August 24, 2026 • 15 mins
There have been some advocates to reduce or eliminate homework altogether. It begs the question of what is the purpose of homework anyway? What would we lose by eliminating it? What do we gain by keeping it. We briefly explore the science and recommendations with respect to what is gained or lost by requiring homework. What are your thoughts?
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Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/why-we-do-what-we-do--3419521/support.
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Join our super cool membership program on Patreon
Links and References:
- https://onlinedegrees.sandiego.edu/education-inequity-and-homework/
- https://www.healthline.com/health-news/children-more-homework-means-more-stress-031114#Pressure-to-work-as-hard-as-adults-takes-a-toll
- https://time.com/4740297/homework-should-be-banned-from-schools/
- https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2014/03/too-much-homework-031014
- https://www.edutopia.org/visual-essay/the-pros-and-cons-of-homework-in-6-charts/
- https://www.hmhco.com/blog/benefits-of-no-homework?srsltid=AfmBOopoMq0OQcXz8KJUHLGU2FowSkNoJG2gxZV9RNB0ZM-Jf5Gk6TDW
- https://hub.jhu.edu/2024/01/17/are-we-assigning-too-much-homework/
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11409198/
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/yassprize/2025/10/23/no-homework-no-barriers/
- https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/the-case-for-and-against-homework
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/why-we-do-what-we-do--3419521/support.
Support our podcast: www.patreon.com/wwdwwdpodcast
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
to Why we do what we do Mini. I'm your
host Abraham, and I'm your O Shane. We are a
psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans and
(00:24):
non human animals do, and in many episodes that we
release on Mondays, we do that quickly in a short
format that's only like fifteen minutes or less. Our full
length episodes come out on Wednesdays, so you can check
out those for more in depth conversations, multiparters and all
that good stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
But let's go ahead and dive into this.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
If you'd like to support us, you can leave us
a rating and a review, like a subscribe, tell a friend,
join us on Patreon. I'll talk more about those at
the end of our discussion today. If you are joining
us for the first time and welcome, I hope that
you enjoy what we describe in this discussion and that
appeals to you and then you're like, man, I feel
so well informed that I'm just happy, and that's what
(01:05):
we're trying to do. If you're a return to person,
then welcome back. You already had that blissful euphoria and
you're here for more and I applaud you being here.
But either way, this is a mini so we got
to get in there. Is there anything you'd like to
add or that I forgot before we dive into our
topic today?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Nope, not today.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Okay, let's start big around the world and throughout human history.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Is that big enough?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I think that's plenty big.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, okay, perfect In that amount of time, students have
been required to take work home with them from school
for centuries. I mean, we haven't obviously had an education
system for as long as there have been humans, But
since we've had an education system, or at least for
a good chunk of it, students have been required to
take work home with them after their education in some capacity. However,
(01:47):
the emphasis on this practice has also been the subject
of debate for nearly as long and has ebbed and
flowed in the extent to which there are requirements for
things like homework.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yeah, and so a new or we should really say
in the currentside, guys, because we've had this conversation before,
a new quote unquote discussion argues for less or no
homework in school, at least in elementary schools.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
And while this does kind of sound like the makings
of a debate. There's actual science here, so we'll just
explore the arguments for and against homework and find out
what is suggested by science and the data that are
out there.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Are you ready, yes, let's do this.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Let's start by defining our terms. Homework is additional academically
oriented tasks assigned to students to complete outside of the
time spent in the classroom. I made up that definition
and look it up. But that seems like that captured
it for the most part. So if you disagree with me,
go ahead and let us know. But anyway, the point
is that you might have, for example, a student that
(02:45):
solves additional math problems after having practiced similar math problems
in class during the day, and they take those home
and there's like a worksheet and they have to complete
that worksheet, and the teachers who assign these things will
enforce their policy of assigning additional work by including the
completion and usually the accuracy of these assignments as a
part of the students overall grade for the class. So
(03:09):
like if they were just assign homework and the student
didn't do it and there was no consequences for not
doing it, then they would never do it, but because
they can lump these things in with the grade for
the class, they get to sort of hold the students
accountable to that expectation by leveraging those contingencies.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Right. However, many have pointed out that there's some problems
with this. There are there are plenty of problems with us,
specifically this emphasis on homework and why it's a problem.
One of the things is it's stressful. Surveys and studies
have found repeatedly that students and families of students that
they cite homework, particularly large amounts of homework exceeding about
an hour to be significant source of stress and fights
(03:46):
at home. Actually it causes quite a few problems there.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Did you have issues with homework with your kids?
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean part of it was the
stress of getting it done. Part of it was trying
to teach when my kids didn't want to be taught.
Part of it was that we were working full time
and so it was an additional thing that we had
to do inside of our full time schedule that was
already pretty packed. So yeah, it was. It had been
a historically stressful thing for us, for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Depending on how you slice said this, is like the
number one stressor cited by a lot of students in
a lot of places. So there's a legitimate argument to
be made here that there is undue stress caused by
the burden of homework, particularly as I said, as you said,
at large amounts of homework, And relatedly, there are correlations
between the amount of homework students complete and other adverse
(04:36):
health outcomes, including things like, as you might imagine, sleep
deprivation if they're staying up late to work on work,
or they're getting up early, weight loss, stomach problems, headaches.
In high school, some students reported that they would use
drugs or alcohol to cope with the stress and just
feeling like they have an excessive amount of work that
they're trying to keep up with. They might be doing
(04:56):
those things for other reasons and claiming homeworks for the reason,
but like they also there are people who have legitimately
used drugs or alcohol in high school, at least sometimes
because of homework.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
It's also isolating a lot of time spent in homework
means less time spent with friends and family, and the
social isolation can have significant adverse impacts on students. I mean,
I was in ap classes and the amount of homework
that we would often have. Like I played baseball and
I was in AP classes, and I almost never saw
my friends during the week after school because I was
so busy with those activities. I mean, baseball was not isolating,
(05:30):
but coming home and then doing homework and then maybe
even working was not great. So the homework was really
a big slice of that pie.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, no, very much.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And this is actually really pointed out powerfully how significant
of an impact it can have that students are just
not getting like meaningful time with other relationships in their lives.
Particularly as you said, like AP students are like really
at the most risk for this.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Another thing that happens is when there's a lot of homework,
students are more likely to cheat. Several teachers have reported
discovering that when there are a lot of and lengthiest signs,
students are more likely to plagiarize, copy from each other,
try and find hacks for how they might solve their
like get through the homework or find other ways to
cheat to complete their homework and do so efficiently. And
if they've got more homework than they've got hour, like
(06:13):
more hours of homework than they have time between when
that was assigned and when it was due, then like
they're increasingly prone to find other ways to solve it.
And that's part of where AI I think has become
such a problem is because it's so fast at solving
some of these things. So it's understandable that if there's
a lot of homework that students are more likely to
turn to those systems so that they have more time
(06:34):
that is not spent doing homework.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Right, And it's even worse when there's ads to the
middle of the homework.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So bad.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Okay, so we're back and we're talking about some of
the problems that come up with homework. One of the
things that comes up is that students are less likely
to do the homework at all. Besides the fact that
it's stressful, besides that it's isolating, besides that they're likely
to cheat, they're just not likely to do it. So
if they're defeated by spending hours doing homework, they may
not even get a very good grade for having done
their work. So not only did they spend allless time
(07:09):
extra time doing it, they may not even get a
good grade for it, And then they're less likely to
engage at all. And small, manageable assignments that are well
designed and don't feel like busy work are more likely
to be completed and be helpful than these larger assignments
that they may not do well on.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
There's also this issue that we mentioned a couple of times, now,
is just this amount of work that this more is
not always better. Teachers have argued that students are already
spending six to eight hours per day in school doing
academic work, and they pointed out that if you look
at other expert performers, they tend to peak and show
diminishing or even reverse gains after about four hours of work.
(07:48):
These are professionals, experts who are very proficient at what
they do, and after four hours we're starting to see
their performance plateau or even decline, and we're expecting kids
to do double that in some of this some of
these cases, they argue that after six hours of a
school day, there's a little benefit they're likely to gain
from doing even more work afterward.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
And then you've also got disparities in inequalities. So many
students from lower income families may have to go straight
to work after school, or go home to take care
of siblings or other family members or do chores. They're
less likely to have time and space to do homework
and less likely to have parents who can help or
who are around or available to help, whereas more affluent
students may have dedicated spaces, plenty of time for help,
(08:28):
and more highly educated parents, or even have dedicated tutors
available to support homework. So I was in ap classes,
I would come home from school, get dressed for work,
ride my bike to work because I didn't have a car. Yeah,
bring my backpack so that when I was on my
break at work, I was doing homework, and then would
come home and finish whatever homework I didn't finish after
(08:50):
working a five hour shift after school and then staying
up all night and then doing it all again the
next day. And that was my work routine. If I
wasn't if I wasn't working my midnight shifts at the
time too, and my parents were around, right, my parents
were around and super supportive and helpful, and I still
had to do that.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah, And like there are people with wayless, way less
supportive situation than you had, Like maybe they have to
like do chores and take care of their siblings and
babysit and then they have to go to a job
and they're supposed to do homework. I'm like, it really
does have a disparate impact on people depending on the
resources and the situation they have at home. Right, So
that's some of the arguments there. There's also just like
(09:26):
there's some general sort of research and science to unpack here,
and this first one is not actually science, but there
are some recommendations from professionals. So the National Education Association
and the Natural Parent Teacher Association both recommend a rubric
for thinking about homework that is ten minutes of homework
per day per grade, which means if you're in first grade,
you get ten minutes of homework per day, twenty minutes
(09:48):
per day if you're in second grade, thirty minutes per
day if you're in third grade, and so on. Like
you can see how that scales up up to you
would imagine that about two hours per day if you're
a senior in high school. And while this isn't explicitly
supported by science, the science that does exist that sort
of is looking at what available or what homework guidelines
might be.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
It is kind of close to that.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
So specifically, what they found is homework and elementary school
has negligible benefits on students understanding of the material and
subsequent performance on academic testing. So ten minutes a day
might even be ten minutes more than is really worth
putting anything into that in elementary school there is just
not particularly those early early grades. There seems to be
(10:31):
very very few, if any, gains to be made by
assigning homework to those grade levels.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Right, but small amounts of homework can have parents more
well informed about what students are doing in school and
provide some opportunities for support that can be valuable.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And like it can be a meaningful bonding experience to
like the parents who work with the kids and that
sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
So like, there's not not.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Nothing there, right, the quality of the homework is sort
of paramount. They found in research homework that feels like
busy work does not produce meaningful gains in learning, and
researchers actually show that homework should be designed to extend
students thinking about a given subject, rather than simply repeating
the same exercise again that they did while they were
in school. So the architecture behind building these assignments is
(11:09):
going to be one of the really important factors in
determining how effective any assigned homework is going to be
and accomplishing some particular goal.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Sure, Now, even past elementary school, the amount of time
spent has a sweet spot for impact on the students.
So some studies show that by high school, after two
hours of homework there's a minimal impact on performance, and
after three hours of homework, performance metrics actually began to decrease,
although one study found no systematically clear data signal regarding
how much time spent on homework is appropriate at various grades,
(11:40):
So like, the jury's a little bit out on that,
still just a little bit.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, So it's like they tend to find that, like
for really high performing students with really high expectations, up
to two hours you might see some benefits. And there
was like some thing specifically showing that if you spent
up to around an hour on like math, for example,
then they reliably retained that better and better on academic tests.
But again, you do reach a point of diminishing returns.
By the time you're passing two hours, it's starting to
(12:06):
plateau and maybe even decrease the likelihood that they'll show
high levels of performance subsequently to the time spent on homework.
So and even then, like the quality of the homework
is so important that it's more about how what are
they actually getting out of this assignment, not how much
time did they spend on it, although spending too much
time is pretty much always going to have adverse impact
is what the science shows, right, So what do we
(12:28):
think is the verdict here on this whole idea of
homework or no homework?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
I mean, it sounds like a little bit might be
fine too much as a problem. It should be well designed.
I mean it sounds like if you account for all
those things and it's very intentional. I think if it's
well designed and it's like and it makes sense for
the student, then I think it should be considered. I
don't think it should be part of a grade because
I think that's unfair for those students to have those disparities.
I mean, that's the way that I would look at it,
(12:51):
just to kind of like balance that playing field a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
That's totally fair.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
And I think, you know, if you consider what is
the point of homework, I think there are parents and
administrators who think that the point of homework is to
do busy work.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
They just want these kids to be busy all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
But I think that if you think about the point
of homework is to ensure that they get there was
insufficient practice that was done in the classroom and that
to be able to move at the pace that they
need to move, that that requires a little bit of
extra work, and therefore the work that they're given is
designed to bridge that gap.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Then it probably makes sense.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
But again it's like, can we also need to create
the system so that everyone has an equal opportunity to
have participated in this meaningfully right? And there might have
to be either considerations around like some people just don't
have the situation where they can do homework, or else
we just create dedicated time in school. It is like,
there's extra practice time now because we know that that
way everybody has a relatively even access to this, and
(13:44):
there should be enough extra time to bridge whatever gap
we couldn't do in the time that we had, right,
So that would be my thought on that.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So, yeah, it's not that.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
No homework is necessarily like the gospel, we need to
go that direction. But I do think that we should
be mindful and intentional around the homework and consider to
spare that might exist in those systems agreed, perfect, all right.
If you have thoughts on homework you would like to
tell us, you can email us directly, write us an
info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com, or we just on the
social media platforms and we do look forward to hearing
from you. If you would like to support us, you
(14:14):
can leave us a rating and a review, like subscribe
or join us on Patreon, and if you do that
then you get bonus content, add free episodes, early episodes,
and I'll read your name in the list of names
of people who support us at the end of our
full length discussions which come out on Wednesdays. Thank you
so much for recording with me today, Shane.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Thank you to my team of people.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Is there anything else that I missed or that you'd
like to add before we sayah goodbyes. Nope, I think
I did not also say thank you all for listening,
So thank you all for listening. But otherwise, this is
Abraham and this is Shane. Why we do what we
do Mini is out.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Bye.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
You've been listening to Why We Do what We Do.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
You can learn more about this and other episodes by
going to wwdwwdpodcast dot com thanks for listening, and we
hope you have an awesome day.
You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
to Why we do what we do Mini. I'm your
host Abraham, and I'm your O Shane. We are a
psychology podcast. We talk about the things that humans and
(00:24):
non human animals do, and in many episodes that we
release on Mondays, we do that quickly in a short
format that's only like fifteen minutes or less. Our full
length episodes come out on Wednesdays, so you can check
out those for more in depth conversations, multiparters and all
that good stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
But let's go ahead and dive into this.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
If you'd like to support us, you can leave us
a rating and a review, like a subscribe, tell a friend,
join us on Patreon. I'll talk more about those at
the end of our discussion today. If you are joining
us for the first time and welcome, I hope that
you enjoy what we describe in this discussion and that
appeals to you and then you're like, man, I feel
so well informed that I'm just happy, and that's what
(01:05):
we're trying to do. If you're a return to person,
then welcome back. You already had that blissful euphoria and
you're here for more and I applaud you being here.
But either way, this is a mini so we got
to get in there. Is there anything you'd like to
add or that I forgot before we dive into our
topic today?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Nope, not today.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Okay, let's start big around the world and throughout human history.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Is that big enough?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I think that's plenty big.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, okay, perfect In that amount of time, students have
been required to take work home with them from school
for centuries. I mean, we haven't obviously had an education
system for as long as there have been humans, But
since we've had an education system, or at least for
a good chunk of it, students have been required to
take work home with them after their education in some capacity. However,
(01:47):
the emphasis on this practice has also been the subject
of debate for nearly as long and has ebbed and
flowed in the extent to which there are requirements for
things like homework.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Yeah, and so a new or we should really say
in the currentside, guys, because we've had this conversation before,
a new quote unquote discussion argues for less or no
homework in school, at least in elementary schools.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
And while this does kind of sound like the makings
of a debate. There's actual science here, so we'll just
explore the arguments for and against homework and find out
what is suggested by science and the data that are
out there.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Are you ready, yes, let's do this.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Let's start by defining our terms. Homework is additional academically
oriented tasks assigned to students to complete outside of the
time spent in the classroom. I made up that definition
and look it up. But that seems like that captured
it for the most part. So if you disagree with me,
go ahead and let us know. But anyway, the point
is that you might have, for example, a student that
(02:45):
solves additional math problems after having practiced similar math problems
in class during the day, and they take those home
and there's like a worksheet and they have to complete
that worksheet, and the teachers who assign these things will
enforce their policy of assigning additional work by including the
completion and usually the accuracy of these assignments as a
part of the students overall grade for the class. So
(03:09):
like if they were just assign homework and the student
didn't do it and there was no consequences for not
doing it, then they would never do it, but because
they can lump these things in with the grade for
the class, they get to sort of hold the students
accountable to that expectation by leveraging those contingencies.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Right. However, many have pointed out that there's some problems
with this. There are there are plenty of problems with us,
specifically this emphasis on homework and why it's a problem.
One of the things is it's stressful. Surveys and studies
have found repeatedly that students and families of students that
they cite homework, particularly large amounts of homework exceeding about
an hour to be significant source of stress and fights
(03:46):
at home. Actually it causes quite a few problems there.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Did you have issues with homework with your kids?
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean part of it was the
stress of getting it done. Part of it was trying
to teach when my kids didn't want to be taught.
Part of it was that we were working full time
and so it was an additional thing that we had
to do inside of our full time schedule that was
already pretty packed. So yeah, it was. It had been
a historically stressful thing for us, for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Depending on how you slice said this, is like the
number one stressor cited by a lot of students in
a lot of places. So there's a legitimate argument to
be made here that there is undue stress caused by
the burden of homework, particularly as I said, as you said,
at large amounts of homework, And relatedly, there are correlations
between the amount of homework students complete and other adverse
(04:36):
health outcomes, including things like, as you might imagine, sleep
deprivation if they're staying up late to work on work,
or they're getting up early, weight loss, stomach problems, headaches.
In high school, some students reported that they would use
drugs or alcohol to cope with the stress and just
feeling like they have an excessive amount of work that
they're trying to keep up with. They might be doing
(04:56):
those things for other reasons and claiming homeworks for the reason,
but like they also there are people who have legitimately
used drugs or alcohol in high school, at least sometimes
because of homework.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
It's also isolating a lot of time spent in homework
means less time spent with friends and family, and the
social isolation can have significant adverse impacts on students. I mean,
I was in ap classes and the amount of homework
that we would often have. Like I played baseball and
I was in AP classes, and I almost never saw
my friends during the week after school because I was
so busy with those activities. I mean, baseball was not isolating,
(05:30):
but coming home and then doing homework and then maybe
even working was not great. So the homework was really
a big slice of that pie.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, no, very much.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And this is actually really pointed out powerfully how significant
of an impact it can have that students are just
not getting like meaningful time with other relationships in their lives.
Particularly as you said, like AP students are like really
at the most risk for this.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Another thing that happens is when there's a lot of homework,
students are more likely to cheat. Several teachers have reported
discovering that when there are a lot of and lengthiest signs,
students are more likely to plagiarize, copy from each other,
try and find hacks for how they might solve their
like get through the homework or find other ways to
cheat to complete their homework and do so efficiently. And
if they've got more homework than they've got hour, like
(06:13):
more hours of homework than they have time between when
that was assigned and when it was due, then like
they're increasingly prone to find other ways to solve it.
And that's part of where AI I think has become
such a problem is because it's so fast at solving
some of these things. So it's understandable that if there's
a lot of homework that students are more likely to
turn to those systems so that they have more time
(06:34):
that is not spent doing homework.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Right, And it's even worse when there's ads to the
middle of the homework.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So bad.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Okay, so we're back and we're talking about some of
the problems that come up with homework. One of the
things that comes up is that students are less likely
to do the homework at all. Besides the fact that
it's stressful, besides that it's isolating, besides that they're likely
to cheat, they're just not likely to do it. So
if they're defeated by spending hours doing homework, they may
not even get a very good grade for having done
their work. So not only did they spend allless time
(07:09):
extra time doing it, they may not even get a
good grade for it, And then they're less likely to
engage at all. And small, manageable assignments that are well
designed and don't feel like busy work are more likely
to be completed and be helpful than these larger assignments
that they may not do well on.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
There's also this issue that we mentioned a couple of times, now,
is just this amount of work that this more is
not always better. Teachers have argued that students are already
spending six to eight hours per day in school doing
academic work, and they pointed out that if you look
at other expert performers, they tend to peak and show
diminishing or even reverse gains after about four hours of work.
(07:48):
These are professionals, experts who are very proficient at what
they do, and after four hours we're starting to see
their performance plateau or even decline, and we're expecting kids
to do double that in some of this some of
these cases, they argue that after six hours of a
school day, there's a little benefit they're likely to gain
from doing even more work afterward.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
And then you've also got disparities in inequalities. So many
students from lower income families may have to go straight
to work after school, or go home to take care
of siblings or other family members or do chores. They're
less likely to have time and space to do homework
and less likely to have parents who can help or
who are around or available to help, whereas more affluent
students may have dedicated spaces, plenty of time for help,
(08:28):
and more highly educated parents, or even have dedicated tutors
available to support homework. So I was in ap classes,
I would come home from school, get dressed for work,
ride my bike to work because I didn't have a car. Yeah,
bring my backpack so that when I was on my
break at work, I was doing homework, and then would
come home and finish whatever homework I didn't finish after
(08:50):
working a five hour shift after school and then staying
up all night and then doing it all again the
next day. And that was my work routine. If I
wasn't if I wasn't working my midnight shifts at the
time too, and my parents were around, right, my parents
were around and super supportive and helpful, and I still
had to do that.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yeah, And like there are people with wayless, way less
supportive situation than you had, Like maybe they have to
like do chores and take care of their siblings and
babysit and then they have to go to a job
and they're supposed to do homework. I'm like, it really
does have a disparate impact on people depending on the
resources and the situation they have at home. Right, So
that's some of the arguments there. There's also just like
(09:26):
there's some general sort of research and science to unpack here,
and this first one is not actually science, but there
are some recommendations from professionals. So the National Education Association
and the Natural Parent Teacher Association both recommend a rubric
for thinking about homework that is ten minutes of homework
per day per grade, which means if you're in first grade,
you get ten minutes of homework per day, twenty minutes
(09:48):
per day if you're in second grade, thirty minutes per
day if you're in third grade, and so on. Like
you can see how that scales up up to you
would imagine that about two hours per day if you're
a senior in high school. And while this isn't explicitly
supported by science, the science that does exist that sort
of is looking at what available or what homework guidelines
might be.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
It is kind of close to that.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
So specifically, what they found is homework and elementary school
has negligible benefits on students understanding of the material and
subsequent performance on academic testing. So ten minutes a day
might even be ten minutes more than is really worth
putting anything into that in elementary school there is just
not particularly those early early grades. There seems to be
(10:31):
very very few, if any, gains to be made by
assigning homework to those grade levels.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Right, but small amounts of homework can have parents more
well informed about what students are doing in school and
provide some opportunities for support that can be valuable.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And like it can be a meaningful bonding experience to
like the parents who work with the kids and that
sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
So like, there's not not.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Nothing there, right, the quality of the homework is sort
of paramount. They found in research homework that feels like
busy work does not produce meaningful gains in learning, and
researchers actually show that homework should be designed to extend
students thinking about a given subject, rather than simply repeating
the same exercise again that they did while they were
in school. So the architecture behind building these assignments is
(11:09):
going to be one of the really important factors in
determining how effective any assigned homework is going to be
and accomplishing some particular goal.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Sure, Now, even past elementary school, the amount of time
spent has a sweet spot for impact on the students.
So some studies show that by high school, after two
hours of homework there's a minimal impact on performance, and
after three hours of homework, performance metrics actually began to decrease,
although one study found no systematically clear data signal regarding
how much time spent on homework is appropriate at various grades,
(11:40):
So like, the jury's a little bit out on that,
still just a little bit.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yeah, So it's like they tend to find that, like
for really high performing students with really high expectations, up
to two hours you might see some benefits. And there
was like some thing specifically showing that if you spent
up to around an hour on like math, for example,
then they reliably retained that better and better on academic tests.
But again, you do reach a point of diminishing returns.
By the time you're passing two hours, it's starting to
(12:06):
plateau and maybe even decrease the likelihood that they'll show
high levels of performance subsequently to the time spent on homework.
So and even then, like the quality of the homework
is so important that it's more about how what are
they actually getting out of this assignment, not how much
time did they spend on it, although spending too much
time is pretty much always going to have adverse impact
is what the science shows, right, So what do we
(12:28):
think is the verdict here on this whole idea of
homework or no homework?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
I mean, it sounds like a little bit might be
fine too much as a problem. It should be well designed.
I mean it sounds like if you account for all
those things and it's very intentional. I think if it's
well designed and it's like and it makes sense for
the student, then I think it should be considered. I
don't think it should be part of a grade because
I think that's unfair for those students to have those disparities.
I mean, that's the way that I would look at it,
(12:51):
just to kind of like balance that playing field a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
That's totally fair.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
And I think, you know, if you consider what is
the point of homework, I think there are parents and
administrators who think that the point of homework is to
do busy work.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
They just want these kids to be busy all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
But I think that if you think about the point
of homework is to ensure that they get there was
insufficient practice that was done in the classroom and that
to be able to move at the pace that they
need to move, that that requires a little bit of
extra work, and therefore the work that they're given is
designed to bridge that gap.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Then it probably makes sense.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
But again it's like, can we also need to create
the system so that everyone has an equal opportunity to
have participated in this meaningfully right? And there might have
to be either considerations around like some people just don't
have the situation where they can do homework, or else
we just create dedicated time in school. It is like,
there's extra practice time now because we know that that
way everybody has a relatively even access to this, and
(13:44):
there should be enough extra time to bridge whatever gap
we couldn't do in the time that we had, right,
So that would be my thought on that.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So, yeah, it's not that.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
No homework is necessarily like the gospel, we need to
go that direction. But I do think that we should
be mindful and intentional around the homework and consider to
spare that might exist in those systems agreed, perfect, all right.
If you have thoughts on homework you would like to
tell us, you can email us directly, write us an
info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com, or we just on the
social media platforms and we do look forward to hearing
from you. If you would like to support us, you
(14:14):
can leave us a rating and a review, like subscribe
or join us on Patreon, and if you do that
then you get bonus content, add free episodes, early episodes,
and I'll read your name in the list of names
of people who support us at the end of our
full length discussions which come out on Wednesdays. Thank you
so much for recording with me today, Shane.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Thank you to my team of people.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Is there anything else that I missed or that you'd
like to add before we sayah goodbyes. Nope, I think
I did not also say thank you all for listening,
So thank you all for listening. But otherwise, this is
Abraham and this is Shane. Why we do what we
do Mini is out.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Bye.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
You've been listening to Why We Do what We Do.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
You can learn more about this and other episodes by
going to wwdwwdpodcast dot com thanks for listening, and we
hope you have an awesome day.
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