Homework has formed a contentious issue for most people over the past few years. It is a form of school assignment issued to students by their instructors to complete at home to gauge their level of understanding when it comes to academic concepts taught. Because of this, a Duke study, led by Harris Cooper, a respectable professor, showed the positive relationship of doing a reasonable amount of homework to achieving success for secondary school learners.
The study reviewed over sixty homework research studies between the years 1987 and 2003. It concluded that after school assignments have a progressive impact on learner achievement, especially those in high school compared to those at the elementary level. After all, kids have to complete their homework to achieve success in school, as most parents would opine.
Further, Harris Cooper said that the research outcome showed a better correlation of homework and performance for students in secondary school (those in seventh grade through to twelve) than students at the elementary level.
Can Homework Enhance Academic Achievement?
Homework can have desirable or undesirable outcomes on students based on the format and volume when it comes to the administration of the same. The same gets reinforced through Harris’s op-ed article where he writes about the dangers of assigning too little or too much homework to students in various grades.
It is clear what a crucial role homework plays in the process of learning. However, Cooper says that the analysis details how too many after-school assignments can prove counterproductive for learners at every level. Well, high school students can handle more homework than their elementary counterparts. But, overburdening them with homework shows a lack of association with better or higher grades.
Cooper further goes on to say that research proves consistent when it comes to the ten-minute rule, which suggests the optimum volume of such assignments that instructors have to issue students. It’s a rule that entails a widely accepted practice where instructors add an extra ten minutes’ worth of assignments as learners move to subsequent grades.
It implies a fourth-grade student getting assigned forty minutes of homework every night, while a student in high school gets two hours. However, the study also shows that learners in the upper high don’t achieve more success after surpassing the two-hour mark of homework duties.
The reasons suggested why older learners benefit more than younger ones when it comes to homework range diversely. For starters, the researchers note that younger kids find it more difficult to keep distractions at bay than older kids. Further, younger kids also don’t have better and effective study routines. However, the main reason can also prove to have something to do with why elementary instructors assign homework. It can have more to assist students with developing better study skills besides improved time management and not to impact their academic success immediately.
Conclusion
The short and long of it entails having all students do homework because of the diverse benefits, both short and long term. However, the volume of the work to get handled has to get proportional and according to home circumstances and their level of development.