily lead to mastery of content but familiarize kids with materials or questions that are in standardized exams. Such results point to a likelihood of homework not getting used as it should.
So in as much as parents and teachers may support the assignment of homework daily, no strong evidence exists in support of its effectiveness.
Homework Problems
Teachers mostly assign non-targeted homework because parents expect students to have homework and teachers have no choice but to assign them without necessarily having any specific objective. Such was the finding of a teacher, Hulsman Samantha after frequently hearing parents complain about students taking longer than necessary in competing their thirty-minute assignments, then experiencing the same with her kids.
Barish Kenneth, a kid psychologist, notes that homework hardly results in the improvement of a child in school. As kids who don’t carry out their homework are either discouraged, frustrated, or anxious but never lazy. Further kids with handicaps doing homework are akin to subjecting them to jog with sprained ankles. It is possible but so painful to the students.
Conclusion
Every teacher should carefully consider the type of homework and the level of students before assigning homework or not. For elementary schools, they can do well by skipping homework altogether, although assigning high school students homework can benefit the students.