studies on homework in elementary school

Is Homework Good for Kids? Here’s What the Research Says

A s kids return to school, debate is heating up once again over how they should spend their time after they leave the classroom for the day.

The no-homework policy of a second-grade teacher in Texas went viral last week , earning praise from parents across the country who lament the heavy workload often assigned to young students. Brandy Young told parents she would not formally assign any homework this year, asking students instead to eat dinner with their families, play outside and go to bed early.

But the question of how much work children should be doing outside of school remains controversial, and plenty of parents take issue with no-homework policies, worried their kids are losing a potential academic advantage. Here’s what you need to know:

For decades, the homework standard has been a “10-minute rule,” which recommends a daily maximum of 10 minutes of homework per grade level. Second graders, for example, should do about 20 minutes of homework each night. High school seniors should complete about two hours of homework each night. The National PTA and the National Education Association both support that guideline.

But some schools have begun to give their youngest students a break. A Massachusetts elementary school has announced a no-homework pilot program for the coming school year, lengthening the school day by two hours to provide more in-class instruction. “We really want kids to go home at 4 o’clock, tired. We want their brain to be tired,” Kelly Elementary School Principal Jackie Glasheen said in an interview with a local TV station . “We want them to enjoy their families. We want them to go to soccer practice or football practice, and we want them to go to bed. And that’s it.”

A New York City public elementary school implemented a similar policy last year, eliminating traditional homework assignments in favor of family time. The change was quickly met with outrage from some parents, though it earned support from other education leaders.

New solutions and approaches to homework differ by community, and these local debates are complicated by the fact that even education experts disagree about what’s best for kids.

The research

The most comprehensive research on homework to date comes from a 2006 meta-analysis by Duke University psychology professor Harris Cooper, who found evidence of a positive correlation between homework and student achievement, meaning students who did homework performed better in school. The correlation was stronger for older students—in seventh through 12th grade—than for those in younger grades, for whom there was a weak relationship between homework and performance.

Cooper’s analysis focused on how homework impacts academic achievement—test scores, for example. His report noted that homework is also thought to improve study habits, attitudes toward school, self-discipline, inquisitiveness and independent problem solving skills. On the other hand, some studies he examined showed that homework can cause physical and emotional fatigue, fuel negative attitudes about learning and limit leisure time for children. At the end of his analysis, Cooper recommended further study of such potential effects of homework.

Despite the weak correlation between homework and performance for young children, Cooper argues that a small amount of homework is useful for all students. Second-graders should not be doing two hours of homework each night, he said, but they also shouldn’t be doing no homework.

Not all education experts agree entirely with Cooper’s assessment.

Cathy Vatterott, an education professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, supports the “10-minute rule” as a maximum, but she thinks there is not sufficient proof that homework is helpful for students in elementary school.

“Correlation is not causation,” she said. “Does homework cause achievement, or do high achievers do more homework?”

Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs , thinks there should be more emphasis on improving the quality of homework tasks, and she supports efforts to eliminate homework for younger kids.

“I have no concerns about students not starting homework until fourth grade or fifth grade,” she said, noting that while the debate over homework will undoubtedly continue, she has noticed a trend toward limiting, if not eliminating, homework in elementary school.

The issue has been debated for decades. A TIME cover in 1999 read: “Too much homework! How it’s hurting our kids, and what parents should do about it.” The accompanying story noted that the launch of Sputnik in 1957 led to a push for better math and science education in the U.S. The ensuing pressure to be competitive on a global scale, plus the increasingly demanding college admissions process, fueled the practice of assigning homework.

“The complaints are cyclical, and we’re in the part of the cycle now where the concern is for too much,” Cooper said. “You can go back to the 1970s, when you’ll find there were concerns that there was too little, when we were concerned about our global competitiveness.”

Cooper acknowledged that some students really are bringing home too much homework, and their parents are right to be concerned.

“A good way to think about homework is the way you think about medications or dietary supplements,” he said. “If you take too little, they’ll have no effect. If you take too much, they can kill you. If you take the right amount, you’ll get better.”

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Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

A conversation with a Wheelock researcher, a BU student, and a fourth-grade teacher

“Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives,” says Wheelock’s Janine Bempechat. “It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.” Photo by iStock/Glenn Cook Photography

Do your homework.

If only it were that simple.

Educators have debated the merits of homework since the late 19th century. In recent years, amid concerns of some parents and teachers that children are being stressed out by too much homework, things have only gotten more fraught.

“Homework is complicated,” says developmental psychologist Janine Bempechat, a Wheelock College of Education & Human Development clinical professor. The author of the essay “ The Case for (Quality) Homework—Why It Improves Learning and How Parents Can Help ” in the winter 2019 issue of Education Next , Bempechat has studied how the debate about homework is influencing teacher preparation, parent and student beliefs about learning, and school policies.

She worries especially about socioeconomically disadvantaged students from low-performing schools who, according to research by Bempechat and others, get little or no homework.

BU Today  sat down with Bempechat and Erin Bruce (Wheelock’17,’18), a new fourth-grade teacher at a suburban Boston school, and future teacher freshman Emma Ardizzone (Wheelock) to talk about what quality homework looks like, how it can help children learn, and how schools can equip teachers to design it, evaluate it, and facilitate parents’ role in it.

BU Today: Parents and educators who are against homework in elementary school say there is no research definitively linking it to academic performance for kids in the early grades. You’ve said that they’re missing the point.

Bempechat : I think teachers assign homework in elementary school as a way to help kids develop skills they’ll need when they’re older—to begin to instill a sense of responsibility and to learn planning and organizational skills. That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success. If we greatly reduce or eliminate homework in elementary school, we deprive kids and parents of opportunities to instill these important learning habits and skills.

We do know that beginning in late middle school, and continuing through high school, there is a strong and positive correlation between homework completion and academic success.

That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success.

You talk about the importance of quality homework. What is that?

Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives. It gives them autonomy and engages them in the community and with their families. In some subjects, like math, worksheets can be very helpful. It has to do with the value of practicing over and over.

What are your concerns about homework and low-income children?

The argument that some people make—that homework “punishes the poor” because lower-income parents may not be as well-equipped as affluent parents to help their children with homework—is very troubling to me. There are no parents who don’t care about their children’s learning. Parents don’t actually have to help with homework completion in order for kids to do well. They can help in other ways—by helping children organize a study space, providing snacks, being there as a support, helping children work in groups with siblings or friends.

Isn’t the discussion about getting rid of homework happening mostly in affluent communities?

Yes, and the stories we hear of kids being stressed out from too much homework—four or five hours of homework a night—are real. That’s problematic for physical and mental health and overall well-being. But the research shows that higher-income students get a lot more homework than lower-income kids.

Teachers may not have as high expectations for lower-income children. Schools should bear responsibility for providing supports for kids to be able to get their homework done—after-school clubs, community support, peer group support. It does kids a disservice when our expectations are lower for them.

The conversation around homework is to some extent a social class and social justice issue. If we eliminate homework for all children because affluent children have too much, we’re really doing a disservice to low-income children. They need the challenge, and every student can rise to the challenge with enough supports in place.

What did you learn by studying how education schools are preparing future teachers to handle homework?

My colleague, Margarita Jimenez-Silva, at the University of California, Davis, School of Education, and I interviewed faculty members at education schools, as well as supervising teachers, to find out how students are being prepared. And it seemed that they weren’t. There didn’t seem to be any readings on the research, or conversations on what high-quality homework is and how to design it.

Erin, what kind of training did you get in handling homework?

Bruce : I had phenomenal professors at Wheelock, but homework just didn’t come up. I did lots of student teaching. I’ve been in classrooms where the teachers didn’t assign any homework, and I’ve been in rooms where they assigned hours of homework a night. But I never even considered homework as something that was my decision. I just thought it was something I’d pull out of a book and it’d be done.

I started giving homework on the first night of school this year. My first assignment was to go home and draw a picture of the room where you do your homework. I want to know if it’s at a table and if there are chairs around it and if mom’s cooking dinner while you’re doing homework.

The second night I asked them to talk to a grown-up about how are you going to be able to get your homework done during the week. The kids really enjoyed it. There’s a running joke that I’m teaching life skills.

Friday nights, I read all my kids’ responses to me on their homework from the week and it’s wonderful. They pour their hearts out. It’s like we’re having a conversation on my couch Friday night.

It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Bempechat : I can’t imagine that most new teachers would have the intuition Erin had in designing homework the way she did.

Ardizzone : Conversations with kids about homework, feeling you’re being listened to—that’s such a big part of wanting to do homework….I grew up in Westchester County. It was a pretty demanding school district. My junior year English teacher—I loved her—she would give us feedback, have meetings with all of us. She’d say, “If you have any questions, if you have anything you want to talk about, you can talk to me, here are my office hours.” It felt like she actually cared.

Bempechat : It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Ardizzone : But can’t it lead to parents being overbearing and too involved in their children’s lives as students?

Bempechat : There’s good help and there’s bad help. The bad help is what you’re describing—when parents hover inappropriately, when they micromanage, when they see their children confused and struggling and tell them what to do.

Good help is when parents recognize there’s a struggle going on and instead ask informative questions: “Where do you think you went wrong?” They give hints, or pointers, rather than saying, “You missed this,” or “You didn’t read that.”

Bruce : I hope something comes of this. I hope BU or Wheelock can think of some way to make this a more pressing issue. As a first-year teacher, it was not something I even thought about on the first day of school—until a kid raised his hand and said, “Do we have homework?” It would have been wonderful if I’d had a plan from day one.

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Senior Contributing Editor

Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald , Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times , where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Profile

She can be reached at [email protected] .

Comments & Discussion

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There are 81 comments on Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

Insightful! The values about homework in elementary schools are well aligned with my intuition as a parent.

when i finish my work i do my homework and i sometimes forget what to do because i did not get enough sleep

same omg it does not help me it is stressful and if I have it in more than one class I hate it.

Same I think my parent wants to help me but, she doesn’t care if I get bad grades so I just try my best and my grades are great.

I think that last question about Good help from parents is not know to all parents, we do as our parents did or how we best think it can be done, so maybe coaching parents or giving them resources on how to help with homework would be very beneficial for the parent on how to help and for the teacher to have consistency and improve homework results, and of course for the child. I do see how homework helps reaffirm the knowledge obtained in the classroom, I also have the ability to see progress and it is a time I share with my kids

The answer to the headline question is a no-brainer – a more pressing problem is why there is a difference in how students from different cultures succeed. Perfect example is the student population at BU – why is there a majority population of Asian students and only about 3% black students at BU? In fact at some universities there are law suits by Asians to stop discrimination and quotas against admitting Asian students because the real truth is that as a group they are demonstrating better qualifications for admittance, while at the same time there are quotas and reduced requirements for black students to boost their portion of the student population because as a group they do more poorly in meeting admissions standards – and it is not about the Benjamins. The real problem is that in our PC society no one has the gazuntas to explore this issue as it may reveal that all people are not created equal after all. Or is it just environmental cultural differences??????

I get you have a concern about the issue but that is not even what the point of this article is about. If you have an issue please take this to the site we have and only post your opinion about the actual topic

This is not at all what the article is talking about.

This literally has nothing to do with the article brought up. You should really take your opinions somewhere else before you speak about something that doesn’t make sense.

we have the same name

so they have the same name what of it?

lol you tell her

totally agree

What does that have to do with homework, that is not what the article talks about AT ALL.

Yes, I think homework plays an important role in the development of student life. Through homework, students have to face challenges on a daily basis and they try to solve them quickly.I am an intense online tutor at 24x7homeworkhelp and I give homework to my students at that level in which they handle it easily.

More than two-thirds of students said they used alcohol and drugs, primarily marijuana, to cope with stress.

You know what’s funny? I got this assignment to write an argument for homework about homework and this article was really helpful and understandable, and I also agree with this article’s point of view.

I also got the same task as you! I was looking for some good resources and I found this! I really found this article useful and easy to understand, just like you! ^^

i think that homework is the best thing that a child can have on the school because it help them with their thinking and memory.

I am a child myself and i think homework is a terrific pass time because i can’t play video games during the week. It also helps me set goals.

Homework is not harmful ,but it will if there is too much

I feel like, from a minors point of view that we shouldn’t get homework. Not only is the homework stressful, but it takes us away from relaxing and being social. For example, me and my friends was supposed to hang at the mall last week but we had to postpone it since we all had some sort of work to do. Our minds shouldn’t be focused on finishing an assignment that in realty, doesn’t matter. I completely understand that we should have homework. I have to write a paper on the unimportance of homework so thanks.

homework isn’t that bad

Are you a student? if not then i don’t really think you know how much and how severe todays homework really is

i am a student and i do not enjoy homework because i practice my sport 4 out of the five days we have school for 4 hours and that’s not even counting the commute time or the fact i still have to shower and eat dinner when i get home. its draining!

i totally agree with you. these people are such boomers

why just why

they do make a really good point, i think that there should be a limit though. hours and hours of homework can be really stressful, and the extra work isn’t making a difference to our learning, but i do believe homework should be optional and extra credit. that would make it for students to not have the leaning stress of a assignment and if you have a low grade you you can catch up.

Studies show that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicates that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” On both standardized tests and grades, students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school.

So how are your measuring student achievement? That’s the real question. The argument that doing homework is simply a tool for teaching responsibility isn’t enough for me. We can teach responsibility in a number of ways. Also the poor argument that parents don’t need to help with homework, and that students can do it on their own, is wishful thinking at best. It completely ignores neurodiverse students. Students in poverty aren’t magically going to find a space to do homework, a friend’s or siblings to help them do it, and snacks to eat. I feel like the author of this piece has never set foot in a classroom of students.

THIS. This article is pathetic coming from a university. So intellectually dishonest, refusing to address the havoc of capitalism and poverty plays on academic success in life. How can they in one sentence use poor kids in an argument and never once address that poor children have access to damn near 0 of the resources affluent kids have? Draw me a picture and let’s talk about feelings lmao what a joke is that gonna put food in their belly so they can have the calories to burn in order to use their brain to study? What about quiet their 7 other siblings that they share a single bedroom with for hours? Is it gonna force the single mom to magically be at home and at work at the same time to cook food while you study and be there to throw an encouraging word?

Also the “parents don’t need to be a parent and be able to guide their kid at all academically they just need to exist in the next room” is wild. Its one thing if a parent straight up is not equipped but to say kids can just figured it out is…. wow coming from an educator What’s next the teacher doesn’t need to teach cause the kid can just follow the packet and figure it out?

Well then get a tutor right? Oh wait you are poor only affluent kids can afford a tutor for their hours of homework a day were they on average have none of the worries a poor child does. Does this address that poor children are more likely to also suffer abuse and mental illness? Like mentioned what about kids that can’t learn or comprehend the forced standardized way? Just let em fail? These children regularly are not in “special education”(some of those are a joke in their own and full of neglect and abuse) programs cause most aren’t even acknowledged as having disabilities or disorders.

But yes all and all those pesky poor kids just aren’t being worked hard enough lol pretty sure poor children’s existence just in childhood is more work, stress, and responsibility alone than an affluent child’s entire life cycle. Love they never once talked about the quality of education in the classroom being so bad between the poor and affluent it can qualify as segregation, just basically blamed poor people for being lazy, good job capitalism for failing us once again!

why the hell?

you should feel bad for saying this, this article can be helpful for people who has to write a essay about it

This is more of a political rant than it is about homework

I know a teacher who has told his students their homework is to find something they are interested in, pursue it and then come share what they learn. The student responses are quite compelling. One girl taught herself German so she could talk to her grandfather. One boy did a research project on Nelson Mandela because the teacher had mentioned him in class. Another boy, a both on the autism spectrum, fixed his family’s computer. The list goes on. This is fourth grade. I think students are highly motivated to learn, when we step aside and encourage them.

The whole point of homework is to give the students a chance to use the material that they have been presented with in class. If they never have the opportunity to use that information, and discover that it is actually useful, it will be in one ear and out the other. As a science teacher, it is critical that the students are challenged to use the material they have been presented with, which gives them the opportunity to actually think about it rather than regurgitate “facts”. Well designed homework forces the student to think conceptually, as opposed to regurgitation, which is never a pretty sight

Wonderful discussion. and yes, homework helps in learning and building skills in students.

not true it just causes kids to stress

Homework can be both beneficial and unuseful, if you will. There are students who are gifted in all subjects in school and ones with disabilities. Why should the students who are gifted get the lucky break, whereas the people who have disabilities suffer? The people who were born with this “gift” go through school with ease whereas people with disabilities struggle with the work given to them. I speak from experience because I am one of those students: the ones with disabilities. Homework doesn’t benefit “us”, it only tears us down and put us in an abyss of confusion and stress and hopelessness because we can’t learn as fast as others. Or we can’t handle the amount of work given whereas the gifted students go through it with ease. It just brings us down and makes us feel lost; because no mater what, it feels like we are destined to fail. It feels like we weren’t “cut out” for success.

homework does help

here is the thing though, if a child is shoved in the face with a whole ton of homework that isn’t really even considered homework it is assignments, it’s not helpful. the teacher should make homework more of a fun learning experience rather than something that is dreaded

This article was wonderful, I am going to ask my teachers about extra, or at all giving homework.

I agree. Especially when you have homework before an exam. Which is distasteful as you’ll need that time to study. It doesn’t make any sense, nor does us doing homework really matters as It’s just facts thrown at us.

Homework is too severe and is just too much for students, schools need to decrease the amount of homework. When teachers assign homework they forget that the students have other classes that give them the same amount of homework each day. Students need to work on social skills and life skills.

I disagree.

Beyond achievement, proponents of homework argue that it can have many other beneficial effects. They claim it can help students develop good study habits so they are ready to grow as their cognitive capacities mature. It can help students recognize that learning can occur at home as well as at school. Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits. And it can give parents an opportunity to see what’s going on at school and let them express positive attitudes toward achievement.

Homework is helpful because homework helps us by teaching us how to learn a specific topic.

As a student myself, I can say that I have almost never gotten the full 9 hours of recommended sleep time, because of homework. (Now I’m writing an essay on it in the middle of the night D=)

I am a 10 year old kid doing a report about “Is homework good or bad” for homework before i was going to do homework is bad but the sources from this site changed my mind!

Homeowkr is god for stusenrs

I agree with hunter because homework can be so stressful especially with this whole covid thing no one has time for homework and every one just wants to get back to there normal lives it is especially stressful when you go on a 2 week vaca 3 weeks into the new school year and and then less then a week after you come back from the vaca you are out for over a month because of covid and you have no way to get the assignment done and turned in

As great as homework is said to be in the is article, I feel like the viewpoint of the students was left out. Every where I go on the internet researching about this topic it almost always has interviews from teachers, professors, and the like. However isn’t that a little biased? Of course teachers are going to be for homework, they’re not the ones that have to stay up past midnight completing the homework from not just one class, but all of them. I just feel like this site is one-sided and you should include what the students of today think of spending four hours every night completing 6-8 classes worth of work.

Are we talking about homework or practice? Those are two very different things and can result in different outcomes.

Homework is a graded assignment. I do not know of research showing the benefits of graded assignments going home.

Practice; however, can be extremely beneficial, especially if there is some sort of feedback (not a grade but feedback). That feedback can come from the teacher, another student or even an automated grading program.

As a former band director, I assigned daily practice. I never once thought it would be appropriate for me to require the students to turn in a recording of their practice for me to grade. Instead, I had in-class assignments/assessments that were graded and directly related to the practice assigned.

I would really like to read articles on “homework” that truly distinguish between the two.

oof i feel bad good luck!

thank you guys for the artical because I have to finish an assingment. yes i did cite it but just thanks

thx for the article guys.

Homework is good

I think homework is helpful AND harmful. Sometimes u can’t get sleep bc of homework but it helps u practice for school too so idk.

I agree with this Article. And does anyone know when this was published. I would like to know.

It was published FEb 19, 2019.

Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college.

i think homework can help kids but at the same time not help kids

This article is so out of touch with majority of homes it would be laughable if it wasn’t so incredibly sad.

There is no value to homework all it does is add stress to already stressed homes. Parents or adults magically having the time or energy to shepherd kids through homework is dome sort of 1950’s fantasy.

What lala land do these teachers live in?

Homework gives noting to the kid

Homework is Bad

homework is bad.

why do kids even have homework?

Comments are closed.

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Are You Down With or Done With Homework?

• Posted January 17, 2012
• By Lory Hough

The debate over how much schoolwork students should be doing at home has flared again, with one side saying it's too much, the other side saying in our competitive world, it's just not enough.

It was a move that doesn't happen very often in American public schools: The principal got rid of homework.

This past September, Stephanie Brant, principal of Gaithersburg Elementary School in Gaithersburg, Md., decided that instead of teachers sending kids home with math worksheets and spelling flash cards, students would instead go home and read. Every day for 30 minutes, more if they had time or the inclination, with parents or on their own.

"I knew this would be a big shift for my community," she says. But she also strongly believed it was a necessary one. Twenty-first-century learners, especially those in elementary school, need to think critically and understand their own learning — not spend night after night doing rote homework drills.

Brant's move may not be common, but she isn't alone in her questioning. The value of doing schoolwork at home has gone in and out of fashion in the United States among educators, policymakers, the media, and, more recently, parents. As far back as the late 1800s, with the rise of the Progressive Era, doctors such as Joseph Mayer Rice began pushing for a limit on what he called "mechanical homework," saying it caused childhood nervous conditions and eyestrain. Around that time, the then-influential Ladies Home Journal began publishing a series of anti-homework articles, stating that five hours of brain work a day was "the most we should ask of our children," and that homework was an intrusion on family life. In response, states like California passed laws abolishing homework for students under a certain age.

But, as is often the case with education, the tide eventually turned. After the Russians launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, a space race emerged, and, writes Brian Gill in the journal Theory Into Practice, "The homework problem was reconceived as part of a national crisis; the U.S. was losing the Cold War because Russian children were smarter." Many earlier laws limiting homework were abolished, and the longterm trend toward less homework came to an end.

The debate re-emerged a decade later when parents of the late '60s and '70s argued that children should be free to play and explore — similar anti-homework wellness arguments echoed nearly a century earlier. By the early-1980s, however, the pendulum swung again with the publication of A Nation at Risk , which blamed poor education for a "rising tide of mediocrity." Students needed to work harder, the report said, and one way to do this was more homework.

For the most part, this pro-homework sentiment is still going strong today, in part because of mandatory testing and continued economic concerns about the nation's competitiveness. Many believe that today's students are falling behind their peers in places like Korea and Finland and are paying more attention to Angry Birds than to ancient Babylonia.

But there are also a growing number of Stephanie Brants out there, educators and parents who believe that students are stressed and missing out on valuable family time. Students, they say, particularly younger students who have seen a rise in the amount of take-home work and already put in a six- to nine-hour "work" day, need less, not more homework.

Who is right? Are students not working hard enough or is homework not working for them? Here's where the story gets a little tricky: It depends on whom you ask and what research you're looking at. As Cathy Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework , points out, "Homework has generated enough research so that a study can be found to support almost any position, as long as conflicting studies are ignored." Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth and a strong believer in eliminating all homework, writes that, "The fact that there isn't anything close to unanimity among experts belies the widespread assumption that homework helps." At best, he says, homework shows only an association, not a causal relationship, with academic achievement. In other words, it's hard to tease out how homework is really affecting test scores and grades. Did one teacher give better homework than another? Was one teacher more effective in the classroom? Do certain students test better or just try harder?

"It is difficult to separate where the effect of classroom teaching ends," Vatterott writes, "and the effect of homework begins."

Putting research aside, however, much of the current debate over homework is focused less on how homework affects academic achievement and more on time. Parents in particular have been saying that the amount of time children spend in school, especially with afterschool programs, combined with the amount of homework given — as early as kindergarten — is leaving students with little time to run around, eat dinner with their families, or even get enough sleep.

Certainly, for some parents, homework is a way to stay connected to their children's learning. But for others, homework creates a tug-of-war between parents and children, says Liz Goodenough, M.A.T.'71, creator of a documentary called Where Do the Children Play?

"Ideally homework should be about taking something home, spending a few curious and interesting moments in which children might engage with parents, and then getting that project back to school — an organizational triumph," she says. "A nag-free activity could engage family time: Ask a parent about his or her own childhood. Interview siblings."

Instead, as the authors of The Case Against Homework write, "Homework overload is turning many of us into the types of parents we never wanted to be: nags, bribers, and taskmasters."

Leslie Butchko saw it happen a few years ago when her son started sixth grade in the Santa Monica-Malibu (Calif.) United School District. She remembers him getting two to four hours of homework a night, plus weekend and vacation projects. He was overwhelmed and struggled to finish assignments, especially on nights when he also had an extracurricular activity.

"Ultimately, we felt compelled to have Bobby quit karate — he's a black belt — to allow more time for homework," she says. And then, with all of their attention focused on Bobby's homework, she and her husband started sending their youngest to his room so that Bobby could focus. "One day, my younger son gave us 15-minute coupons as a present for us to use to send him to play in the back room. … It was then that we realized there had to be something wrong with the amount of homework we were facing."

Butchko joined forces with another mother who was having similar struggles and ultimately helped get the homework policy in her district changed, limiting homework on weekends and holidays, setting time guidelines for daily homework, and broadening the definition of homework to include projects and studying for tests. As she told the school board at one meeting when the policy was first being discussed, "In closing, I just want to say that I had more free time at Harvard Law School than my son has in middle school, and that is not in the best interests of our children."

One barrier that Butchko had to overcome initially was convincing many teachers and parents that more homework doesn't necessarily equal rigor.

"Most of the parents that were against the homework policy felt that students need a large quantity of homework to prepare them for the rigorous AP classes in high school and to get them into Harvard," she says.

Stephanie Conklin, Ed.M.'06, sees this at Another Course to College, the Boston pilot school where she teaches math. "When a student is not completing [his or her] homework, parents usually are frustrated by this and agree with me that homework is an important part of their child's learning," she says.

As Timothy Jarman, Ed.M.'10, a ninth-grade English teacher at Eugene Ashley High School in Wilmington, N.C., says, "Parents think it is strange when their children are not assigned a substantial amount of homework."

That's because, writes Vatterott, in her chapter, "The Cult(ure) of Homework," the concept of homework "has become so engrained in U.S. culture that the word homework is part of the common vernacular."

These days, nightly homework is a given in American schools, writes Kohn.

"Homework isn't limited to those occasions when it seems appropriate and important. Most teachers and administrators aren't saying, 'It may be useful to do this particular project at home,'" he writes. "Rather, the point of departure seems to be, 'We've decided ahead of time that children will have to do something every night (or several times a week). … This commitment to the idea of homework in the abstract is accepted by the overwhelming majority of schools — public and private, elementary and secondary."

Brant had to confront this when she cut homework at Gaithersburg Elementary.

"A lot of my parents have this idea that homework is part of life. This is what I had to do when I was young," she says, and so, too, will our kids. "So I had to shift their thinking." She did this slowly, first by asking her teachers last year to really think about what they were sending home. And this year, in addition to forming a parent advisory group around the issue, she also holds events to answer questions.

Still, not everyone is convinced that homework as a given is a bad thing. "Any pursuit of excellence, be it in sports, the arts, or academics, requires hard work. That our culture finds it okay for kids to spend hours a day in a sport but not equal time on academics is part of the problem," wrote one pro-homework parent on the blog for the documentary Race to Nowhere , which looks at the stress American students are under. "Homework has always been an issue for parents and children. It is now and it was 20 years ago. I think when people decide to have children that it is their responsibility to educate them," wrote another.

And part of educating them, some believe, is helping them develop skills they will eventually need in adulthood. "Homework can help students develop study skills that will be of value even after they leave school," reads a publication on the U.S. Department of Education website called Homework Tips for Parents. "It can teach them that learning takes place anywhere, not just in the classroom. … It can foster positive character traits such as independence and responsibility. Homework can teach children how to manage time."

Annie Brown, Ed.M.'01, feels this is particularly critical at less affluent schools like the ones she has worked at in Boston, Cambridge, Mass., and Los Angeles as a literacy coach.

"It feels important that my students do homework because they will ultimately be competing for college placement and jobs with students who have done homework and have developed a work ethic," she says. "Also it will get them ready for independently taking responsibility for their learning, which will need to happen for them to go to college."

The problem with this thinking, writes Vatterott, is that homework becomes a way to practice being a worker.

"Which begs the question," she writes. "Is our job as educators to produce learners or workers?"

Slate magazine editor Emily Bazelon, in a piece about homework, says this makes no sense for younger kids.

"Why should we think that practicing homework in first grade will make you better at doing it in middle school?" she writes. "Doesn't the opposite seem equally plausible: that it's counterproductive to ask children to sit down and work at night before they're developmentally ready because you'll just make them tired and cross?"

Kohn writes in the American School Board Journal that this "premature exposure" to practices like homework (and sit-and-listen lessons and tests) "are clearly a bad match for younger children and of questionable value at any age." He calls it BGUTI: Better Get Used to It. "The logic here is that we have to prepare you for the bad things that are going to be done to you later … by doing them to you now."

According to a recent University of Michigan study, daily homework for six- to eight-year-olds increased on average from about 8 minutes in 1981 to 22 minutes in 2003. A review of research by Duke University Professor Harris Cooper found that for elementary school students, "the average correlation between time spent on homework and achievement … hovered around zero."

So should homework be eliminated? Of course not, say many Ed School graduates who are teaching. Not only would students not have time for essays and long projects, but also teachers would not be able to get all students to grade level or to cover critical material, says Brett Pangburn, Ed.M.'06, a sixth-grade English teacher at Excel Academy Charter School in Boston. Still, he says, homework has to be relevant.

"Kids need to practice the skills being taught in class, especially where, like the kids I teach at Excel, they are behind and need to catch up," he says. "Our results at Excel have demonstrated that kids can catch up and view themselves as in control of their academic futures, but this requires hard work, and homework is a part of it."

Ed School Professor Howard Gardner basically agrees.

"America and Americans lurch between too little homework in many of our schools to an excess of homework in our most competitive environments — Li'l Abner vs. Tiger Mother," he says. "Neither approach makes sense. Homework should build on what happens in class, consolidating skills and helping students to answer new questions."

So how can schools come to a happy medium, a way that allows teachers to cover everything they need while not overwhelming students? Conklin says she often gives online math assignments that act as labs and students have two or three days to complete them, including some in-class time. Students at Pangburn's school have a 50-minute silent period during regular school hours where homework can be started, and where teachers pull individual or small groups of students aside for tutoring, often on that night's homework. Afterschool homework clubs can help.

Some schools and districts have adapted time limits rather than nix homework completely, with the 10-minute per grade rule being the standard — 10 minutes a night for first-graders, 30 minutes for third-graders, and so on. (This remedy, however, is often met with mixed results since not all students work at the same pace.) Other schools offer an extended day that allows teachers to cover more material in school, in turn requiring fewer take-home assignments. And for others, like Stephanie Brant's elementary school in Maryland, more reading with a few targeted project assignments has been the answer.

"The routine of reading is so much more important than the routine of homework," she says. "Let's have kids reflect. You can still have the routine and you can still have your workspace, but now it's for reading. I often say to parents, if we can put a man on the moon, we can put a man or woman on Mars and that person is now a second-grader. We don't know what skills that person will need. At the end of the day, we have to feel confident that we're giving them something they can use on Mars."

Read a January 2014 update.

Homework Policy Still Going Strong

Ed. Magazine

The magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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Homework and Children in Grades 3–6: Purpose, Policy and Non-Academic Impact

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• Volume 50 , pages 631–651, ( 2021 )

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• Melissa Holland   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8349-7168 1 ,
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Increasing academic demands, including larger amounts of assigned homework, is correlated with various challenges for children. While homework stress in middle and high school has been studied, research evidence is scant concerning the effects of homework on elementary-aged children.

The objective of this study was to understand rater perception of the purpose of homework, the existence of homework policy, and the relationship, if any, between homework and the emotional health, sleep habits, and parent–child relationships for children in grades 3–6.

Survey research was conducted in the schools examining student ( n  = 397), parent ( n  = 442), and teacher ( n  = 28) perception of homework, including purpose, existing policy, and the childrens’ social and emotional well-being.

Preliminary findings from teacher, parent, and student surveys suggest the presence of modest impact of homework in the area of emotional health (namely, student report of boredom and frustration ), parent–child relationships (with over 25% of the parent and child samples reporting homework always or often interferes with family time and creates a power struggle ), and sleep (36.8% of the children surveyed reported they sometimes get less sleep) in grades 3–6. Additionally, findings suggest misperceptions surrounding the existence of homework policies among parents and teachers, the reasons teachers cite assigning homework, and a disconnect between child-reported and teacher reported emotional impact of homework.

Conclusions

Preliminary findings suggest homework modestly impacts child well-being in various domains in grades 3–6, including sleep, emotional health, and parent/child relationships. School districts, educators, and parents must continue to advocate for evidence-based homework policies that support children’s overall well-being.

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Introduction

Children’s social-emotional health is moving to the forefront of attention in schools, as depression, anxiety, and suicide rates are on the rise (Bitsko et al. 2018 ; Child Mind Institute 2016 ; Horowitz and Graf 2019 ; Perou et al. 2013 ). This comes at a time when there are also intense academic demands, including an increased focus on academic achievement via grades, standardized test scores, and larger amounts of assigned homework (Pope 2010 ). This interplay between the rise in anxiety and depression and scholastic demands has been postulated upon frequently in the literature, and though some research has looked at homework stress as it relates to middle and high school students (Cech 2008 ; Galloway et al. 2013 ; Horowitz and Graf 2019 ; Kackar et al. 2011 ; Katz et al. 2012 ), research evidence is scant as to the effects of academic stress on the social and emotional health of elementary children.

Literature Review

The following review of the literature highlights areas that are most pertinent to the child, including homework as it relates to achievement, the achievement gap, mental health, sleep, and parent–child relationships. Areas of educational policy, teacher training, homework policy, and parent-teacher communication around homework are also explored.

Homework and Achievement

With the authorization of No Child Left Behind and the Common Core State Standards, teachers have felt added pressures to keep up with the tougher standards movement (Tokarski 2011 ). Additionally, teachers report homework is necessary in order to complete state-mandated material (Holte 2015 ). Misconceptions on the effectiveness of homework and student achievement have led many teachers to increase the amount of homework assigned. However, there has been little evidence to support this trend. In fact, there is a significant body of research demonstrating the lack of correlation between homework and student success, particularly at the elementary level. In a meta-analysis examining homework, grades, and standardized test scores, Cooper et al. ( 2006 ) found little correlation between the amount of homework assigned and achievement in elementary school, and only a moderate correlation in middle school. In third grade and below, there was a negative correlation found between the variables ( r  =  − 0.04). Other studies, too, have evidenced no relationship, and even a negative relationship in some grades, between the amount of time spent on homework and academic achievement (Horsley and Walker 2013 ; Trautwein and Köller 2003 ). High levels of homework in competitive high schools were found to hinder learning, full academic engagement, and well-being (Galloway et al. 2013 ). Ironically, research suggests that reducing academic pressures can actually increase children’s academic success and cognitive abilities (American Psychological Association [APA] 2014 ).

International comparison studies of achievement show that national achievement is higher in countries that assign less homework (Baines and Slutsky 2009 ; Güven and Akçay 2019 ). In fact, in a recent international study conducted by Güven and Akçay ( 2019 ), there was no relationship found between math homework frequency and student achievement for fourth grade students in the majority of the countries studied, including the United States. Similarly, additional homework in science, English, and history was found to have little to no impact on respective test scores in later grades (Eren and Henderson 2011 ). In the 2015 “Programme of International Student Assessment” results, Korea and Finland are ranked among the top countries in reading, mathematics, and writing, yet these countries are among those that assign the least amount of homework (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] 2016 ).

Homework and Mental Wellness

Academic stress has been found to play a role in the mental well-being of children. In a study conducted by Conner et al. ( 2009 ), students reported feeling overwhelmed and burdened by their exceeding homework loads, even when they viewed homework as meaningful. Academic stress, specifically the amount of homework assigned, has been identified as a common risk factor for children’s increased anxiety levels (APA 2009 ; Galloway et al. 2013 ; Leung et al. 2010 ), in addition to somatic complaints and sleep disturbance (Galloway et al. 2013 ). Stress also negatively impacts cognition, including memory, executive functioning, motor skills, and immune response (Westheimer et al. 2011 ). Consequently, excessive stress impacts one’s ability to think critically, recall information, and make decisions (Carrion and Wong 2012 ).

Homework and Sleep

Sleep, including quantity and quality, is one life domain commonly impacted by homework and stress. Zhou et al. ( 2015 ) analyzed the prevalence of unhealthy sleep behaviors in school-aged children, with findings suggesting that staying up late to study was one of the leading risk factors most associated with severe tiredness and depression. According to the National Sleep Foundation ( 2017 ), the recommended amount of sleep for elementary school-aged children is 9 – 11 h per night; however, approximately 70% of youth do not get these recommended hours. According to the MetLife American Teacher Survey ( 2008 ), elementary-aged children also acknowledge lack of sleep. Perfect et al. ( 2014 ) found that sleep problems predict lower grades and negative student attitudes toward teachers and school. Eide and Showalter ( 2012 ) conducted a national study that examined the relationship between optimum amounts of sleep and student performance on standardized tests, with results indicating significant correlations ( r  = 0.285–0.593) between sleep and student performance. Therefore, sleep is not only impacted by academic stress and homework, but lack of sleep can also impact academic functioning.

Homework and the Achievement Gap

Homework creates increasing achievement variability among privileged learners and those who are not. For example, learners with more resources, increased parental education, and family support are likely to have higher achievement on homework (Hofferth and Sandberg 2001 ; Moore et al. 2018 ; Ndebele 2015 ; OECD 2016 ). Learners coming from a lower socioeconomic status may not have access to quiet, well-lit environments, computers, and books necessary to complete their homework (Cooper 2001 ; Kralovec and Buell 2000 ). Additionally, many homework assignments require materials that may be limited for some families, including supplies for projects, technology, and transportation. Based on the research to date, the phrase “the homework gap” has been coined to describe those learners who lack the resources necessary to complete assigned homework (Moore et al. 2018 ).

Parent–Teacher Communication Around Homework

Communication between caregivers and teachers is essential. Unfortunately, research suggests parents and teachers often have limited communication regarding homework assignments. Markow et al. ( 2007 ) found most parents (73%) report communicating with their child’s teacher regarding homework assignments less than once a month. Pressman et al. ( 2015 ) indicated children in primary grades spend substantially more time on homework than predicted by educators. For example, they found first grade students had three times more homework than the National Education Association’s recommendation of up to 20 min of homework per night for first graders. While the same homework assignment may take some learners 30 min to complete, it may take others up to 2 or 3 h. However, until parents and teachers have better communication around homework, including time completion and learning styles for individual learners, these misperceptions and disparities will likely persist.

Parent–Child Relationships and Homework

Trautwein et al. ( 2009 ) defined homework as a “double-edged sword” when it comes to the parent–child relationship. While some parental support can be construed as beneficial, parental support can also be experienced as intrusive or detrimental. When examining parental homework styles, a controlling approach was negatively associated with student effort and emotions toward homework (Trautwein et al. 2009 ). Research suggests that homework is a primary source of stress, power struggle, and disagreement among families (Cameron and Bartel 2009 ), with many families struggling with nightly homework battles, including serious arguments between parents and their children over homework (Bennett and Kalish 2006 ). Often, parents are not only held accountable for monitoring homework completion, they may also be accountable for teaching, re-teaching, and providing materials. This is particularly challenging due to the economic and educational diversity of families. Pressman et al. ( 2015 ) found that as parents’ personal perceptions of their abilities to assist their children with homework declined, family-related stressors increased.

Teacher Training

As homework plays a significant role in today’s public education system, an assumption would be made that teachers are trained to design homework tasks to promote learning. However, only 12% of teacher training programs prepare teachers for using homework as an assessment tool (Greenberg and Walsh 2012 ), and only one out of 300 teachers reported ever taking a course regarding homework during their training (Bennett and Kalish 2006 ). The lack of training with regard to homework is evidenced by the differences in teachers’ perspectives. According to the MetLife American Teacher Survey ( 2008 ), less experienced teachers (i.e., those with 5 years or less years of experience) are less likely to to believe homework is important and that homework supports student learning compared to more experienced teachers (i.e., those with 21 plus years of experience). There is no universal system or rule regarding homework; consequently, homework practices reflect individual teacher beliefs and school philosophies.

Educational and Homework Policy

Policy implementation occurs on a daily basis in public schools and classrooms. While some policies are made at the federal level, states, counties, school districts, and even individual school sites often manage education policy (Mullis et al. 2012 ). Thus, educators are left with the responsibility to implement multi-level policies, such as curriculum selection, curriculum standards, and disability policy (Rigby et al. 2016 ). Despite educational reforms occurring on an almost daily basis, little has been initiated with regard to homework policies and practices.

To date, few schools provide specific guidelines regarding homework practices. District policies that do exist are not typically driven by research, using vague terminology regarding the quantity and quality of assignments. Greater variations among homework practices exist when comparing schools in the private sector. For example, Montessori education practices the philosophy of no examinations and no homework for students aged 3–18 (O’Donnell 2013 ). Abeles and Rubenstein ( 2015 ) note that many public school districts advocate for the premise of 10 min of homework per night per grade level. However, there is no research supporting this premise and the guideline fails to recognize that time spent on homework varies based on the individual student. Sartain et al. ( 2015 ) analyzed and evaluated homework policies of multiple school districts, finding the policies examined were outdated, vague, and not student-focused.

The reasons cited for homework assignment, as identified by teachers, are varied, such as enhancing academic achievement through practice or teaching self-discipline. However, not all types of practice are equally effective, particularly if the student is practicing the skill incorrectly (Dean et al. 2012 ; Trautwein et al. 2009 ). The practice of reading is one of the only assignments consistently supported by research to be associated with increased academic achievement (Hofferth and Sandberg 2001 ). Current literature supports 15–20 min of daily allocated time for reading practice (Reutzel and Juth 2017 ). Additionally, research supports project-based learning to deepen learners’ practice and understanding of academic material (Williams 2018 ).

Research also shows that homework only teaches responsibility and self-discipline when parents have that goal in mind and systematically structure and supervise homework (Kralovec and Buell 2000 ). Non-academic activities, such as participating in chores (University of Minnesota 2002 ) and sports (Hofferth and Sandberg 2001 ) were found to be greater predictors of later success and effective problem-solving.

Consistent with the pre-existing research literature, the following hypotheses are offered:

Homework will have some negative correlation with children’s social-emotional well-being.

The purposes cited for the assignment of homework will be varied between parents and teachers.

Schools will lack well-formulated and understood homework policies.

Homework will have some negative correlation with children’s sleep and parent–child relationships.

This quantitative study explored, via perception-based survey research, the social and emotional health of elementary children in grades 3 – 6 and the scholastic pressures they face, namely homework. The researchers implemented newly developed questionnaires addressing student, teacher, and parent perspectives on homework and on children’s social-emotional well-being. Researchers also examined perspectives on the purpose of homework, the existence of school homework policies, and the perceived impact of homework on children’s sleep and family relationships. Given the dearth of prior research in this area, a major goal of this study was to explore associations between academic demands and child well-being with sufficient breadth to allow for identification of potential associations that may be examined more thoroughly by future research. These preliminary associations and item-response tendencies can serve as foundation for future studies with causal, experimental, or more psychometrically focused designs. A conceptual framework for this study is offered in Fig.  1 .

Conceptual framework

Research Questions

What is the perceived impact of homework on children’s social-emotional well-being across teachers, parents, and the children themselves?

What are the primary purposes of homework according to parents and teachers?

How many schools have homework policies, and of those, how many parents and teachers know what the policy is?

What is the perceived impact of homework on children’s sleep and parent–child relationships?

The present quantitative descriptive study is based on researcher developed instruments designed to explore the perceptions of children, teachers and parents on homework and its impact on social-emotional well-being. The use of previously untested instruments and a convenience sample preclude any causal interpretations being drawn from our results. This study is primarily an initial foray into the sparsely researched area of the relationship of homework and social-emotional health, examining an elementary school sample and incorporating multiple perspectives of the parents, teachers, and the children themselves.

Participants

The participants in this study were children in six Northern California schools in grades third through sixth ( n  = 397), their parents ( n  = 442), and their teachers ( n  = 28). The mean grade among children was 4.56 (minimum third grade/maximum sixth grade) with a mean age of 9.97 (minimum 8 years old/maximum 12 years old). Approximately 54% of the children were male and 45% were female, with White being the most common ethnicity (61%), followed by Hispanic (30%), and Pacific Islander (12%). Subjects were able to mark more than one ethnicity. Detailed participant demographics are available upon request.

Instruments

The instruments used in this research include newly developed student, parent, and teacher surveys. The research team formulated a number of survey items that, based on existing research and their own professional experience in the schools, have high face validity in measuring workload, policies, and attitudes surrounding homework. Further psychometric development of these surveys and ascertation of construct and content validity is warranted, with the first step being their use in this initial perception-based study. Each of the surveys, developed specifically for this study, are discussed below.

Student Survey

The Student Survey is a 15-item questionnaire wherein the child was asked closed- and open-ended questions regarding their perspectives on homework, including how homework makes them feel.

Parent Survey

The Parent Survey is a 23-item questionnaire wherein the children’s parents were asked to respond to items regarding their perspectives on their child’s homework, as well as their child’s social-emotional health. Additionally, parents were asked whether their child’s school has a homework policy and, if so, if they know what that policy specifies.

Teacher Survey

The Teacher Survey is a 22-item questionnaire wherein the children’s teacher was asked to respond to items regarding their perspectives of the primary purposes of homework, as well as the impact of homework on children’s social-emotional health. Additionally, teachers were asked whether their school has a homework policy and, if so, what that policy specifies.

Data was collected by the researchers after following Institutional Review Board procedures from the sponsoring university. School district approval was obtained by the lead researcher. Upon district approval, individual school approval was requested by the researchers by contacting site principals, after which, teachers of grades 3 – 6 at those schools were asked to voluntarily participate. Each participating teacher was provided a packet including the following: a manila envelope, Teacher Instructions, Administration Guide, Teacher Survey, Parent Packet, and Student Survey. Surveys and classrooms were de-identified via number assignment. Teachers then distributed the Parent Packet to each child’s guardian, which included the Parent Consent and Parent Survey, corresponding with the child’s assigned number. A coded envelope was also enclosed for parents/guardians to return their completed consent form and survey, if they agreed to participate. The Parent Consent form detailed the purpose of the research, the benefits and risks of participating in the research, confidentiality, and the voluntary nature of completing the survey. Parents who completed the consent form and survey sent the completed materials in the enclosed envelope, sealed, to their child’s teacher. After obtaining returned envelopes, with parent consent, teachers were instructed to administer the corresponding numbered survey to the children during a class period. Teachers were also asked to complete their Teacher Survey. All completed materials were to be placed in envelopes provided to each teacher and returned to the researchers once data was collected.

Analysis of Data

This descriptive and quantitative research design utilized the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to analyze data. The researchers developed coding keys for the parent, teacher, and student surveys to facilitate data entry into SPSS. Items were also coded based on the type of data, such as nominal or ordinal, and qualitative responses were coded and translated where applicable and transcribed onto a response sheet. Some variables were transformed for more accurate comparison across raters. Parent, teacher, and student ratings were analyzed, and frequency counts and percentages were generated for each item. Items were then compared across and within rater groups to explore the research questions. The data analysis of this study is primarily descriptive and exploratory, not seeking to imply causal relationships between variables. Survey item response results associated with each research questionnaire are summarized in their respective sections below.

The first research question investigated in this study was: “What is the perceived impact of homework on children’s social-emotional well-being across teachers, parents, and children?” For this question the examiners looked at children’s responses to how homework makes them feel from a list of feelings. As demonstrated in Table 1 , approximately 44% of children feel “Bored” and about 25% feel “Annoyed” and “Frustrated” toward homework. Frequencies and percentages are reported in Table 1 . Similar to the student survey, parents also responded to a question regarding their child’s emotional experience surrounding homework. Based on parent reports, approximately 40% of parents perceive their child as “Frustrated” and about 37% acknowledge their child feeling “Stress/Anxiety.” Conversely, about 37% also report their child feels “Competence.” These results are reported in Table 1 .

Additionally, parents and teachers both responded to the question, “How does homework affect your student’s social and emotional health?” One notable finding from parent and teacher reports is that nearly half of both parents and teachers reported homework has “No Effect” on children’s social and emotional health. Frequencies and percentages are reported in Table 2 .

The second research question investigated in this study was: “What are parent and teacher perspectives on the primary purposes of homework?” For this question the examiners looked at three specific questions across parent and teacher surveys. Parents responded to the questions, “Does homework relate to your child’s learning?” and “How often is homework busy work?” While the majority of parents reported homework “Always” (45%) or “Often” (39%) relates to their child’s learning, parents also feel homework is “Often” (29%) busy work. The corresponding frequencies and percentages are summarized in Table 3 . Additionally, teachers were asked, “What are the primary reasons you assign homework?” The primary purposes of homework according to the teachers in this sample are “Skill Practice” (82%), “Develop Work Ethic” (61%), and “Teach Independence and Responsibility” (50%). The frequencies and percentages of teacher responses are displayed in Table 4 . Notably, on this survey item, teachers were instructed to choose one response (item), but the majority of teachers chose multiple items. This suggests teachers perceive themselves as assigning homework for a variety of reasons.

The third research question investigated was, “How many schools have homework policies, and of those, how many parents and teachers know what the policy is?” For this question the examiners analyzed parent and teacher responses to the question, “Does your school have a homework policy?” Frequencies and percentages are displayed in Table 5 . Notably, only two out of the six schools included in this study had homework policies. Results indicate that both parents and teachers are uncertain regarding whether or not their school had a homework policy.

The fourth research question investigated was, “What is the perceived impact of homework on children’s sleep and parent–child relationships?” Children were asked if they get less sleep because of homework and parents were asked if their child gets less sleep because of homework. Finally, teachers were asked about the impact of sleep on academic performance. Frequencies and percentages of student, parent, and teacher data is reported in Table 6 . Results indicate disagreement among parents and children on the impact of homework on sleep. While the majority of parents do not feel their child gets less sleep because of homework (77%), approximately 37% of children report sometimes getting less sleep because of homework. On the other hand, teachers acknowledge the importance of sleep in relation to academic performance, as nearly 93% of teachers report sleep always or often impacts academic performance.

To investigate the perceived impact of homework on the parent–child relationship, parents were asked “How does homework impact your child’s relationships?” Almost 30% of parents report homework “Brings us Together”; however, 24% report homework “Creates a Power Struggle” and nearly 18% report homework “Interferes with Family Time.” Additionally, parents and children were both asked to report if homework gets in the way of family time. Frequencies and percentages are reported in Table 7 . Data was further analyzed to explore potentially significant differences between parents and children on this perception as described below.

In order to prepare for analysis of significant differences between parent and child perceptions regarding homework and family time, a Levene’s test for equality of variances was conducted. Results of the Levene’s test showed that equal variances could not be assumed, and results should be interpreted with caution. Despite this, a difference in mean responses on a Likert-type scale (where higher scores equal greater perceived interference with family time) indicate a disparity in parent ( M  = 2.95, SD  = 0.88) and child ( M  = 2.77, SD  = 0.99) perceptions, t (785) = 2.65, p  = 0.008. Results suggest that children were more likely to feel that homework interferes with family time than their parents. However, follow up testing where equal variances can be assumed is warranted upon further data collection.

The purpose of this research was to explore perceptions of homework by parents, children, and teachers of grades 3–6, including how homework relates to child well-being, awareness of school homework policies and the perceived purpose of homework. A discussion of the results as it relates to each research question is explored.

Perceived Impact of Homework on Children’s Social-Emotional Well-Being Across Teachers, Parents, and Students

According to self-report survey data, children in grades 3–6 reported that completing homework at home generates various feelings. The majority of responses indicated that children felt uncomfortable emotions such as bored, annoyed, and frustrated; however, a subset of children also reported feeling smart when completing homework. While parent and teacher responses suggest parents and teachers do not feel homework affects children’s social-emotional health, children reported that homework does affect how they feel. Specifically, many children in this study reported experiencing feelings of boredom and frustration when thinking about completing homework at home. If the purpose of homework is to enhance children’s engagement in their learning outside of school, educators must re-evaluate homework assignments to align with best practices, as indicated by the researchers Dean et al. ( 2012 ), Vatterott ( 2018 ), and Sartain et al. ( 2015 ). Specifically, educators should consider effects of the amount and type of homework assigned, balancing the goal of increased practice and learning with potential effects on children’s social-emotional health. Future research could incorporate a control group and/or test scores or other measures of academic achievement to isolate and better understand the relationships between homework, health, and scholastic achievement.

According to parent survey data, the perceived effects of homework on their child’s social and emotional well-being appear strikingly different compared to student perceptions. Nearly half of the parents who participated in the survey reported that homework does not impact their child’s social-emotional health. Additionally, more parents indicated that homework had a positive effect on child well-being compared to a negative one. However, parents also acknowledge that homework generates negative emotions such as frustration, stress and anxiety in their children.

Teacher data indicates that, overall, teachers do not appear to see a negative impact on their students’ social-emotional health from homework. Similar to parent responses, nearly half of teachers report that homework has no impact on children’s social-emotional health, and almost one third of teachers reported a positive effect. These results are consistent with related research which indicates that teachers often believe that homework has positive impacts on student development, such as developing good study habits and a sense of responsibility (Bembenutty 2011 ). It should also be noted, not a single teacher reported the belief that homework negatively impacts children’s’ social and emotional well-being, which indicates clear discrepancies between teachers’ perceptions and children’s feelings. Further research is warranted to explore and clarify these discrepancies.

Primary Purposes of Homework According to Teachers and Parents

Results from this study suggest that the majority of parents believe that homework relates and contributes to their child’s learning. This finding supports prior research which indicates that parents often believe that homework has long-term positive effects and builds academic competencies in students (Cooper et al. 2006 ). Notably, however, nearly one third of parents also indicate that homework is often given as busy work by teachers. Teachers reported that they assigned homework to develop students’ academic skills, work ethic, and teach students responsibility and promote independence. While teachers appear to have good intentions regarding the purpose of homework, research suggests that homework is not an effective nor recommended practice to achieve these goals. Household chores, cooking, volunteer experiences, and sports may create more conducive learning opportunities wherein children acquire work ethic, responsibility, independence, and problem-solving skills (Hofferth and Sandberg 2001 ; University of Minnesota 2002 ). Educators should leverage the use of homework in tandem with other student life experiences to best foster both academic achievement and positive youth development more broadly.

Homework Policies

As evident from parent responses, the majority of parents are unaware if their child’s school has a homework policy and many teachers are also uncertain as to whether their school provides restrictions or guidelines for homework (e.g., amount, type, and purpose). Upon contacting school principals, it was determined that only two of the six schools have a school-wide homework policy. Current data indicates the professionals responsible for assigning homework appear to be unclear about whether their school has policies for homework. Additionally, there appears to be a disconnect between parents and teachers regarding whether homework policies do exist among the sampled schools. The research in the current study is consistent with previous research indicating that policies, if they do exist, are often vague and not communicated clearly to parents (Sartain et al. 2015 ). This study suggests that homework policies in these districts require improved communication between administrators, teachers, and parents.

Perceived Impact of Homework on Children’s Sleep and Parent–Child Relationships

Regarding the importance of sleep on academic performance, nearly all of the teachers included in this study acknowledged the impact that sleep has on academic performance. There was disagreement among children and parents on the actual impact that homework has on children’s sleep. Over one third of children report that homework occasionally detracts from their sleep; however, many parents may be unaware of this impact as more than three quarters of parents surveyed reported that homework does not impact their child’s sleep. Thus, while sleep is recognized as highly important for academic achievement, homework may be adversely interfering with students’ full academic potential by compromising their sleep.

In regard to homework’s impact on the parent child-relationship, parents in this survey largely indicated that homework does not interfere in their parent–child relationship. However, among the parents who do notice an impact, the majority report that homework can create a power struggle and diminish their overall family time. These results are consistent with Cameron and Bartell’s ( 2009 ) research which found that parents often believe that excessive amounts of homework often cause unnecessary family stress. Likewise, nearly one third of children in this study reported that homework has an impact on their family time.

This study provides the foundation for additional research regarding the impact of academic demands, specifically homework, on children’s social-emotional well-being, including sleep, according to children, parents, and teachers. Additionally, the research provides some information on reasons teachers assign homework and a documentation of the lack of school homework policies, as well as the misguided knowledge among parents and teachers about such policies.

The preexisting literature and meta-analyses indicate homework has little to no positive effect on elementary-aged learners’ academic achievement (Cooper et al. 2006 ; Trautwein and Köller 2003 ; Wolchover 2012 ). This led to the question, if homework is not conducive to academic achievement at this level, how might it impact other areas of children’s lives? This study provides preliminary information regarding the possible impact of homework on the social-emotional health of elementary children. The preliminary conclusions from this perception research may guide districts, educators, and parents to advocate for evidence-based homework policies that support childrens’ academic and social-emotional health. If homework is to be assigned at the elementary level, Table 8 contains recommended best practices for such assignment, along with a sample of specific guidelines for districts, educators, and parents (Holland et al. 2015 ).

Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research

Due to the preliminary nature of this research, some limitations must be addressed. First, research was conducted using newly developed parent, teacher, and student questionnaires, which were not pilot tested or formally validated. Upon analyzing the data, the researchers discovered limitations within the surveys. For example, due to the nature of the survey items, the variables produced were not always consistently scaled. This created challenges when making direct comparisons. Additionally, this limited the sophistication of the statistical procedures that could be used, and reliability could not be calculated in typical psychometric fashion (e.g., Cronbach’s Alpha). Secondly, the small sample size may limit the generalizability of the results, especially in regard to the limited number of teachers (n  = 28) we were able to survey. Although numerous districts and schools were contacted within the region, only three districts granted permission. These schools may systematically differ from other schools in the region and therefore do not necessarily represent the general population. Third, this research is based on perception, and determining the actual impacts of homework on child wellness would necessitate a larger scale, better controlled study, examining variables beyond simple perception and eliminating potentially confounding factors. It is possible that individuals within and across rater groups interpreted survey items in different ways, leading to inconsistencies in the underlying constructs apparently being measured. Some phrases such as “social-emotional health” can be understood to mean different things by different raters, which could have affected the way raters responded and thus the results of this study. Relatedly, causal links between homework and student social-emotional well-being cannot be established through the present research design and future research should employ the use of matched control groups who do not receive homework to better delineate the direct impact of homework on well-being. Finally, interpretations of the results are limited by the nested nature of the data (parent and student by teacher). The teachers, parents, and students are not truly independent groups, as student and parent perceptions on the impact of homework likely differ as a function of the classroom (teacher) that they are in, as well as the characteristics of the school they attend, their family environment, and more. The previously mentioned challenge of making direct comparisons across raters due to the design of the surveys, as well as small sample size of teachers, limited the researchers’ ability to address this issue. Future research may address this limitation by collecting data and formulating related lines of inquiry that are more conducive to the analysis of nested data. At this time, this survey research is preliminary. An increased sample size and replication of results is necessary before further conclusions can be made. Researchers should also consider obtaining data from a geographically diverse population that mirrors the population in the United States, and using revised surveys that have undergone a rigorous validation process.

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Holland, M., Courtney, M., Vergara, J. et al. Homework and Children in Grades 3–6: Purpose, Policy and Non-Academic Impact. Child Youth Care Forum 50 , 631–651 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-021-09602-8

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What’s the Right Amount of Homework?

Decades of research show that homework has some benefits, especially for students in middle and high school—but there are risks to assigning too much.

Many teachers and parents believe that homework helps students build study skills and review concepts learned in class. Others see homework as disruptive and unnecessary, leading to burnout and turning kids off to school. Decades of research show that the issue is more nuanced and complex than most people think: Homework is beneficial, but only to a degree. Students in high school gain the most, while younger kids benefit much less.

The National PTA and the National Education Association support the “ 10-minute homework guideline ”—a nightly 10 minutes of homework per grade level. But many teachers and parents are quick to point out that what matters is the quality of the homework assigned and how well it meets students’ needs, not the amount of time spent on it.

The guideline doesn’t account for students who may need to spend more—or less—time on assignments. In class, teachers can make adjustments to support struggling students, but at home, an assignment that takes one student 30 minutes to complete may take another twice as much time—often for reasons beyond their control. And homework can widen the achievement gap, putting students from low-income households and students with learning disabilities at a disadvantage.

However, the 10-minute guideline is useful in setting a limit: When kids spend too much time on homework, there are real consequences to consider.

Small Benefits for Elementary Students

As young children begin school, the focus should be on cultivating a love of learning, and assigning too much homework can undermine that goal. And young students often don’t have the study skills to benefit fully from homework, so it may be a poor use of time (Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). A more effective activity may be nightly reading, especially if parents are involved. The benefits of reading are clear: If students aren’t proficient readers by the end of third grade, they’re less likely to succeed academically and graduate from high school (Fiester, 2013 ).

For second-grade teacher Jacqueline Fiorentino, the minor benefits of homework did not outweigh the potential drawback of turning young children against school at an early age, so she experimented with dropping mandatory homework. “Something surprising happened: They started doing more work at home,” Fiorentino writes . “This inspiring group of 8-year-olds used their newfound free time to explore subjects and topics of interest to them.” She encouraged her students to read at home and offered optional homework to extend classroom lessons and help them review material.

Moderate Benefits for Middle School Students

As students mature and develop the study skills necessary to delve deeply into a topic—and to retain what they learn—they also benefit more from homework. Nightly assignments can help prepare them for scholarly work, and research shows that homework can have moderate benefits for middle school students (Cooper et al., 2006 ). Recent research also shows that online math homework, which can be designed to adapt to students’ levels of understanding, can significantly boost test scores (Roschelle et al., 2016 ).

There are risks to assigning too much, however: A 2015 study found that when middle school students were assigned more than 90 to 100 minutes of daily homework, their math and science test scores began to decline (Fernández-Alonso, Suárez-Álvarez, & Muñiz, 2015 ). Crossing that upper limit can drain student motivation and focus. The researchers recommend that “homework should present a certain level of challenge or difficulty, without being so challenging that it discourages effort.” Teachers should avoid low-effort, repetitive assignments, and assign homework “with the aim of instilling work habits and promoting autonomous, self-directed learning.”

In other words, it’s the quality of homework that matters, not the quantity. Brian Sztabnik, a veteran middle and high school English teacher, suggests that teachers take a step back and ask themselves these five questions :

• How long will it take to complete?
• Have all learners been considered?
• Will an assignment encourage future success?
• Will an assignment place material in a context the classroom cannot?
• Does an assignment offer support when a teacher is not there?

More Benefits for High School Students, but Risks as Well

By the time they reach high school, students should be well on their way to becoming independent learners, so homework does provide a boost to learning at this age, as long as it isn’t overwhelming (Cooper et al., 2006 ; Marzano & Pickering, 2007 ). When students spend too much time on homework—more than two hours each night—it takes up valuable time to rest and spend time with family and friends. A 2013 study found that high school students can experience serious mental and physical health problems, from higher stress levels to sleep deprivation, when assigned too much homework (Galloway, Conner, & Pope, 2013 ).

Homework in high school should always relate to the lesson and be doable without any assistance, and feedback should be clear and explicit.

Teachers should also keep in mind that not all students have equal opportunities to finish their homework at home, so incomplete homework may not be a true reflection of their learning—it may be more a result of issues they face outside of school. They may be hindered by issues such as lack of a quiet space at home, resources such as a computer or broadband connectivity, or parental support (OECD, 2014 ). In such cases, giving low homework scores may be unfair.

Since the quantities of time discussed here are totals, teachers in middle and high school should be aware of how much homework other teachers are assigning. It may seem reasonable to assign 30 minutes of daily homework, but across six subjects, that’s three hours—far above a reasonable amount even for a high school senior. Psychologist Maurice Elias sees this as a common mistake: Individual teachers create homework policies that in aggregate can overwhelm students. He suggests that teachers work together to develop a school-wide homework policy and make it a key topic of back-to-school night and the first parent-teacher conferences of the school year.

Parents Play a Key Role

Homework can be a powerful tool to help parents become more involved in their child’s learning (Walker et al., 2004 ). It can provide insights into a child’s strengths and interests, and can also encourage conversations about a child’s life at school. If a parent has positive attitudes toward homework, their children are more likely to share those same values, promoting academic success.

But it’s also possible for parents to be overbearing, putting too much emphasis on test scores or grades, which can be disruptive for children (Madjar, Shklar, & Moshe, 2015 ). Parents should avoid being overly intrusive or controlling—students report feeling less motivated to learn when they don’t have enough space and autonomy to do their homework (Orkin, May, & Wolf, 2017 ; Patall, Cooper, & Robinson, 2008 ; Silinskas & Kikas, 2017 ). So while homework can encourage parents to be more involved with their kids, it’s important to not make it a source of conflict.

A New Report Reveals That Homework in the United States is an Easy Load

Two new reports debunk the notion that U.S. schoolchildren suffer from a growing homework load, with little time to play and just be kids.

The great majority of students at all grade levels now spend less than one hour studying on a typical day—an amount that has not changed substantially in at least twenty years, according to data analyzed by the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution and the RAND Corporation.

The research contradicts dramatic anecdotes of children overwhelmed with homework. The Brookings and RAND researchers collected and reviewed the best social science available on children’s homework, including data from surveys conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS), the Population Studies Center at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, and the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA.

Even at the high school level, where more homework might be expected to prepare students for the demands of college or the workplace, only about a third of seventeen-year-olds spend an hour or more a day on homework.

The Brown Center on Education Policy conducted the study after a wave of dramatic news stories over the past few years described a backlash against homework. Since 2001, feature stories about onerous homework loads and parents fighting back have appeared in Time , Newsweek , and People magazines; the New York Times , Washington Post , Los Angeles Times , Raleigh News and Observer , and the Tampa Tribune ; and the CBS Evening News and other media outlets.

“The stories are misleading,” writes author Tom Loveless, director of the Brown Center. “They do not reflect the experiences of a majority—or even a significant minority—of American schoolchildren.”

“Excessive homework is not a common problem,” writes Loveless in the report. “The critics of homework need to produce some very powerful evidence before policymakers start mandating reductions in homework or even banning it altogether. To date, the evidence put forth by homework critics has been weak.”

Across three different age groups, the percentage of students with less than an hour of daily homework has actually risen since 1984, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which for two decades has been asking a nationally representative sample of students questions about homework.

In 1999, 83 percent of nine-year-olds, 66 percent of thirteen-year-olds, and 65 percent of seventeen-year-olds reported having less than an hour of homework per night (see figure 1). In 1984, 81 percent of nine-year-olds, 63 percent of thirteen-year-olds, and 59 percent of seventeen-year-olds had reported spending that amount of time studying.

Another survey, the Third International Math and Science Study, finds that American high school students have one of the lightest homework loads in the world. Of twenty countries, the United States ranked near the bottom, tied for the next-to-last position. Students in France, Italy, Russia, and South Africa reported spending at least twice as much time on homework as American students.

The University of Michigan research does show an increase in the amount of homework given to children ages six to eight. But the increase of ten to eleven minutes a day is largely due to the fact that the baseline was low to begin with—only a third of children ages six to eight spent any time at all on studying in 1981.

“Why is it important to get the homework study right?” asks Loveless. “Mainly because it is positively associated with student learning.” Research shows that the relationship of homework with student achievement is positive for both middle and high school students and neutral for elementary school students.

Moreover, homework is a “barometer of the success—or the limits—of movements to raise academic standards,” write Brian Gill of RAND and Steven Schlossman of Carnegie Mellon University in the fall 2003 issue of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.

“To succeed, academic excellence movements ultimately require students to invest effort in their studies; time spent on homework is a ground-level indicator of this effort,” say Gill and Schlossman.

Gill and Schlossman trace homework time trends of the past fifty years, finding that the only substantial increases in homework for high-school students occurred in the decade after Sputnik, when the nation launched an academic excellence movement motivated by competition with the Soviet Union. Homework time subsequently declined to pre-Sputnik levels, and the excellence movement of the 1980s and 1990s that followed the publication of “A Nation at Risk” caused surprisingly small increases in homework (see figure 8).

Ironically, the only increase in homework in the last two decades has happened precisely in the lower grade levels, where researchers believe it matters least for academic achievement, according to Gill and Schlossman.

Most parents feel the homework load is about right, and, of those who would like to change it, more parents would rather see more homework than less, according to a 2000 poll conducted by the Public Agenda Foundation. Only one out of ten parents believes there is too much homework.

When a homework problem exists, which can happen because children vary in their study habits, solutions should come from parents and teachers, not policymakers, Loveless says.

About the Brown Center on Education Policy and the Brookings Institution

Established in 1992, the Brown Center on Education Policy conducts research on topics in American education, with a special focus on efforts to improve academic achievement in elementary and secondary schools. The Brown Center is part of the Brookings Institution, a private, nonprofit organization devoted to research, education, and publication on important issues of domestic and foreign policy. The Institution maintains a position of neutrality on issues of public policy. Interpretations or conclusions in Brookings publications should be understood to be solely those of the authors.

For a full copy of the report as well as information about other Brown Center events and publications, please visit the Brown Center’s website , or call Tucker Warren at 202/457-8100.

About RAND Education

RAND Education conducts independent research and analysis on education policy, including school reform and educational assessment and accountability. RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis.

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The Cult of Homework

America’s devotion to the practice stems in part from the fact that it’s what today’s parents and teachers grew up with themselves.

America has long had a fickle relationship with homework. A century or so ago, progressive reformers argued that it made kids unduly stressed , which later led in some cases to district-level bans on it for all grades under seventh. This anti-homework sentiment faded, though, amid mid-century fears that the U.S. was falling behind the Soviet Union (which led to more homework), only to resurface in the 1960s and ’70s, when a more open culture came to see homework as stifling play and creativity (which led to less). But this didn’t last either: In the ’80s, government researchers blamed America’s schools for its economic troubles and recommended ramping homework up once more.

The 21st century has so far been a homework-heavy era, with American teenagers now averaging about twice as much time spent on homework each day as their predecessors did in the 1990s . Even little kids are asked to bring school home with them. A 2015 study , for instance, found that kindergarteners, who researchers tend to agree shouldn’t have any take-home work, were spending about 25 minutes a night on it.

But not without pushback. As many children, not to mention their parents and teachers, are drained by their daily workload, some schools and districts are rethinking how homework should work—and some teachers are doing away with it entirely. They’re reviewing the research on homework (which, it should be noted, is contested) and concluding that it’s time to revisit the subject.

Read: My daughter’s homework is killing me

Hillsborough, California, an affluent suburb of San Francisco, is one district that has changed its ways. The district, which includes three elementary schools and a middle school, worked with teachers and convened panels of parents in order to come up with a homework policy that would allow students more unscheduled time to spend with their families or to play. In August 2017, it rolled out an updated policy, which emphasized that homework should be “meaningful” and banned due dates that fell on the day after a weekend or a break.

“The first year was a bit bumpy,” says Louann Carlomagno, the district’s superintendent. She says the adjustment was at times hard for the teachers, some of whom had been doing their job in a similar fashion for a quarter of a century. Parents’ expectations were also an issue. Carlomagno says they took some time to “realize that it was okay not to have an hour of homework for a second grader—that was new.”

Most of the way through year two, though, the policy appears to be working more smoothly. “The students do seem to be less stressed based on conversations I’ve had with parents,” Carlomagno says. It also helps that the students performed just as well on the state standardized test last year as they have in the past.

Earlier this year, the district of Somerville, Massachusetts, also rewrote its homework policy, reducing the amount of homework its elementary and middle schoolers may receive. In grades six through eight, for example, homework is capped at an hour a night and can only be assigned two to three nights a week.

Jack Schneider, an education professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell whose daughter attends school in Somerville, is generally pleased with the new policy. But, he says, it’s part of a bigger, worrisome pattern. “The origin for this was general parental dissatisfaction, which not surprisingly was coming from a particular demographic,” Schneider says. “Middle-class white parents tend to be more vocal about concerns about homework … They feel entitled enough to voice their opinions.”

Schneider is all for revisiting taken-for-granted practices like homework, but thinks districts need to take care to be inclusive in that process. “I hear approximately zero middle-class white parents talking about how homework done best in grades K through two actually strengthens the connection between home and school for young people and their families,” he says. Because many of these parents already feel connected to their school community, this benefit of homework can seem redundant. “They don’t need it,” Schneider says, “so they’re not advocating for it.”

That doesn’t mean, necessarily, that homework is more vital in low-income districts. In fact, there are different, but just as compelling, reasons it can be burdensome in these communities as well. Allison Wienhold, who teaches high-school Spanish in the small town of Dunkerton, Iowa, has phased out homework assignments over the past three years. Her thinking: Some of her students, she says, have little time for homework because they’re working 30 hours a week or responsible for looking after younger siblings.

As educators reduce or eliminate the homework they assign, it’s worth asking what amount and what kind of homework is best for students. It turns out that there’s some disagreement about this among researchers, who tend to fall in one of two camps.

In the first camp is Harris Cooper, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. Cooper conducted a review of the existing research on homework in the mid-2000s , and found that, up to a point, the amount of homework students reported doing correlates with their performance on in-class tests. This correlation, the review found, was stronger for older students than for younger ones.

This conclusion is generally accepted among educators, in part because it’s compatible with “the 10-minute rule,” a rule of thumb popular among teachers suggesting that the proper amount of homework is approximately 10 minutes per night, per grade level—that is, 10 minutes a night for first graders, 20 minutes a night for second graders, and so on, up to two hours a night for high schoolers.

In Cooper’s eyes, homework isn’t overly burdensome for the typical American kid. He points to a 2014 Brookings Institution report that found “little evidence that the homework load has increased for the average student”; onerous amounts of homework, it determined, are indeed out there, but relatively rare. Moreover, the report noted that most parents think their children get the right amount of homework, and that parents who are worried about under-assigning outnumber those who are worried about over-assigning. Cooper says that those latter worries tend to come from a small number of communities with “concerns about being competitive for the most selective colleges and universities.”

According to Alfie Kohn, squarely in camp two, most of the conclusions listed in the previous three paragraphs are questionable. Kohn, the author of The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing , considers homework to be a “reliable extinguisher of curiosity,” and has several complaints with the evidence that Cooper and others cite in favor of it. Kohn notes, among other things, that Cooper’s 2006 meta-analysis doesn’t establish causation, and that its central correlation is based on children’s (potentially unreliable) self-reporting of how much time they spend doing homework. (Kohn’s prolific writing on the subject alleges numerous other methodological faults.)

In fact, other correlations make a compelling case that homework doesn’t help. Some countries whose students regularly outperform American kids on standardized tests, such as Japan and Denmark, send their kids home with less schoolwork , while students from some countries with higher homework loads than the U.S., such as Thailand and Greece, fare worse on tests. (Of course, international comparisons can be fraught because so many factors, in education systems and in societies at large, might shape students’ success.)

Kohn also takes issue with the way achievement is commonly assessed. “If all you want is to cram kids’ heads with facts for tomorrow’s tests that they’re going to forget by next week, yeah, if you give them more time and make them do the cramming at night, that could raise the scores,” he says. “But if you’re interested in kids who know how to think or enjoy learning, then homework isn’t merely ineffective, but counterproductive.”

His concern is, in a way, a philosophical one. “The practice of homework assumes that only academic growth matters, to the point that having kids work on that most of the school day isn’t enough,” Kohn says. What about homework’s effect on quality time spent with family? On long-term information retention? On critical-thinking skills? On social development? On success later in life? On happiness? The research is quiet on these questions.

Another problem is that research tends to focus on homework’s quantity rather than its quality, because the former is much easier to measure than the latter. While experts generally agree that the substance of an assignment matters greatly (and that a lot of homework is uninspiring busywork), there isn’t a catchall rule for what’s best—the answer is often specific to a certain curriculum or even an individual student.

Given that homework’s benefits are so narrowly defined (and even then, contested), it’s a bit surprising that assigning so much of it is often a classroom default, and that more isn’t done to make the homework that is assigned more enriching. A number of things are preserving this state of affairs—things that have little to do with whether homework helps students learn.

Jack Schneider, the Massachusetts parent and professor, thinks it’s important to consider the generational inertia of the practice. “The vast majority of parents of public-school students themselves are graduates of the public education system,” he says. “Therefore, their views of what is legitimate have been shaped already by the system that they would ostensibly be critiquing.” In other words, many parents’ own history with homework might lead them to expect the same for their children, and anything less is often taken as an indicator that a school or a teacher isn’t rigorous enough. (This dovetails with—and complicates—the finding that most parents think their children have the right amount of homework.)

Barbara Stengel, an education professor at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, brought up two developments in the educational system that might be keeping homework rote and unexciting. The first is the importance placed in the past few decades on standardized testing, which looms over many public-school classroom decisions and frequently discourages teachers from trying out more creative homework assignments. “They could do it, but they’re afraid to do it, because they’re getting pressure every day about test scores,” Stengel says.

Second, she notes that the profession of teaching, with its relatively low wages and lack of autonomy, struggles to attract and support some of the people who might reimagine homework, as well as other aspects of education. “Part of why we get less interesting homework is because some of the people who would really have pushed the limits of that are no longer in teaching,” she says.

“In general, we have no imagination when it comes to homework,” Stengel says. She wishes teachers had the time and resources to remake homework into something that actually engages students. “If we had kids reading—anything, the sports page, anything that they’re able to read—that’s the best single thing. If we had kids going to the zoo, if we had kids going to parks after school, if we had them doing all of those things, their test scores would improve. But they’re not. They’re going home and doing homework that is not expanding what they think about.”

“Exploratory” is one word Mike Simpson used when describing the types of homework he’d like his students to undertake. Simpson is the head of the Stone Independent School, a tiny private high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that opened in 2017. “We were lucky to start a school a year and a half ago,” Simpson says, “so it’s been easy to say we aren’t going to assign worksheets, we aren’t going assign regurgitative problem sets.” For instance, a half-dozen students recently built a 25-foot trebuchet on campus.

Simpson says he thinks it’s a shame that the things students have to do at home are often the least fulfilling parts of schooling: “When our students can’t make the connection between the work they’re doing at 11 o’clock at night on a Tuesday to the way they want their lives to be, I think we begin to lose the plot.”

When I talked with other teachers who did homework makeovers in their classrooms, I heard few regrets. Brandy Young, a second-grade teacher in Joshua, Texas, stopped assigning take-home packets of worksheets three years ago, and instead started asking her students to do 20 minutes of pleasure reading a night. She says she’s pleased with the results, but she’s noticed something funny. “Some kids,” she says, “really do like homework.” She’s started putting out a bucket of it for students to draw from voluntarily—whether because they want an additional challenge or something to pass the time at home.

Chris Bronke, a high-school English teacher in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove, told me something similar. This school year, he eliminated homework for his class of freshmen, and now mostly lets students study on their own or in small groups during class time. It’s usually up to them what they work on each day, and Bronke has been impressed by how they’ve managed their time.

In fact, some of them willingly spend time on assignments at home, whether because they’re particularly engaged, because they prefer to do some deeper thinking outside school, or because they needed to spend time in class that day preparing for, say, a biology test the following period. “They’re making meaningful decisions about their time that I don’t think education really ever gives students the experience, nor the practice, of doing,” Bronke said.

The typical prescription offered by those overwhelmed with homework is to assign less of it—to subtract. But perhaps a more useful approach, for many classrooms, would be to create homework only when teachers and students believe it’s actually needed to further the learning that takes place in class—to start with nothing, and add as necessary.

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Credit: August de Richelieu

Does homework still have value? A Johns Hopkins education expert weighs in

Joyce epstein, co-director of the center on school, family, and community partnerships, discusses why homework is essential, how to maximize its benefit to learners, and what the 'no-homework' approach gets wrong.

By Vicky Hallett

The necessity of homework has been a subject of debate since at least as far back as the 1890s, according to Joyce L. Epstein , co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University. "It's always been the case that parents, kids—and sometimes teachers, too—wonder if this is just busy work," Epstein says.

But after decades of researching how to improve schools, the professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Education remains certain that homework is essential—as long as the teachers have done their homework, too. The National Network of Partnership Schools , which she founded in 1995 to advise schools and districts on ways to improve comprehensive programs of family engagement, has developed hundreds of improved homework ideas through its Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program. For an English class, a student might interview a parent on popular hairstyles from their youth and write about the differences between then and now. Or for science class, a family could identify forms of matter over the dinner table, labeling foods as liquids or solids. These innovative and interactive assignments not only reinforce concepts from the classroom but also foster creativity, spark discussions, and boost student motivation.

"We're not trying to eliminate homework procedures, but expand and enrich them," says Epstein, who is packing this research into a forthcoming book on the purposes and designs of homework. In the meantime, the Hub couldn't wait to ask her some questions:

What kind of homework training do teachers typically get?

Future teachers and administrators really have little formal training on how to design homework before they assign it. This means that most just repeat what their teachers did, or they follow textbook suggestions at the end of units. For example, future teachers are well prepared to teach reading and literacy skills at each grade level, and they continue to learn to improve their teaching of reading in ongoing in-service education. By contrast, most receive little or no training on the purposes and designs of homework in reading or other subjects. It is really important for future teachers to receive systematic training to understand that they have the power, opportunity, and obligation to design homework with a purpose.

Why do students need more interactive homework?

If homework assignments are always the same—10 math problems, six sentences with spelling words—homework can get boring and some kids just stop doing their assignments, especially in the middle and high school years. When we've asked teachers what's the best homework you've ever had or designed, invariably we hear examples of talking with a parent or grandparent or peer to share ideas. To be clear, parents should never be asked to "teach" seventh grade science or any other subject. Rather, teachers set up the homework assignments so that the student is in charge. It's always the student's homework. But a good activity can engage parents in a fun, collaborative way. Our data show that with "good" assignments, more kids finish their work, more kids interact with a family partner, and more parents say, "I learned what's happening in the curriculum." It all works around what the youngsters are learning.

Is family engagement really that important?

At Hopkins, I am part of the Center for Social Organization of Schools , a research center that studies how to improve many aspects of education to help all students do their best in school. One thing my colleagues and I realized was that we needed to look deeply into family and community engagement. There were so few references to this topic when we started that we had to build the field of study. When children go to school, their families "attend" with them whether a teacher can "see" the parents or not. So, family engagement is ever-present in the life of a school.

My daughter's elementary school doesn't assign homework until third grade. What's your take on "no homework" policies?

There are some parents, writers, and commentators who have argued against homework, especially for very young children. They suggest that children should have time to play after school. This, of course is true, but many kindergarten kids are excited to have homework like their older siblings. If they give homework, most teachers of young children make assignments very short—often following an informal rule of 10 minutes per grade level. "No homework" does not guarantee that all students will spend their free time in productive and imaginative play.

Some researchers and critics have consistently misinterpreted research findings. They have argued that homework should be assigned only at the high school level where data point to a strong connection of doing assignments with higher student achievement . However, as we discussed, some students stop doing homework. This leads, statistically, to results showing that doing homework or spending more minutes on homework is linked to higher student achievement. If slow or struggling students are not doing their assignments, they contribute to—or cause—this "result."

Teachers need to design homework that even struggling students want to do because it is interesting. Just about all students at any age level react positively to good assignments and will tell you so.

Did COVID change how schools and parents view homework?

Within 24 hours of the day school doors closed in March 2020, just about every school and district in the country figured out that teachers had to talk to and work with students' parents. This was not the same as homeschooling—teachers were still working hard to provide daily lessons. But if a child was learning at home in the living room, parents were more aware of what they were doing in school. One of the silver linings of COVID was that teachers reported that they gained a better understanding of their students' families. We collected wonderfully creative examples of activities from members of the National Network of Partnership Schools. I'm thinking of one art activity where every child talked with a parent about something that made their family unique. Then they drew their finding on a snowflake and returned it to share in class. In math, students talked with a parent about something the family liked so much that they could represent it 100 times. Conversations about schoolwork at home was the point.

How did you create so many homework activities via the Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program?

We had several projects with educators to help them design interactive assignments, not just "do the next three examples on page 38." Teachers worked in teams to create TIPS activities, and then we turned their work into a standard TIPS format in math, reading/language arts, and science for grades K-8. Any teacher can use or adapt our prototypes to match their curricula.

Overall, we know that if future teachers and practicing educators were prepared to design homework assignments to meet specific purposes—including but not limited to interactive activities—more students would benefit from the important experience of doing their homework. And more parents would, indeed, be partners in education.

Posted in Voices+Opinion

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Should Kids Get Homework?

Homework gives elementary students a way to practice concepts, but too much can be harmful, experts say.

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Effective homework reinforces math, reading, writing or spelling skills, but in a way that's meaningful.

How much homework students should get has long been a source of debate among parents and educators. In recent years, some districts have even implemented no-homework policies, as students juggle sports, music and other activities after school.

Parents of elementary school students, in particular, have argued that after-school hours should be spent with family or playing outside rather than completing assignments. And there is little research to show that homework improves academic achievement for elementary students.

But some experts say there's value in homework, even for younger students. When done well, it can help students practice core concepts and develop study habits and time management skills. The key to effective homework, they say, is keeping assignments related to classroom learning, and tailoring the amount by age: Many experts suggest no homework for kindergartners, and little to none in first and second grade.

Value of Homework

Homework provides a chance to solidify what is being taught in the classroom that day, week or unit. Practice matters, says Janine Bempechat, clinical professor at Boston University 's Wheelock College of Education & Human Development.

"There really is no other domain of human ability where anybody would say you don't need to practice," she adds. "We have children practicing piano and we have children going to sports practice several days a week after school. You name the domain of ability and practice is in there."

Homework is also the place where schools and families most frequently intersect.

"The children are bringing things from the school into the home," says Paula S. Fass, professor emerita of history at the University of California—Berkeley and the author of "The End of American Childhood." "Before the pandemic, (homework) was the only real sense that parents had to what was going on in schools."

Harris Cooper, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University and author of "The Battle Over Homework," examined more than 60 research studies on homework between 1987 and 2003 and found that — when designed properly — homework can lead to greater student success. Too much, however, is harmful. And homework has a greater positive effect on students in secondary school (grades 7-12) than those in elementary.

"Every child should be doing homework, but the amount and type that they're doing should be appropriate for their developmental level," he says. "For teachers, it's a balancing act. Doing away with homework completely is not in the best interest of children and families. But overburdening families with homework is also not in the child's or a family's best interest."

Negative Homework Assignments

Not all homework for elementary students involves completing a worksheet. Assignments can be fun, says Cooper, like having students visit educational locations, keep statistics on their favorite sports teams, read for pleasure or even help their parents grocery shop. The point is to show students that activities done outside of school can relate to subjects learned in the classroom.

But assignments that are just busy work, that force students to learn new concepts at home, or that are overly time-consuming can be counterproductive, experts say.

Homework that's just busy work.

Effective homework reinforces math, reading, writing or spelling skills, but in a way that's meaningful, experts say. Assignments that look more like busy work – projects or worksheets that don't require teacher feedback and aren't related to topics learned in the classroom – can be frustrating for students and create burdens for families.

"The mental health piece has definitely played a role here over the last couple of years during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the last thing we want to do is frustrate students with busy work or homework that makes no sense," says Dave Steckler, principal of Red Trail Elementary School in Mandan, North Dakota.

Homework on material that kids haven't learned yet.

With the pressure to cover all topics on standardized tests and limited time during the school day, some teachers assign homework that has not yet been taught in the classroom.

Not only does this create stress, but it also causes equity challenges. Some parents speak languages other than English or work several jobs, and they aren't able to help teach their children new concepts.

" It just becomes agony for both parents and the kids to get through this worksheet, and the goal becomes getting to the bottom of (the) worksheet with answers filled in without any understanding of what any of it matters for," says professor Susan R. Goldman, co-director of the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Illinois—Chicago .

Homework that's overly time-consuming.

The standard homework guideline recommended by the National Parent Teacher Association and the National Education Association is the "10-minute rule" – 10 minutes of nightly homework per grade level. A fourth grader, for instance, would receive a total of 40 minutes of homework per night.

But this does not always happen, especially since not every student learns the same. A 2015 study published in the American Journal of Family Therapy found that primary school children actually received three times the recommended amount of homework — and that family stress increased along with the homework load.

Young children can only remain attentive for short periods, so large amounts of homework, especially lengthy projects, can negatively affect students' views on school. Some individual long-term projects – like having to build a replica city, for example – typically become an assignment for parents rather than students, Fass says.

"It's one thing to assign a project like that in which several kids are working on it together," she adds. "In (that) case, the kids do normally work on it. It's another to send it home to the families, where it becomes a burden and doesn't really accomplish very much."

Private vs. Public Schools

Do private schools assign more homework than public schools? There's little research on the issue, but experts say private school parents may be more accepting of homework, seeing it as a sign of academic rigor.

Of course, not all private schools are the same – some focus on college preparation and traditional academics, while others stress alternative approaches to education.

"I think in the academically oriented private schools, there's more support for homework from parents," says Gerald K. LeTendre, chair of educational administration at Pennsylvania State University—University Park . "I don't know if there's any research to show there's more homework, but it's less of a contentious issue."

How to Address Homework Overload

First, assess if the workload takes as long as it appears. Sometimes children may start working on a homework assignment, wander away and come back later, Cooper says.

"Parents don't see it, but they know that their child has started doing their homework four hours ago and still not done it," he adds. "They don't see that there are those four hours where their child was doing lots of other things. So the homework assignment itself actually is not four hours long. It's the way the child is approaching it."

But if homework is becoming stressful or workload is excessive, experts suggest parents first approach the teacher, followed by a school administrator.

"Many times, we can solve a lot of issues by having conversations," Steckler says, including by "sitting down, talking about the amount of homework, and what's appropriate and not appropriate."

Study Tips for High School Students

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“Homework Feedback Is…”: Elementary and Middle School Teachers’ Conceptions of Homework Feedback

Jennifer cunha.

1 Departamento de Psicologia Aplicada, Escola de Psicologia, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal

Pedro Rosário

José carlos núñez.

2 Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

Ana Rita Nunes

Tânia moreira, tânia nunes.

This study explored mathematics teachers’ conceptions of the homework feedback focusing on four key aspects: definition, purpose, types, and perceived impact. Forty-seven teachers from elementary and middle schools participated in six focus groups. Data were analyzed using content analysis. To enhance the trustworthiness of findings, classroom observations were used for triangulation of data. Participants conceptualized homework feedback in three directions (i.e., teachers’ feedback provided to students, students’ feedback provided to teachers, and homework self-feedback), being teachers’ monitoring of students’ learning the purpose reported by most teachers. Participants also reported the types of homework feedback more frequently used in class (e.g., checking homework completion, checking homework on the board), and their perceived impact on students. Findings provide valuable information to deepen the understanding of the homework feedback process, which may help develop new avenues for future research.

Introduction

Homework may be defined as tasks assigned by teachers to be completed in non-instructive time ( Cooper, 2001 ), and has proved to enhance students’ academic achievement when endowed with particular characteristics (e.g., short, purposeful, frequent assignments, high quality) (e.g., Dettmers et al., 2010 ; Fernández-Alonso et al., 2015 ; Rosário et al., 2015a ).

In addition, the homework feedback provided by the teacher in class is an important tool to increase the impact of homework on students’ learning and academic achievement (e.g., Walberg and Paik, 2000 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ; Rosário et al., 2015b ), and a crucial aspect of the quality of homework ( Cooper, 2001 ). However, detailed information on elementary and middle school teachers’ perspectives about their practices and on the reasons why teachers choose and use particular types of homework feedback in class is still scarce ( Bang et al., 2009 ; Deslandes, 2009 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). Investigating teachers’ conceptions of the homework feedback, particularly in elementary and middle school, may provide new insights into research on homework (e.g., helping further explain previous quantitative results; improving homework feedback measures), as well as into educational practices (e.g., teachers getting training on homework feedback practices).

Teachers’ Role on the Homework Feedback Process

Teachers play an important role in the first phase of the homework process by setting up the objectives of homework assignments and designing tasks, and also in the final phase by implementing classroom follow-up practices ( Cooper, 2001 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ; Rosário et al., 2015a , b ). The latter includes, among other practices, homework feedback provided in class: oral or written praise, criticism, written comments (highlighting right and wrong answers), rewards, general review of homework in class, and grading (i.e., teachers giving numerical grades) (e.g., Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Murphy et al., 1987 ; Corno, 2000 ; Cooper, 2001 ). These homework feedback practices are an important instructional tool for teachers in their teaching process (e.g., helping identify students’ difficulties, errors or misconceptions in homework; approaching the learning contents to accommodate students’ lack of prior knowledge, and redesigning homework to match students’ needs) ( Corno, 2000 ; Walberg and Paik, 2000 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ; An and Wu, 2012 ; Bang, 2012 ).

Extant research lacks studies which have focused specifically on each of the above-mentioned types of homework feedback; still, some studies have shed some light on the usage and benefits of the various types of homework feedback. For example, Murphy et al. (1987 , p. 68) found that “class discussion on homework,” and grading and commenting on homework were the practices most frequently used by high school teachers (i.e., English, mathematics, science, and social science) to monitor students’ completion of homework. Focusing on mathematics, Kaur (2011) explored the nature of homework tasks assigned by three 8th grade mathematics teachers (e.g., types of homework, sources of homework tasks), and found that teachers provided feedback on errors by grading assignments, orienting discussions and checking homework on the board when needed. Using the TIMSS 2003 data set, Zhu and Leung (2012) found that a high percentage of 8th grade mathematics teachers reported checking homework completion (85%), providing feedback regularly (i.e., at least “sometimes”, 100%), and discussing homework in class (96%). Nevertheless, none of these studies deeply explored the process of homework feedback.

Students’ Role on the Homework Feedback Process

Students engaging in school tasks with autonomy and responsibility are expected to develop a sense of personal agency for self-managing their behaviors ( Zimmerman, 1989 ). Besides, students who proactively manage their behaviors to attain self-set goals are likely to self-regulate their learning efficiently ( Zimmerman, 1989 ). From a social cognitive perspective, self-regulated learning (SRL) may be defined as an active learning process whereby students self-set goals that direct their cognitions, motivations and behaviors toward those goals ( Zimmerman, 1989 ; Núñez et al., 2013 ; Rosário et al., 2013 ). For example, robust self-efficacy and autonomy, good study skills, commitment to self-set goals, and positive academic attitudes are examples of core elements of academic self-regulation which are necessary to complete homework ( Zimmerman and Kitsantas, 2005 ; Ramdass and Zimmerman, 2011 ; Schmitz and Perels, 2011 ; Núñez et al., 2015c ). Regarding the latter, extant literature highlighted self-regulation competencies as essential tools not only to help students complete their homework, but also use the homework feedback delivered with efficacy and responsibility ( Ramdass and Zimmerman, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ; Xu and Wu, 2013 ). In fact, students are given homework feedback in class and play an important role deciding what to do next with the information given (e.g., ignoring feedback, self-evaluating their homework performance, using SRL learning strategies).

However, to authors’ knowledge, research has not yet provided information to contribute to understanding how teachers’ homework feedback may promote students’ active role in the homework feedback process. As Corno (2000) reported, teachers are expected to promote students’ capacity to self-evaluate their homework, which would involve addressing important self-regulatory processes. Otherwise, homework feedback may fail to benefit students ( Zhu and Leung, 2012 ).

The Benefits of Homework Feedback

Research has analyzed the effect of specific types of homework feedback provided by teachers on students’ academic performance in a particular subject (e.g., Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ), and also the relationships between homework variables (e.g., homework feedback perceived by students, students’ interest, homework management) using non-subject-centered designs ( Xu, 2012 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ). Focusing on the former (i.e., investigating homework feedback in a particular subject), Cardelle and Corno (1981) examined the effect of three types of written homework feedback (i.e., praise, constructive criticism, and constructive criticism plus praise) on college students’ written performance in a second language. Findings showed that students under the constructive criticism plus praise condition achieved a better written performance than their counterparts. Moreover, irrespective of performance levels (i.e., high, middle, and low), participants reported their preference for the constructive criticism plus praise condition. Elawar and Corno (1985) conducted a similar study in mathematics with 6th grade students. Findings showed that students under the constructive criticism plus praise condition showed better achievement and a more positive attitude toward mathematics (e.g., enthusiasm for mathematics) than students of the control group.

The synthesis by Walberg et al. (1985) , and also recent findings by Rosário et al. (2015b) , indicated that specific and individual feedback (i.e., giving written comments or grading homework) positively impacts students’ academic achievement. However, checking homework, grading, and providing individual feedback on homework assignments for every single student in class may not always be feasible because of teacher’s heavy workload (e.g., large numbers of students per class, large numbers of classes to teach, many school meetings per week) ( Cooper, 2001 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). This educational constraint may help explain why checking homework on the board and checking homework orally are among the homework follow-up practices most frequently used by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers ( Rosário et al., 2015b ). These practices are useful to teachers because they allow providing feedback to the whole class (e.g., Brookhart, 2008 ) with less effort than that needed to grade homework or comment on students’ assignments.

Moreover, homework feedback perceived by students was also investigated using non-subject-centered designs (e.g., Xu, 2011 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ; for exceptions see Tas et al., 2016 ; Xu et al., 2017 ). In general, findings showed some of the benefits of homework feedback for students. For example, Xu’s studies using multilevel designs found that at student level teachers’ homework feedback reported by 8th and 11th grade students was positively associated with students’ interest in homework ( Xu, 2008 ), students’ reasons for doing homework ( Xu, 2010 ), students’ homework management ( Xu and Wu, 2013 ; Xu et al., 2017 ), and students’ homework motivation management ( Xu, 2014 ).

Analyzing students’ homework completion at 8th and 11th grade levels, Xu (2011) found a positive association with teacher homework feedback at both student level and class level. The explained variance was higher at class level. The author concluded that students’ homework completion is related to teachers’ provision of homework feedback ( Xu, 2011 ). This proposition is further substantiated by the findings by Bang (2011) , showing that high school immigrant students perceived teachers’ feedback as a facilitating factor, and the lack of it as an obstacle to homework completion.

More recently, Núñez et al. (2015b) conducted a study with students from various school years (grades 5–12) and concluded that the stronger the teachers’ homework feedback is perceived by students, the greater the amount of homework completed and the better the quality of homework time management (e.g., how well students managed time devoted to homework and avoided distractions). Moreover, these authors found that students’ academic achievement is indirectly and positively associated with homework feedback through students’ homework behaviors (i.e., amount of homework completed) and self-regulation (i.e., quality of homework time management), highlighting the importance of student engagement in the homework process ( Núñez et al., 2015b ). The results of Tas et al. (2016) are consistent with those, showing that middle school students’ homework self-regulation (e.g., orientation goals, learning strategies) mediated the relationship between perceived homework feedback and science achievement.

Bang (2012) reported that teachers acknowledged homework feedback (i.e., grading homework) as an important tool to motivate immigrant students to complete homework. Still, teachers admitted the educational challenge of providing homework feedback because of the time-consuming nature of this strategy. In fact, Rosário et al. (2015b) also reported the difficulties faced by EFL teachers to collect and grade homework on a regular basis. Both studies ( Bang, 2012 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ) called for further research on teachers’ perspectives about homework feedback.

In spite of the benefits of homework feedback for students previously reported, the literature has shown that teachers’ support in homework perceived by students decreases from elementary to middle school ( Katz et al., 2010 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ), without specifying in what aspects. Moreover, Kukliansky et al. (2016) recently observed middle school teachers’ behaviors in science classes (3–5 consecutive times) and found that in-class instructional feedback was not always provided, even when demanded by students. However, the authors did not explore the reasons why teachers did not provide feedback in this situation.

In sum, extant research on homework feedback has been conducted on controlled domain-centered contexts (e.g., Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ), on single grade levels (e.g., Kaur, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ; Xu et al., 2017 ), is non-subject-centered (e.g., Xu, 2011 ), or explored specific populations (e.g., teachers of immigrant students, Bang, 2012 ) (cf. Table ​ Table1 1 ), thus further research is needed to deepen the understanding of the homework feedback process.

Summary of studies that focus homework feedback.

The Present Study

Teachers are an important source of information in the study of the homework feedback process because they actually manage feedback in class ( Cooper, 2001 ). Still, little is known about how mathematics teachers of different school levels perceive homework feedback. Examining elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of the homework feedback is expected to reveal useful information on the homework process, especially teachers’ beliefs and practices concerning homework feedback (cf. Irving et al., 2011 ). The model of teachers’ conceptions of assessment and feedback ( Irving et al., 2011 ; see also Peterson and Irving, 2008 ) provides a relevant theoretical framework for the current research, and guided the research questions, data collection and analysis. This model addresses four key aspects of assessment and feedback: definition, purpose, personal response (i.e., types of assessment and feedback used) and perceived impact. Analyzing these key aspects focused on the homework feedback may provide data to help explain previous findings showing small effect sizes or low explained variances (see Zhu and Leung, 2012 ; Xu, 2014 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ; Rosário et al., 2015b ), and design future studies, homework policies or school-based interventions.

The following research questions guided the current study:

What are elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback?

How do the four key aspects of the homework feedback relate to each other?

The current study explores the conceptions of teachers of two school levels for two reasons. Firstly, there are some differences as to the educational goals of those school levels; while teachers at elementary school focus on working on the foundations of mathematics (e.g., giving support in the development of number sense), middle school students are expected to learn high-level concepts (e.g., application of proportional relationships). Secondly, homework research found that the characteristics of the homework assigned (e.g., amount of homework assigned, homework purposes) vary for elementary and middle school. For example, Mullis et al. (2004) found that middle school students are expected to do larger amounts of homework than elementary school students. Besides, the purposes of assignments may also vary for both school grades. While homework purposes for middle school may be more related to school contents assessed in tests, homework purposes for elementary school are more likely to aim at developing personal skills such as time management (e.g., Muhlenbruck et al., 1999 ; Cooper and Valentine, 2001 ). Notwithstanding, the recent meta-analysis focused on mathematics and science by Fan et al. (2017) included a study in which elementary school teachers reported to assign homework to practice basic mathematics skills (see Bedford, 2014 ). Those differences (e.g., amount of homework assigned, homework purposes) may help explain the differential results regarding the benefits of homework in elementary and middle school (e.g., Cooper et al., 2006 ; Fan et al., 2017 ). Hence, elementary and middle school teachers were invited to talk about homework feedback in order to learn their conceptions and reported practices.

The current study focuses on mathematics (see Trautwein et al., 2006 on the importance of focusing homework research on a specific domain). The reason is threefold: students’ achievement levels, educational relevance of the subject, and previous research findings on homework. There is a global educational concern about students’ poor performance in mathematics. The PISA 2012 report indicates that students from 35 countries show a mathematics performance below the OECD average ( OECD, 2014 ). This worrying educational scenario raises serious challenges for some countries (among which is Portugal), given the fundamental role played by mathematics in other subjects (e.g., biology, physics) and in the development of life and citizenship skills (e.g., Reyna and Brainerd, 2007 ; OECD, 2014 ; Hagger et al., 2015 ). Moreover, mathematics was chosen because of the great amount of homework that is regularly set by teachers (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2006 ; Schmitz and Perels, 2011 ; Xu, 2015 ).

Materials and Methods

School and participants characteristics.

The last 2 years of elementary school in the Portuguese educational system encompass 5th and 6th grades (10 and 11 years old), while middle school includes 7th, 8th, and 9th grade (12–14 years old). Students have 270 min of mathematics per week in 5th and 6th grade, and 225 min per week in each of the three middle school years. At the end of 6th and 9th grade students complete a final exam that counts toward 30% of the overall grade.

Homework is an educational tool often used by Portuguese teachers as part of their lessons; still, there are no formal homework policies for Portuguese public schools (e.g., characteristics of homework assignments, homework follow-up practices; Rosário et al., 2015b ).

In the current study, participants were involved in focus group discussions and some of them in classroom observations.

Participants in Focus Groups

Six focus group discussions were conducted in this study, each of which comprised 7–9 mathematics teachers. Three focus groups were set up with elementary school teachers (5th and 6th grade) and three focus groups with middle school teachers (7th, 8th, and 9th grade). Following Morgan (1997) , homogeneity of groups was ensured in order to encourage participation among participants and minimize inhibition. Participating teachers met the following criteria: (i) having experience in teaching mathematics at elementary or middle school for at least 2 years, and (ii) assigning homework and providing homework feedback regularly (at least once a week). These requirements aimed to guarantee participants’ ability to generate ideas and opinions to share in their focus group.

The school administrators from the pool of schools which had previously enrolled in other university research projects were contacted by the authors. From those schools who agreed to participate, 20 public schools (approximately 25%) were randomly selected, and 75 mathematics teachers (approximately 25% of the pool of available elementary and middle school teachers) were randomly selected. Teachers were e-mailed about the purposes and procedures of the study (e.g., duration of the session, videotaping of the session) and invited to participate. To encourage participation (see Krueger and Casey, 2010 ), teachers were offered a participation reward (i.e., gift card), free baby-sitting services and a 3-h seminar on homework process and SRL to be held after the study had concluded.

In the end, 47 mathematics teachers (an acceptance rate of 63%) from 12 schools agreed to participate in the present study. The first author phoned the volunteer teachers to schedule the focus group meeting. Then, teachers were distributed into the various groups considering criteria such as: school, school level, and preferred scheduled time. Teachers with a hierarchical relationship were not allocated in the same focus group because this might affect their responses and the dynamics of the discussion ( Kitzinger, 1995 ; Irving et al., 2011 ). In order to encourage attendance, all participants were reminded of the focus group session 1 week before and were asked to arrive 10 min early. A map with the location was sent to all participants.

All teachers attended the focus group discussions on the scheduled day (see Table ​ Table2 2 for focus group demographics). Twenty-four teachers (51.1%) were teaching at elementary school level, and 23 (48.9%) at middle school level. In general, participating teachers had 21 years of teaching experience ( SD = 6.11); taught students from middle-class families, as evidenced by the low percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch (19.7%, data collected from the secretary’s office of the participating schools).

Summary of demographic information of the focus groups.

Participants in Classroom Observations

Given the time-consuming nature of observational studies, of these 47 teachers, 25% of the participants were randomly selected and asked to be observed in their mathematics classes. Finally, six teachers of each school level ( N = 12; four males) were observed in their classrooms. These teachers had been teaching between two to five classes and they had an average of 19 years of teaching experience ( SD = 6.93).

Data Collection

Data was collected from two data sources: focus groups and classroom observations. The research team had previously enrolled in a qualitative research course offered by the University of Minho. Following a hands-on approach, the course training addressed topics including the following: how to lead focus group discussions (e.g., encouraging participation) and observations, and how to ensure the quality and credibility of a qualitative study.

This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the ethics committee of the University of Minho. All subjects gave written informed consent to the different phases of the research (i.e., focus groups and classroom observations) in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Focus Group Discussions

Focus group interviews allow for in-depth exploration of meanings, attitudes, and personal experiences of participants about a particular topic during an informal, but structured, group discussion ( Kitzinger, 1995 ; Krueger and Casey, 2010 ). This method of data collection helps capture teachers’ tacit knowledge in order to fill research gaps ( Ryan et al., 2014 ). The focus group interviews were conducted by two members of the research team as facilitators while a third member filmed the sessions. To meet teachers’ availability requirements to participate, four focus group discussions were held at the end of the school year (July), and two at the beginning of the following school year (October). Each focus group session lasted approximately 60 min and took place in a room with appropriate light and sound conditions. To create a friendly environment, snacks and refreshments were offered to participants before and after the discussion. The chairs were arranged in a half circle to allow participants to see each other and to facilitate the filming of everyone in the room.

Prior to the discussions, teachers filled in a socio-demographic questionnaire (e.g., gender, years of teaching experience) and signed the written informed consent form. Then, the facilitators introduced themselves, read aloud the study purpose and the basic rules of the focus group discussion, and ensured confidentiality of participants’ responses (i.e., any information that may identify participants or their schools was eliminated at the end of the study).

To facilitate the interaction between participants, all focus group sessions started with a warm-up activity. Then, the facilitators started the discussion with general questions (e.g., the importance of homework) and, following Peterson and Irving (2008) and Irving et al. (2011) , specific questions related to the four key aspects of homework feedback were asked: definition, purpose, types of homework feedback, and perceived impact (see Table ​ Table3 3 ). This set of questions was previously asked to two teachers in order to ensure comprehensibility. These teachers did not participate in the focus group discussions.

Key areas and guiding questions used in teachers’ focus groups.

Classroom Observations

Classroom observations were conducted to capture teachers’ spontaneous behaviors regarding the homework feedback process. All invited teachers were informed that they would be observed five times on average (see Kukliansky et al., 2016 ), in a period of 3 weeks in the middle of the school year (March). Teachers were blind to the exact date or timetable of the observations (dates of the mathematics assessment tests were excluded from the observations schedule) and all agreed to participate acknowledging these requirements. Two other members of the research team, who were knowledgeable about homework research, conducted the classroom observations. These observations incorporated a structured content based on previous homework research to direct researchers’ attention to teacher’s responses to students’ homework completion (see Choo et al., 2015 ). The instrument used to collect data included the five homework feedback types reported in the literature (e.g., Rosário et al., 2015b ). Additionally, researchers took field notes independently on the homework feedback process (e.g., time spent and how homework feedback was delivered), cross-checked and expanded upon their notes as promptly as possible. In the end, each teacher was observed on average five times, thus gathering a total of 64 h of classroom observations.

Data Analysis

Transcriptions of focus group discussions and observation field notes were analyzed using content analysis ( Bardin, 1996 ). The latter is a qualitative research technique used to search for and identify categories, following systematic procedures ( Bardin, 1996 ).

The researchers who conducted the focus groups carried out the data analysis. Content analysis followed three main steps ( Bardin, 1996 ): (i) reading the focus groups’ verbatim transcriptions to get an overview of the data (pre-analysis), (ii) coding (exploration of data), and (iii) treatment (e.g., percentages) and interpretation of data (e.g., comparing frequencies of coded categories). The organization, management, coding, and querying process of the data were conducted using the QSR International’s NVivo 10 software (e.g., Richards, 2005 ).

The extensiveness of comments (i.e., number of participants who convey an idea, Krueger and Casey, 2000 ) in the current study was the criterion used to identify categories. The identification of categories followed a deductive and inductive iterative process ( Bardin, 1996 ). The categories were organized a priori in a coding scheme based on the theoretical model by Irving et al. (2011) , and on the homework research (e.g., Walberg et al., 1985 ; Cooper, 2001 ; Xu, 2011 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). For example, the categories “definition,” “purposes,” “types,” and “perceived impact” of homework feedback were driven by the Irving et al. (2011) theoretical model, while each type of homework feedback (e.g., subcategory “checking homework on the board”) was driven by homework research (e.g., Rosário et al., 2015b ). New categories were added during the analysis using participants’ words ( Bardin, 1996 ). For example, the subcategories “homework feedback provided to teacher,” “self-esteem,” “homework self-feedback” were subcategories build upon teachers’ words. In the end, all transcripts were reviewed in order to check whether the already coded material fit the new subcategories.

Finally, the two researchers reviewed all the categories and sub-categories and discussed the differences found in order to reach a consensus (e.g., elimination of the subcategory “teachers assess students’ progress” because it was highly related to the subcategory “teachers monitor students’ learning”). After the data analysis of four focus group discussions (two from each school level), the researchers coded the two other focus group discussions and no new information was added. To ensure the reliability of findings, the Kappa value was calculated using the Coding Comparison Queries in the Navigation View of the NVivo software. The Kappa value was 0.86, which may be considered “almost perfect” according to Landis and Koch (1977 , p. 165). Then data from the elementary and middle school teachers were analyzed separately conducting a matrix-coding query, crossing nodes with attributes (i.e., school level). The number of participants for each subcategory was converted into a percentage.

The two researchers who conducted the classroom observations coded independently the process of homework feedback delivery described in the field notes according to the codebook used in the focus groups. No new categories or subcategories were identified or redefined. Data from the elementary and middle school teachers were analyzed separately following the procedure used in focus groups, and the number of participants for each subcategory was converted into a percentage. To avoid bias on the Kappa value in NVivo, due to different numbers of characters of the researchers’ field notes ( Kim et al., 2016 ), data was exported and IBM SPSS was used to calculate Cohen’s Kappa for nominal variables. The Cohen’s Kappa value for each subcategory ranged between 0.81 and 1.0, which indicates high agreement across observers.

To answer the second research question (i.e., How do the four key aspects of the homework feedback relate to each other?), data analysis followed two steps using the same software. First, a Cluster Analysis Wizard by word similarity between nodes was conducted to explore patterns and connections between nodes in an initial phase of data analysis ( Bazeley and Jackson, 2013 ). Second, a case-by-nodes matrix was conducted to explore the relationships between each category in the focus group discussion transcripts as suggested by Bazeley and Jackson (2013) .

Specific quality procedures were used to enhance the trustworthiness of the findings of the current study ( Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ): investigator triangulation (i.e., several investigators were involved in the analysis process), methodological triangulation (i.e., patterns in data from focus groups and classroom observations were compared using a matrix-coding query, crossing nodes with classified sources – focus group and observations), and a member checking run at the University facilities. The researchers randomly selected and invited 25% of the participants of each grade level to do a member check ( Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ). Ten teachers agreed to participate (six from elementary school and four from middle school) (response rate of 83%). Member checking session lasted approximately 2 h. Firstly, participants were informed of the findings (approximately 45 min). Afterward, they were given a copy of the findings and asked to analyze and discuss whether the description was an authentic representation of the topics covered during the focus group interviews. The participants also analyzed whether the description of the homework feedback types provided to students was an authentic representation of what usually happens in class. Participants were invited to critically analyze the findings and comment on them ( Creswell, 2007 ).

Data were organized and reported according to each of the key aspects of teachers’ conceptions of the homework feedback (see Peterson and Irving, 2008 ): definition, purpose, types of homework feedback practices, and perceived impact of homework feedback (see Figures ​ Figures1 1 , ​ 2 2 ). Furthermore, the relationships between these four aspects were presented (see Figure ​ Figure3 3 ). Teachers’ verbatim quotes were introduced to illustrate the categories and conversations held in the focus group discussions (see also Table ​ Table4 4 ). In addition, whenever possible, data from classroom observations were included to illustrate findings. Categories were reported using the criteria by Hill et al. (2005 , p. 16) as follows: general (i.e., categories include all, or all but one, of the cases), typical (i.e., categories include more than half of the cases) and variant (i.e., categories include more than three cases or up to half of the cases). For reasons of parsimony, rare categories (two or three cases) were not reported.

Elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback for each key aspect.

Observed elementary and middle school teachers’ homework feedback practices.

Relationships among teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback.

Summary of findings.

Initial Data Screening

All participants reported assigning homework regularly and considered homework feedback as an important element for homework effectiveness. Data showed that, for each homework assignment, 96% of the elementary school teachers and 52% of the middle school teachers reported spending approximately 30 min giving homework feedback in class. Moreover, 48% of the middle school teachers spent on average 15 min giving homework feedback in class. Classroom observations provided precise information on the time spent in class giving homework feedback: 3–80 min in elementary school classes ( M = 32.75; SD = 19.91), and 5–55 min in middle school classes ( M = 29.89; SD = 17.36).

Definitions of Homework Feedback

When teachers were asked about their definition of homework feedback, the majority said they “had never thought about it” (F1P1). Still, elementary and middle school teachers elaborated on homework feedback differently (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ). Teachers from elementary school proposed two meanings for homework feedback: (i) homework feedback provided by the teacher and (ii) students’ homework self-feedback. For middle school teachers, homework feedback was conceptualized as threefold): (i) homework feedback provided by the teacher; (ii) homework feedback provided by the student; and (iii) students’ homework self-feedback. The analysis of the frequency labels for each category revealed no general categories, which allows concluding that definitions of homework feedback vary among teachers, irrespective of the grade level. Moreover, while “homework feedback provided to students” is a variant category in elementary school, in middle school is a typical category (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ).

For elementary school teachers in one focus group discussion and for middle school teachers in two focus groups, homework feedback provided by teachers was defined as a message provided to students with information concerning their homework behaviors (i.e., completion, effort), and comprehension of homework tasks and performance (e.g., how well students answered, why answers are wrong).

Middle school teachers in all focus groups conceptualized homework feedback in the reverse direction (i.e., from the students to the teacher), as the following statement illustrates:

• simple  F5P2: Some weeks ago, I noticed that several students in class had not understood some homework exercises. I asked the whole class and found out that no one had understood. Two or three students said: Sir, these exercises were a bit complicated… We did not understand what we were expected to do, how to start… This was the homework feedback they gave me.

The remaining teachers nodded their heads in agreement and added that this piece of information gathered at the beginning of a lesson helps them choose the type of homework feedback to give to students.

Lastly, elementary school teachers of two focus groups, and middle school teachers of one focus group (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ) proposed another meaning for homework feedback: “homework self-feedback” (typical category in elementary school and variant category in middle school). The following utterance illustrates this conceptualization:

• simple  F2P3: Homework feedback is when students can explain or reflect upon what they are doing…or checking from their seats when we check homework on the board.

Another elementary school teacher elaborated on students’ homework self-feedback:

• simple  F4P4: Homework feedback is also related to students’ homework completion. All my students draw a grid in their notebooks and devote one row to homework. Every day they write 1 for “completed” homework and 0 for “missing.” At the end of the term they have a score. I believe this to be self-feedback because students know their score and link it to school grades. They know that those who complete homework are likely to achieve better results. The opposite is also true….

This type of homework feedback (i.e., self-feedback) is more focused on students’ homework behaviors than on students’ homework performance. Still, other teachers from the same focus group reported that they do not use this strategy with their students.

Purposes of Homework Feedback

The homework feedback purposes identified by teachers at both school levels were similar. Teachers enthusiastically talked about homework feedback as a “working tool” serving three main purposes (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ): (i) teachers monitor students’ learning and behavior (typical category in both school levels); (ii) students monitor their own learning (typical category in elementary school and variant category in middle school); and (iii) promotion of students’ self-esteem (variant category in both school levels).

When asked to expand on this idea, participants explained that homework feedback helps teachers identify students’ difficulties and monitor their content knowledge, which provides information to self-evaluate the instruction process and introduce changes if necessary. In fact, some students struggle to learn and show difficulties to understand and complete homework. To promote students’ motivation to do homework, teachers agreed on the need – “after charging our batteries of patience” (F6P3) – to explain in class how to do homework exercises. Besides, teachers exemplified the usefulness of homework feedback for monitoring students’ homework behaviors (e.g., checking whether students have completed their homework, whether they have copied the solutions from a textbook). This category emerged in all focus group discussions, and was consensual among participants. Teachers emphatically agreed on the examples discussed and expanded on others’ ideas. The following statements illustrate some of the conversations held:

• simple  F2P4: Homework feedback is important in order to learn about what is happening on earth [some teachers laughed], to learn whether most students do their homework, whether they manage to do it alone or need some help, but also to learn about their difficulties during the learning process and act upon their mistakes.
• simple  F2P1: To know whether I delivered the message well or not so… Homework feedback should make us change our instruction methodologies. If the message was not properly delivered, it’s necessary to change the course of action…

Moreover, many elementary and some middle school teachers in all focus groups mentioned students’ monitoring of their own learning as an important purpose of homework feedback, as illustrated by the following opinion:

• simple  F5P3: With the help of homework feedback, students can learn what is right or wrong in their homework. If the homework assignment is correct, they get some positive reinforcement. If it is not correct, they learn that they have to study more and do additional exercises.

Some points made by participants focused exclusively on one of the two previous purposes (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ). However, some teachers in all focus groups irrespective of grade level considered homework feedback a purposeful tool for teachers or students to monitor progress in learning. In sum, teachers admitted that homework feedback provides on-task opportunities for teachers and students to monitor the teaching and learning process.

Moreover, teachers from five focus groups pointed at the promotion of students’ self-esteem as another purpose of homework feedback (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ). Elementary and middle school teachers supported this idea, showing concern about students’ wellbeing, mainly of low achievers:

• simple  F5P6: When they [students] realize that they are capable of doing homework exercises, they feel very happy and proud of themselves. When they fail to complete or feel frustrated because they couldn’t find a way to do the exercises, I try to make positive comments, highlighting what they did well in order to make them feel confident. It is crucial to give them positive reinforcements to improve their self-esteem.

Types of Homework Feedback Practices

Going further in the discussion, teachers identified the most frequently used homework feedback practices: (i) checking homework completion; (ii) checking homework on the board; (iii) testing related content; (iv) considering homework in the overall grade; (v) informing parents of their children’s homework non-compliance (homework feedback to parents); and (vi) giving written comments (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ).

The two types of homework feedback practices first mentioned in all focus group discussions were: checking who completes homework and checking homework on the board. The classroom observations (see Figure ​ Figure2 2 ) provided information on the classroom routines and, with some exceptions, allowed concluding that classes usually begin with similar routines: checking who did homework and then checking homework on the board.

As Figure ​ Figure1 1 shows, checking homework completion is a general and typical category among elementary and middle school teachers, respectively. When discussing this practice (see Table ​ Table4 4 ), some of the elementary and middle school teachers argued that they simply ask who completed homework. On the other hand, most elementary and some middle school teachers explained that they walk around the class having a glance at students’ notebooks in order to check homework completion. This strategy allows noting who actually did their homework and gathers information on how students did it (e.g., whether students followed all the steps to solve a problem). In this process, teachers reported that they try to understand the reasons why students did not complete homework (e.g., is failing to complete homework a class problem or is it only associated with a particular student?). The participating teachers considered this type of homework feedback useful because it gives information on the process and allows them to respond to students’ maladaptive homework behaviors (e.g., missing homework, copying solutions from peer students, writing down results without checking). Teachers from both school levels reported using logs in class to record who missed homework, and data from the classroom observations corroborated this finding. When asked how they usually deal with maladaptive homework completion behaviors, some teachers at both school levels reported criticizing students who repeatedly fail to complete homework or copy answers from the textbook, as the following utterance illustrates:

• simple  F6P5: Where is your homework? Oh, I see. Keep working like this and you will get far… [ironic tone]

The use of public criticism and irony in response to maladaptive homework behaviors was observed sometimes in elementary school classes, and often in middle school classes.

When discussing the best practice regarding homework, participants at both school levels named checking homework on the board as a practice that “reaches all students” (F6P4). All teachers were very emphatic about the importance and usefulness of this type of feedback. As Figure ​ Figure1 1 shows, this practice is the most frequently used by elementary and middle school teachers. Moreover, present data (i.e., focus group discussions and classroom observations) suggest several ways in which this type of homework feedback may be put into practice. For example, some teachers reported that they check homework on the board; others mentioned writing on the board the answers dictated by students from their seats; while others explained that they randomly choose one or more students to do homework exercises on the board. Elementary and middle school teachers further explained additional homework feedback practices adopted after displaying the solution for the exercise on the board: (i) whole-class discussion led by the teacher; (ii) further explanation provided by the teacher or by the students on what is written on the board; (iii) teachers’ praise for students’ efforts in learning or good performance, or (iv) general incentives encouraging students to persist when doing homework. The observations conducted in the classrooms provided data that showed that all these strategies were used in class when teachers were checking homework on the board. Still, frequency and sequence of the strategies used by teachers (e.g., students check homework on the board, teacher explains problem solving procedures, class discussion) varied according to the needs and characteristics of the class. Moreover, classroom observations revealed that when students ask teachers for help, some teachers provide individual explanations while checking homework on the board. For example, when students raise their hand to show a lack of understanding while checking homework on the board, some teachers go to the student’s desk to answer their question individually.

Teachers at both school levels also emphasized checking homework on the board as a way of giving feedback to the whole class with minimum time and effort:

• simple  F1P1: When homework is being checked on the board by a student, I identify what is incorrect and explain how the exercise may be approached. Still, this feedback is very general because I cannot check every single assignment that students hands in. I simple cannot do it!

However, some participating teachers alerted that students who check homework on the board get a more detailed type of feedback than those who passively watch from their seats or do not pay attention to the checking process.

Moreover, many elementary and some middle school teachers in all focus group discussions mentioned asking questions, or assigning exercises similar to those of previous homework assignments (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 , Testing of related content). Data from the classroom observations confirmed this practice. Participants stressed that this practice provides students with a new feedback event centered on the level of accuracy of their responses and on their ability to transfer the knowledge learned to new tasks. However, despite the general agreement regarding this homework feedback practice, some middle school teachers admitted that they only check students’ ability to transfer knowledge in assessment tests and claimed that this practice should not be considered homework feedback – “This is assessment, not feedback! [Emphatic tone]” (F1P5).

Most participants at both school levels reported following their school’s assessment criteria regarding homework. Generally, homework completion counts for 2–5% of the overall grade in mathematics. When asked to be more specific, several teachers explained that they use information on homework completion recorded in class logs, while others declared using information on students’ performance when checking homework on the board. Teachers admitted that they do not examine the quality of all homework assignments given in class because of the heavy workload they faced on a daily basis. During classroom observations, teachers registered who did not complete homework and sometimes they referred that this behavior would decrease their overall grade. Most teachers in all focus groups reported including information on homework completion in the overall mathematics grade; still, less than half identified this practice as a type of homework feedback.

Furthermore, some of the elementary and middle school teachers in all focus groups mentioned sending parents a message when their children miss homework three times as a type of homework feedback. This practice was confirmed by data from classroom observations. Interestingly, participants did not mention reporting children’s progress on homework to parents during the focus group discussions, and accordingly this practice was not observed in class.

Finally, a few elementary school teachers in two focus group discussions and a few middle school teachers in one focus group reported commenting on students’ homework regularly. Comments address the strengths and weaknesses of homework, pointing out the topics that need to be improved, as the following quotation exemplifies:

• simple  F4P1: I comment on what is done well, but I also point out mistakes and suggest ways to improve what is wrong or not so well done. For example, I’d write: “Great line of reasoning but try to do x so you’ll only have to do two calculations and you’ll finish the exercises faster.” Unfortunately, sometimes I have to write other kinds of comments such as “What a coincidence, your answer is exactly the same as Joana’s or Catarina’s … and the three of you have made exactly the same mistakes…”

These few participants were asked by their focus group peers how they managed to comment on students’ homework regularly. A teacher answered that she could do it because she had been assigned only one class; still, “I spent my lunch hour and some of my free time at school working on this” (F3P3). Another teacher explained that she provides this type of homework feedback weekly, except for those weeks when students have assessment tests. According to this last participant, the negative side of this practice, “frustrating I should say” (F4P1), is when students copy homework answers from another student. Commenting on students’ homework is a very time-consuming practice, and this participant expressed feeling discouraged when such maladaptive behaviors occur in class. To overcome the “very time-consuming obstacle,” another teacher who also claimed to use this practice explained that he usually asks the whole class to complete homework on a separate sheet – “I choose only one good exercise which reflects the material covered in class” (F5P7). In the next lesson, and without prior notice, he collects four or five homework assignments, which are returned with feedback comments in the following class. Participants in the three focus group discussions agreed that this type of homework feedback is very useful, but also stressed the unlikelihood of giving it in class because of the heavy workload they as teachers have to bear (e.g., teachers have to teach five or six classes at different grade levels, each of them with over 25 students, heavy curriculums). In this context, one participant complained: “I’m not a rubber band that may be stretched [endlessly]” (F5P5).

Perceived Impact of Homework Feedback

As Figure ​ Figure1 1 shows, elementary and middle school teachers highlighted the positive impact of homework feedback on content learning, self-esteem, and homework completion (some categories are typical and others are variant).

The following dialog among elementary school teachers illustrates their conceptions on the impact of homework feedback:

• simple  F4P9: Students who complete homework regularly are more willing to understand the contents covered.
• simple  F4P2: …and they complete homework more often… At least I notice more effort.

Moreover, both elementary and middle school teachers related homework feedback to class participation (variant category in both school levels), as the following participant argued:

• simple  F4P5: Yes…they [students who complete homework regularly] follow classroom instructions and participate in class more actively, for example, by asking me questions and answering mine more frequently…

Only elementary school teachers in two focus group discussions related homework feedback to students’ achievement, while none of the middle school teachers did so (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ). In fact, some of the middle school teachers in all the focus group discussions defended the need for students to play an active role in their learning, arguing that homework feedback is not worthwhile for those who are not interested in learning.

Relationships between Teachers’ Conceptions of Homework Feedback

The second research question aimed to examine how the four key aspects of the homework feedback are related. Figure ​ Figure3 3 provides a graphical model of teachers’ most salient conceptions of homework feedback and the relationships among them. The bold solid lines represent typical cases (more than 50%), the thinner solid lines represent variant categories (between 25 and 50% cases), and the dotted lines represent variant categories (between 17 and 24% cases). All lines represent the conceptions of both elementary and middle school teachers except for the lines with an asterisk, which refer to a specific school level (see legend of Figure ​ Figure3 3 ).

As Figure ​ Figure3 3 shows, the definitions of homework feedback provided by elementary and middle school teachers differ regarding the purposes for giving homework feedback. The middle school teachers perceived homework feedback as the feedback provided by the teacher to their students about their homework. The purpose for this homework feedback was described by teachers as twofold: help teachers monitor students’ learning and help students monitor their own learning. The latter was mentioned less often by middle school teachers. Besides, the middle school teachers conceptualized homework feedback provided to teachers by their students with the purpose of helping teachers monitor students’ learning.

In turn, elementary school teachers perceived homework feedback mainly as self-feedback and, accordingly, conceptualized students’ monitoring of their learning as the main purpose for giving homework feedback. While discussing, these teachers highlighted students’ active role in self-regulate their learning during and after homework completion (e.g., students checking their answers when solutions are written on the board). Still, the elementary school teachers did not explain how they promote these self-regulation skills in class. Moreover, the second set of relationships (i.e., purposes and homework feedback types) reveals a different pattern of results as described below.

Interestingly, the participating teachers operationalized both homework purposes (i.e., teachers monitoring students learning and students’ monitoring their own learning, the latter less often; see Figure ​ Figure3 3 ) through the “checking homework on the board” homework feedback type. Teachers’ arguments were twofold: this practice allows checking students’ level of understanding of content (e.g., students solving exercises autonomously on the board), and students can learn about their skills while checking their answers with those written on the board.

The homework feedback practice testing related contents was also linked to both purposes but only by elementary school teachers. These teachers argued that providing students with similar exercises to those previously set as homework helps teachers monitor their students’ learning and students to monitor their own learning.

The purpose “teachers’ monitoring their students’ learning” was linked to the practice “checking homework completion” by elementary and middle school teachers. This homework feedback practice helps teachers learn who completed homework and collect information on the content with which students are struggling the most. This information is expected to help teachers meet their students’ needs.

Finally, the various types of homework feedback were associated with various perceived impacts. Teachers at both school levels converged in the fact that checking homework completion impacts students’ homework completion positively. In general, teachers mentioned that some students are “immature” and their lack of active involvement and strong volition prevent them from completing homework. Thus, most of the teachers at both school levels anticipated that external control is needed to help students complete homework. Checking homework completion was referred to as an important tool for encouraging students to do homework.

As Figure ​ Figure3 3 depicts, teachers described checking homework on the board as the homework feedback practice that most benefits students. According to participants, this practice fosters self-esteem (only reported by elementary school teachers), homework completion (reported by some teachers at both school levels), class participation (reported by some teachers at both levels), and learning of the content taught in class (reported by most of the teachers from both levels). Teachers explained that praising students on their good performance while doing exercises on the board is likely to increase their self-esteem. Furthermore, teachers said that this practice encourages homework completion and increases class participation because it provides students with specific information on how to solve exercises.

Some elementary school teachers reported that testing related content helps students participate more in class (e.g., answering teacher’s questions, asking more questions) and be more engaged in their learning.

A few teachers at both school levels (see Figure ​ Figure3 3 ) mentioned counting homework in the overall grade, and communicating with parents when their children miss homework three times as two types of homework feedback with impact on students’ homework completion. Counting homework completion in the overall grade was referred to as a direct incentive for students to complete homework. However, some teachers alerted that this practice may not always be effective because of the time gap between students’ homework behaviors and the end of term when they get their final grade report. Thus, all agreed that teachers should respond to students’ homework behaviors (e.g., missing homework or doing assignments correctly) as soon as possible. Participants highlighted the importance of communicating with families about children’s homework behaviors. However, teachers alerted that this type of homework feedback may not be effective without the implication of the family in the learning process; “if the family is aware of the importance of this type of practice, then it will be effective, otherwise it will have no effect” (F3P4).

As reported previously, 17% of the elementary and middle school teachers claimed to make written comments on students’ homework assignments (see Figure ​ Figure1 1 ). However, when discussing the possible impact of the various types of homework feedback, more teachers (than that 17%) agreed that written comments on students’ assignments would improve students’ learning of content (see Figure ​ Figure3 3 ). These teachers mentioned that personalized homework feedback would help students correct their mistakes and might provide guidance on the topics that need to be further studied. As a result, students were likely to improve their grades.

The discussion of the current study is organized according to each key aspect of teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback. Regarding the first key aspect of homework feedback, teachers proposed a multifaceted definition of homework feedback: (i) homework feedback provided by the teacher, (ii) homework feedback provided by the student, and (iii) homework self-feedback. The latter extends the definition of Cooper (2001) , who defined homework feedback as the teachers’ responses to students’ homework completion as a follow-up (e.g., comments, incentives, grades). The definition of homework self-feedback is linked to the internal feedback or self-feedback proposed by Butler and Winne (1995) and Hattie and Timperley (2007) , respectively. According to these authors, students are expected to display self-regulatory skills to self-evaluate their performance in homework assignments (see Hattie and Timperley, 2007 ). Interestingly, this category is typical in elementary school, but variant in middle school. This is an important finding because the generation of internal feedback requires knowledge on strategies and standards, as well as the capacity to judge the quality of a task in relation to standards, which not all students are capable of, especially those at lower grade levels ( Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons, 1990 ; Butler and Winne, 1995 ; Rosário et al., 2016 ). Moreover, low achievers struggling to learn often fail to activate and control the SRL process ( Núñez et al., 2015a ). In fact, these students are likely to fail to monitor their homework behaviors because they do not know “whether they are on the right track” (F4P8).

Consistently with literature, teachers’ major conceptions of homework feedback purposes addressed monitoring students’ learning, either focusing on teachers’ or on students’ role ( Corno, 2000 ; An and Wu, 2012 ; Bang, 2012 ). This may be particularly important in mathematics where contents are organized so as to follow a continuous progression and lower levels prepare the foundations of subsequent levels ( Pijls and Dekker, 2011 ). Teachers’ monitoring provides the opportunity for teachers to change their teaching practices in response to students’ needs ( Walberg and Paik, 2000 ; Kralovec and Buell, 2001 ), which may be understood as a “student-centered” approach (see Sheridan, 2013 ). The conception of homework feedback purposes focused on students’ monitoring their work emphasizes students’ active role during the homework process and the use of SRL competencies such as self-monitoring and self-reflection (e.g., Ramdass and Zimmerman, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ). The last purpose of homework feedback proposed by participants is to “promote self-esteem.” This purpose is not mentioned in homework literature; however, in the study by Irving et al. (2011) , teachers mentioned the need to inform students about the positive aspects of their performance, thus incentivizing their progress, especially among low achievers showing low self-esteem.

Regarding the third topic of homework feedback (homework feedback types), findings in the current study are consistent with literature ( Cooper, 2001 ; Mullis et al., 2004 ; Kaur, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ; Kukliansky et al., 2016 ). However, despite the similarity of the homework feedback practices reported by elementary and middle school teachers, the percentages of each reported category vary. For example, checking homework completion and checking homework on the board are general categories in elementary school and typical categories in middle school; while testing of related content is a typical category in elementary school and a variant category in middle school. These findings are consistent with students’ reports on their teachers’ support in homework ( Katz et al., 2010 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ). A decrease in teachers’ support in homework at middle school level is expected because older students are likely to be more autonomous. However, Katz et al. (2010) found that the middle school students who perceived low teachers’ homework support reported high psychological needs and low intrinsic motivation. Other important finding to note is the use of criticism observed in elementary and middle school classrooms which may have the opposite effect of teachers’ intentions (e.g., reduce homework non-compliance). In fact, being criticized in class is likely to be non-constructive because it may reduce students’ willingness to accept criticism and result in low favorable responses toward homework. On the contrary, criticism delivered in private is likely to lead to better responses (see Leung et al., 2001 ).

According to participants, homework feedback impacts in the following aspects: content learning, self-esteem, homework completion, class participation, and achievement. Globally, this finding is consistent with previous research (e.g., Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2009 ; Xu, 2011 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ), except for class participation and self-esteem which have not yet been studied. It is interesting to note, however, that despite most teachers reported spending 30 min or more providing homework feedback in each class (see Initial Data Screening subsection); about one third of elementary school teachers related homework feedback to students’ achievement, while none of the middle school teachers did so. However, prior research has evidenced the positive impact of homework feedback on students’ academic achievement ( Núñez et al., 2015b ), especially when teachers provide suggestions on how to improve learning (see Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Walberg et al., 1985 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ).

Moreover, middle school teachers added that when students do not play an active role in their learning, feedback is not likely to have any impact. This conception is consistent with the SRL approach to the homework process (e.g., Xu and Wu, 2013 ; Xu, 2014 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ) which stresses, for example, the role that teachers may play in helping students define their own homework goals and reflect on the relationship between homework completion and achieving self-set learning goals (e.g., Núñez et al., 2015b ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). As Labuhn et al. (2010) observed, the feedback provided by teachers may not impact students’ learning and behaviors if students do not understand what is intended with homework feedback.

Findings gathered from relationships between teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback provide additional useful insights. Interestingly, the two most frequently reported types of homework feedback (i.e., checking homework completion and checking homework on the board) in both school levels are more linked to the purpose “teachers monitoring students’ learning” than to the purpose “students monitoring their own learning.” This data may suggest that teachers may not be fully aware of the importance of promoting students’ SRL competencies to increase the benefits of homework feedback or they may lack the knowledge to promote these skills in class (see Spruce and Bol, 2015 ).

Practical Implications

The current study provides four major findings of relevance for educational practice: (i) decrease of teachers’ reported homework feedback practices from elementary to middle school level; (ii) a few teachers from elementary school and none from middle school level perceive homework feedback impacting on students’ academic achievement; (iii) usage of public criticism in class, especially in middle school; and (iv) teachers’ lack of awareness on SRL strategies.

First, teachers and school administrators with the help of school psychologists could examine homework practices delivered in class, namely homework feedback, to analyze whether they are set to be responsive to students’ educational needs. As found in the current study, there is a decrease of the homework feedback from elementary to middle school; however, this finding should be considered by teachers because, according to literature, many middle school students still report the need of teachers’ homework support (e.g., Katz et al., 2010 ).

Data also showed that both elementary and middle school teachers spend around 30 min providing homework feedback in class, but the perceived impact of this school practice on students’ achievement was barely mentioned in the focus groups. This data merit reflection within the school context to understand whether homework feedback is being used with efficacy. For example, school-based training for teachers’ on homework models (e.g., Cooper, 2001 ; Trautwein et al., 2006 ) could theoretically ground their homework practices in schools. This training would also help teachers understand that criticism and irony in class may discourage homework compliance, but it also may lead to undesirable outcomes such as children homework disengagement.

Finally, data (e.g., elementary school teachers believe that students generate homework self-feedback; the homework feedback practices most used in class are more closely related to the purpose “teachers monitoring students’ learning” than to the purpose “students monitoring their own learning”) suggest the need to set school-based training for teachers on SRL strategies. This training could consider addressing the homework process in relation with SRL to promote students’ agency and sense of responsibility over homework and homework feedback in particular. For example, teachers are expected to learn and practice how to model the use of SRL strategies in class ( Rosário et al., 2013 ; Spruce and Bol, 2015 ). In fact, students lacking SRL skills may fail to use the homework feedback delivered in class, which may compromise the impact of this instructional tool on students learning and achievement (see Corno, 2000 ; Peterson and Irving, 2008 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ). To promote the development of students SRL competencies and increase the benefits of homework feedback, teachers may also consider using “diary tasks” to promote students’ homework self-reflection in class (see Ferreira et al., 2015 ).

Strengths, Limitations, and Future Research

To authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to map mathematics teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback and examine the relationships between teachers’ definitions, purposes, types, and perceived impact of homework feedback. The analysis of these relationships focusing on a specific content domain at two school levels showed which categories were linked, and how, by the participating teachers. This study extended previous research conducted with mathematics teachers from a single grade level (see Kaur, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ).

According to the current findings, elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback vary, as well as the time spent in class providing feedback. Moreover, in spite of the fact that the types of homework feedback practices are the same, the type of categories (i.e., general vs. typical and typical vs. variant) varies in the two school levels, and the dynamic of providing homework feedback at those school levels is diverse and complex (e.g., usage of various strategies to provide some types of homework feedback, even by the same teacher). These findings may help understand why the relationship between homework and academic achievement reported in the literature varies from elementary to middle school (see Cooper et al., 2006 ; Fan et al., 2017 ).

Furthermore, the complexity of the homework feedback process reflected by the collected data may not be captured by extant instruments that examine teachers’ homework feedback practices. To some extent, this may contribute to understand the low effect sizes and explained variances found in the homework feedback research (e.g., Xu, 2014 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). This finding reinforces the need for future studies collect data using more than one method to capture and better understand the phenomenon of the homework process and its influence on students’ academic outcomes (e.g., Cooper et al., 2006 ). Furthermore, findings showed positive relationships between some types of homework feedback practices and perceived impact on students’ variables that have not yet been examined in homework research (e.g., checking homework on the blackboard and class participation). Future studies may consider further examining these relationships.

The present study followed methodological procedures to enhance trustworthiness of findings such as random sampling, investigator and methodological triangulation, provision of direct quotations, and member checking ( Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ; Shenton, 2004 ; Elo et al., 2014 ). Results from member checking were very positive. The majority of the participants agreed that the description of the findings was a genuine reflection of the topics covered in the focus group discussions, and of the homework routines in the classroom. No suggestions were made to change the description of data. Such data have strengthened present findings. In addition, teachers highlighted that they usually choose types of homework feedback that reach all students because of the professional constraints they experience daily (i.e., heavy workload). This topic was mentioned during the discussions and may merit further investigation because it may be an important factor compromising the homework feedback process.

Notwithstanding the strengths of the current study, there are also some limitations that need to be addressed. Classroom observations helped strengthen findings, nevertheless only 25% of the participating teachers were observed in a limited period of time. Moreover, most of the participants have extensive experience in teaching, which may have contributed to the results. As Hattie (2003) reported, expert teachers are more capable of seeking and giving feedback, and also monitoring their students’ learning than novice teachers. Conducting studies on novice teachers would help identify their specific needs for training on instructional variables, and design school-based interventions to meet these professionals’ needs.

Elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback were mapped, but the role of students in the homework feedback process should be further researched. Further investigation may want to explore elementary and middle school students’ conceptions of homework feedback and compare their responses with current findings. The information provided would be useful to learn how students understand (e.g., in what ways students perceive teachers’ homework feedback practices as helpful, see Xu, 2016 ) and cope with the homework feedback given in class. Examining the (mis)alignment of both conceptions of homework feedback (elementary and middle school teachers and students) may help deepen the understanding of the impact of homework feedback and further examine the differential relationship between doing homework and academic achievement at these two school levels (see Cooper et al., 2006 ). The results, although promising, should be further investigated in different school grades and subjects. At this level, however, they may be useful to researchers looking for an in-depth understanding of homework feedback and willing to explore new research topics on the “last but not least” aspect of the homework process.

Ethics Statement

This study was reviewed and approved by the ethics committee of the University of Minho. All research participants provided written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Author Contributions

JC and PR substantially contributed to the conception and the design of the work. JC was responsible for the literature search. JC, AN, TM, JN, and TN were responsible for the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data for the work. PR was also in charge of technical guidance. JN made important intellectual contribution in manuscript revision. JC wrote the manuscript with valuable inputs from the remaining authors. All authors agreed for all aspects of the work and approved the version to be published.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

Authors would like to thank Sofia Kirkman and Fuensanta Monroy for the English editing of the manuscript.

Funding. This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre (UID/PSI/01662/2013), University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653). JC was supported by a Ph.D. fellowship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT – SFRH/BD/95341/2013).

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Student Opinion

Should We Get Rid of Homework?

Some educators are pushing to get rid of homework. Would that be a good thing?

By Jeremy Engle and Michael Gonchar

Do you like doing homework? Do you think it has benefited you educationally?

Has homework ever helped you practice a difficult skill — in math, for example — until you mastered it? Has it helped you learn new concepts in history or science? Has it helped to teach you life skills, such as independence and responsibility? Or, have you had a more negative experience with homework? Does it stress you out, numb your brain from busywork or actually make you fall behind in your classes?

Should we get rid of homework?

In “ The Movement to End Homework Is Wrong, ” published in July, the Times Opinion writer Jay Caspian Kang argues that homework may be imperfect, but it still serves an important purpose in school. The essay begins:

Do students really need to do their homework? As a parent and a former teacher, I have been pondering this question for quite a long time. The teacher side of me can acknowledge that there were assignments I gave out to my students that probably had little to no academic value. But I also imagine that some of my students never would have done their basic reading if they hadn’t been trained to complete expected assignments, which would have made the task of teaching an English class nearly impossible. As a parent, I would rather my daughter not get stuck doing the sort of pointless homework I would occasionally assign, but I also think there’s a lot of value in saying, “Hey, a lot of work you’re going to end up doing in your life is pointless, so why not just get used to it?” I certainly am not the only person wondering about the value of homework. Recently, the sociologist Jessica McCrory Calarco and the mathematics education scholars Ilana Horn and Grace Chen published a paper, “ You Need to Be More Responsible: The Myth of Meritocracy and Teachers’ Accounts of Homework Inequalities .” They argued that while there’s some evidence that homework might help students learn, it also exacerbates inequalities and reinforces what they call the “meritocratic” narrative that says kids who do well in school do so because of “individual competence, effort and responsibility.” The authors believe this meritocratic narrative is a myth and that homework — math homework in particular — further entrenches the myth in the minds of teachers and their students. Calarco, Horn and Chen write, “Research has highlighted inequalities in students’ homework production and linked those inequalities to differences in students’ home lives and in the support students’ families can provide.”

Mr. Kang argues:

But there’s a defense of homework that doesn’t really have much to do with class mobility, equality or any sense of reinforcing the notion of meritocracy. It’s one that became quite clear to me when I was a teacher: Kids need to learn how to practice things. Homework, in many cases, is the only ritualized thing they have to do every day. Even if we could perfectly equalize opportunity in school and empower all students not to be encumbered by the weight of their socioeconomic status or ethnicity, I’m not sure what good it would do if the kids didn’t know how to do something relentlessly, over and over again, until they perfected it. Most teachers know that type of progress is very difficult to achieve inside the classroom, regardless of a student’s background, which is why, I imagine, Calarco, Horn and Chen found that most teachers weren’t thinking in a structural inequalities frame. Holistic ideas of education, in which learning is emphasized and students can explore concepts and ideas, are largely for the types of kids who don’t need to worry about class mobility. A defense of rote practice through homework might seem revanchist at this moment, but if we truly believe that schools should teach children lessons that fall outside the meritocracy, I can’t think of one that matters more than the simple satisfaction of mastering something that you were once bad at. That takes homework and the acknowledgment that sometimes a student can get a question wrong and, with proper instruction, eventually get it right.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

Should we get rid of homework? Why, or why not?

Is homework an outdated, ineffective or counterproductive tool for learning? Do you agree with the authors of the paper that homework is harmful and worsens inequalities that exist between students’ home circumstances?

Or do you agree with Mr. Kang that homework still has real educational value?

When you get home after school, how much homework will you do? Do you think the amount is appropriate, too much or too little? Is homework, including the projects and writing assignments you do at home, an important part of your learning experience? Or, in your opinion, is it not a good use of time? Explain.

In these letters to the editor , one reader makes a distinction between elementary school and high school:

Homework’s value is unclear for younger students. But by high school and college, homework is absolutely essential for any student who wishes to excel. There simply isn’t time to digest Dostoyevsky if you only ever read him in class.

What do you think? How much does grade level matter when discussing the value of homework?

Is there a way to make homework more effective?

If you were a teacher, would you assign homework? What kind of assignments would you give and why?

Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column . Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle

Studies Show Homework Isn't Beneficial in Elementary School, so Why Does It Exist?

It's time for parents to help change homework policies for young kids.

We've been independently researching and testing products for over 120 years. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more about our review process.

As a rule-follower and the kind of person who enjoys task completion so much that folding laundry can feel therapeutic, I didn’t anticipate having a problem with homework. That also had something to do with my kid, who regularly requested “homewurt” starting at age 3. An accomplished mimic, she’d pull a chair up alongside a table of middle-schoolers at the public library, set out a sheet of paper, and begin chewing the end of a pencil, proudly declaring, “I do my homewurt!”

But the real thing quickly disappointed us both. She found first grade’s nightly math worksheets excruciating, both uninteresting and difficult. I found pulling her away from pretend games for something that left her in tears excruciating, both undermining and cruel.

Our story is complex but not uncommon. Cathy Vatterott, a professor of education at the University of Missouri, St. Louis who’s better known as the “ Homework Lady ” says, “Parent activism about homework has really increased over the last 5 to 7 years.” Acton, Massachusetts librarian Amy Reimann says her daughter's district recently overhauled its policy. Now, no school issues homework before third grade , and it's not expected nightly until seventh. In 2017, Marion County, Florida eliminated all elementary homework aside from 20 minutes of reading (or being read to) at night. The result? After moving to a school with a no-homework policy in Berkeley, California, parent Allison Busch Zulawski said: “Our kids are happier, I’m happier, and there are no academic downsides.” If you're looking to make a similar change at your school, check out the stats you'll need to bolster your argument below, followed by some strategies you can use with your school's administration.

Is homework even beneficial to students? Arm yourself with the stats before you storm the school.

If you want to go in with the most effective arguments for changing your school's homework policy, you'll have to, um, do your homework (or use this cheat sheet).

Giving up homework in the younger grades has no academic impact.

There's a bit of disagreement among scholars over the academic value of homework. Duke professor Harris Cooper, Ph.D., who has studied the issue, says that the best studies show "consistent small positive effects." But others have questioned whether any impact of doing homework on tests scores and/or grades has been proven. And most academics seem to agree that what little bump homework gives doesn't start until middle school or later. What does all this mean? In his book The Homework Myth , writer and researcher Alfie Kohn concludes, “There is no evidence of any academic benefit from homework in elementary school."

There is clear evidence on a related point though: Reading self-selected material boosts literacy. That’s why many elementary schools are moving toward homework policies that require reading, or being read to, rather than problems or exercises. (Once kids get to middle and high school, the homework debate generally shifts to “how much” and “what kind” rather than “whether.”)

Many agree with educators like Linda Long, a fourth-grade teacher at a different San Francisco school, who sees the value in “just the act of taking a piece of paper home and bringing it back” for building organizational skills and responsibility. But Good Housekeeping was able to find no research demonstrating that this is the case at the elementary level prior to grade five. And research showing that doing homework increases conscientiousness in grades 5 through 8 appears to be thin. What’s more, the many children who don’t complete homework fastidiously have the opposite lesson reinforced: that duties can be ignored or completed hastily.

Homework is more harmful than helpful to families.

Long sees another upside of elementary homework, saying, “It helps families be aware of what their children are learning in the classroom.” Professor Cooper adds, "Homework can give parents an opportunity to express positive attitudes toward achievement."

But there are lots of ways for parents to do these things, from quarterly teacher updates like the ones Fairmount Elementary School instituted when eliminating homework, to parents sifting through the completed classwork that comes home in backpacks. And asking parents to police homework can damage family relationships by creating power struggles and resentment. In a September 2019 poll of approximately 800 parents conducted by the tech company Narbis, 65% reported that the stress of homework had negatively affected their family dynamic. Academic studies show that this family stress increases as homework load increases.

Homework can also have a negative impact on children’s attitudes toward school. Take the story of Sarah Bloomquist Greathouse of Felton, California. “My fourth-grader has always had such a hard time with liking school,” she says. “This year is the first year we have no worksheets or other busywork. This is the first year my son has actually enjoyed going to school.” As Vicki Abeles puts it in Beyond Measure , “Homework overload steals from young minds the desire to learn.”

Homework eats up time that could be spent doing something more beneficial.

For some students, time spent doing homework displaces after-school activities — like imaginative play, outdoor time, sibling bonding, physical activity, socializing, and reading purely for pleasure — that are shown to be neurologically and developmentally beneficial.

For others, homework provides important scaffolding for free time. (Long says, “I’m more inclined to give homework to my kids who I know just go home and are playing Fortnite for five hours.”) Some argue a no-homework policy leaves a void that only wealthier families can afford to fill with enrichment. That’s why a lot of parents are throwing their weight behind optional policies that provide homework but let families determine whether doing it will improve their child’s life.

Another important displacement concern is sleep. “If parents and teachers are worried about academics and behavior in school then they don’t need homework, they need sleep,” says Heather Shumaker of Traverse City, Michigan, author of It’s OK to Go Up The Slide: Renegade Rules for Raising Confident and Creative Kids , which covers banning homework in elementary school. "The more sleep kids get, the better their memory, the better their learning, the better their focus, the better they’ll do on all the tests, being able to control their impulses, and so on.”

What do you do if you don't agree with the amount of homework your kids get at school?

Don’t worry, you don’t have to be as annoying as me to change your situation. There are multiple ways to push back against homework, each suited to a different personality type. That said, we can all learn a little something from every take.

Introvert Parent

You'd like your child to have less homework, but you don't want to make a huge thing of it.

Rallier Parent

You've read the research, and you're ready to gather others and take the whole system down.

Conflict-Avoidant Parent

You're bad at confrontation, but you want your student's homework stress to be known.

Hands-off Parent

You don't think it's good for anyone when your kids' assignments become your homework.

.css-114u6dk{--data-embed-display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}@media(min-width: 20rem){.css-114u6dk{width:50%;margin-right:1rem;margin-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}@media(min-width: 30rem){.css-114u6dk{width:40%;margin-right:1rem;margin-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-114u6dk{width:30%;margin-right:1rem;margin-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-114u6dk{width:30%;margin-right:1rem;margin-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-114u6dk{width:20%;margin-right:1rem;margin-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}@media(min-width: 73.75rem){.css-114u6dk{width:20%;margin-right:1rem;margin-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}@media(min-width: 75rem){.css-114u6dk{width:20%;margin-right:1rem;margin-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}@media(min-width: 90rem){.css-114u6dk{width:20%;margin-right:1rem;margin-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}.css-114u6dk a span{right:1rem;}.css-114u6dk.size-screenheight img{width:auto;height:85vh;}.css-114u6dk a{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;position:var(--position, relative);}.css-114u6dk img:not(.e2ttnr31){display:block;width:100%;height:auto;-webkit-align-self:flex-start;-ms-flex-item-align:flex-start;align-self:flex-start;} .css-78jldq{padding-left:0rem;} For the Introvert Parent: Inform Your Teacher of a Family No-Homework Policy

Some parents focus on winning an exception to the rule rather than challenging it. Teresa Douglas’s daughter read voraciously — until, that is, she was required to log her minutes in a daily time log. The Vancouver, British Columbia mom wrote the teacher a note explaining the situation, declaring her intent to excuse her daughter from doing homework, and offering to provide relevant research. “I received zero pushback,” she says. Pretty much the same thing happened for a Sacramento, California parent (who didn’t wish to be named due to her role in that state’s government). She told her sons’ teachers they would not be doing any homework, aside from reading, unless the teacher could provide research proving it beneficial. That was the end of that.

Straight-up refusal to comply is the same approach I’ve taken when asked to sign off on my kids’ work while my advocacy efforts were ongoing. I thought my signature would imply my child couldn’t be trusted, and I knew it would put us on course for the type of shared academic responsibility, and ultimately dependence, decried in How to Raise an Adult , a book by former Stanford University Dean of Freshmen Julie Lythcott-Haims. So every year, I emailed my kids’ teachers, explaining my reasoning and offering alternatives, like having my children put their own initials in that spot. Some teachers weren't pleased, and I have to admit my kids initially felt mortified, but I held firm and everyone wound up happy with the arrangement.

Critical, independent thinking is also what Kang Su Gatlin, a Seattle, Washington dad, is after. He gives his son the option to do school-assigned homework or exercises chosen by his parents. When the fifth-grader picks the school’s problems, he’s allowed to skip the ones drilling concepts he’s already mastered. “At least in the jobs I’ve had,” says Gatlin, who currently works for Microsoft, “it’s not just how you do your job, but also knowing what work isn't worth doing.”

Some worry that going this route will upset their child's teacher, and it's possible. But when Long was asked what she’d do if a parent presented her with research-backed arguments that disagree with her homework philosophy, she replied, “I would read it, and it would probably change my opinion. And I would also be flexible with the individual family.”

For the Rallier Parent: Gather Reinforcements and Tell Your PTA Why Students Should Have No Homework

Many parents don’t stop with their own child. When the first edition of Vatterott’s book Rethinking Homework was published in 2009, she says, it was a relatively fringe thing, but now, “We’re talking about a real movement.”

Shumaker, the Michigan author and one of the most prominent figures in the movement, knows initiating this kind of conversation with a teacher can be terrifying, so she recommends having company: “Maybe you want to bring in another parent in the class who feels similarly or who is even just willing to sit next to you,” she says. Or broach the subject in a group setting. Shumaker tells a story that reminds me of every back-to-school night I’ve ever attended: “One of the parents raised a hand and said, ‘My child is having such a hard time with math. She spends hours on it every night, and she can’t get through all the problems.’ There was this huge sigh of relief from all the other parents in the room, because they’d had the same problem.”

So, talk to other parents. Bring the issue to the PTA. For petitions, surveys, and templates you can use when writing to a teacher, reaching out to other parents, and commenting at PTA and school board meetings, see The Case Against Homework by Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish. It’s packed with step-by-step advocacy advice, including ideas for a variety of non-traditional homework policies (e.g., “No-Homework Wednesdays”).

For the Conflict-Avoidant Parent: Sometimes It Just Takes One Homework Question

If all this sounds like a bit much, Vatterott recommends an approach based on inquiry and information-sharing.

Begin by asking whether there's a fixed policy, either in the classroom or at the school. “You can’t believe how many schools have a policy that the teachers don't follow,” Vatterott notes. Often it’s one based on guidelines endorsed by the National Education Association: about 10 minutes per night in the first grade, and 10 more minutes added on for each successive grade (e.g., 20 minutes for second grade, 50 for fifth). “Sometimes all that’s needed is to say, ‘Can we make the homework requirement weekly rather than daily?’” she says.

Experts also recommend starting with what psychologists call “I statements,” because teachers aren’t mind-readers. Put a note on each assignment saying, “My child spent 40 minutes on this.” Since research shows teachers often underestimate the amount of time homework takes by about 50% , Vatterott reports, passing along this info can be enough to make assignments less onerous. Other simple statements of fact include:

• “Luna isn’t getting enough downtime in the afternoon."
• “Cynthia told me today, ‘I hate homework and I hate school.’”
• “Dante is losing sleep to finish his work.”

Try to find some way, Vatterott says, to not feel embarrassed or guilty about telling the teacher, even in a roundabout way, “This is too much.”

For the Hands-off Parent: Just Take Yourself Out of the Equation

Not everyone agrees on the level of parental involvement required in homework assignments. Reading all that research also taught me that intrinsic motivation is the more effective , longer-lasting kind. So during the years when I tried to get the school-wide policy changed, I also told my kids that homework is between them and their teacher. If they decided to do it, great; if they chose not to, the consequences were up to them to negotiate.

Third-grade mom Anna Gracia did the same thing, and her oldest, a third-grader, opted to take a pass on homework. When the teacher explained that the class had a star chart for homework with Gracia’s kid listed in last place, she asked whether her daughter seemed to mind. Her daughter didn't. Gracia asked if her daughter was behind in a particular subject or needed to practice certain skills. "No, but homework helps kids learn responsibility," the teacher replied. “How does it teach my kid that, if I’m the one who has to remind her to do it?” she asked. In the end, Gracia stayed out of it: “I said the teacher could take it up directly with my daughter, but I would not be having any conversations about homework at home unless she could point to a demonstrable need for her to do it.”

I’m happy to report my now fifth-grader takes complete ownership over her nightly "homewurt." And after the most recent round of parent-teacher conferences, neither her teacher nor Gracia’s daughter’s had any complaints.

Do the Research

ASCD Rethinking Homework

Harmony The Case Against Homework

Da Capo Press The Homework Myth

TarcherPerigee It's OK to Go Up the Slide

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