how does homework boost grades

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Patricia Chen is lead author on a paper that shows that a psychological intervention encouraging students to use available study resources in a strategic way made them more likely to perform better in class. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

Despite access to a trove of learning resources – including textbooks, online references and homework assignments – some students routinely fall short of their performance expectations.

The solution may not be to work harder, but more strategically. That’s the key takeaway from new research led by Stanford scholars, whose study published in Psychological Science found that applying a strategic approach to studying helped college students improve their exam scores by an average of one-third of a letter grade.

Inspiration to strategize

The study was inspired by meetings that lead author Patricia Chen, a postdoctoral research fellow in Stanford’s Department of Psychology , had with less-than-enthused students after they received their exam grades. Many of these students, she noticed, lamented their poor performances despite the great deal of effort that they had put into studying. The classic complaint seemed to be, “I studied really hard, and I’m just as smart as [another student]. I don’t understand why I didn’t do well.”

In response, Chen would ask these students, “Describe to me how you studied for the exam.” From the responses, Chen gleaned the insight that many students – intelligent and willing to work hard – fall short of performing to their potential because they don’t employ a strategic approach to their learning.

“Blind effort alone, without directing that effort in an effective manner, doesn’t always get you to where you want to go,” Chen said.

Power of self-reflection

The research team, which included Desmond Ong, a Stanford doctoral student in psychology, homed in on one important aspect of strategic learning – engaging in self-reflection to identify and use resources wisely. Prior research supports the general use of metacognition, or “thinking about one’s own thinking,” as a successful means to better learning and academic performance. But, before their studies, it remained to be seen whether specifically strategizing about one’s resource use would causally improve students’ academic performance.

The researchers developed a “Strategic Resource Use” intervention that blends educational and social psychological theories. The intervention, according to the study, “prompts students to think deliberately about how to approach their learning effectively with the resources available to them.”

The intervention was administered through brief online surveys sent to college students in an introductory statistics class about one week before their exams.

Students in the control group received a business-as-usual exam reminder. Students in the intervention group received the same exam reminder and a short Strategic Resource Use exercise: They were asked to think about what they expected to be on the upcoming exam and then strategize what kinds of resources they would use to study most effectively. Following this, the students were asked to explain why each resource they chose would be useful to their learning and then describe how they planned on using their chosen resources.

In two studies, students who strategized their resource use before studying outperformed comparable classmates in the control group by an average of one-third of a letter grade in the class. In the first study, students scored an average of 3.45 percentage points higher in the class, and in the second study, the average difference was 4.65 percentage points.

Why was the intervention so effective? The researchers found that the brief intervention exercise made students more self-reflective about how they approached their learning. In turn, this metacognition enabled students to use their resources more effectively, as their self-reports showed.

“It’s not merely about using a greater number of resources for studying. The important point here is using resources more effectively,” stressed Ong.

This strategic thinking also provided students with other psychological benefits, including feelings of empowerment regarding their education. Students who had taken the intervention perceived a greater control over their learning and expressed fewer negative feelings about their upcoming exams.

Chen emphasized it is important to consider the specific class environment before implementing the Strategic Resource Use intervention. The researchers note that the intervention has been tested – and found effective – in resource-rich environments, where students have access to textbooks, lecture notes, online resources, teaching assistants and other tools. But it is still unknown how well the intervention would work in resource-scarce environments. In resource-scarce environments, said Chen, it might be better for educators to focus on providing “a basic repertoire of resources” first.

A strategy for life

Chen proposes that the principle behind Strategic Resource Use can be applied beyond academics, including parenting, losing weight or learning a new skill at work.

“Actively self-reflecting on the approaches that you are taking fosters a strategic stance that is really important in life,” she said. “Strategic thinking distinguishes between people of comparable ability and effort. This can make the difference between people who achieve and people who have the potential to achieve, but don’t.”

Chen offered one more piece of advice: “Strategize how you want to effectively direct your efforts before you pour your energy into it.”

The study, “Strategic Resource Use for Learning: A Self-Administered Intervention That Guides Self-Reflection on Effective Resource Use Enhances Academic Performance,” was also co-authored by Omar Chavez, a graduate student at the University of Texas, and Brenda Gunderson, a senior lecturer at the University of Michigan.

Media Contacts

Patricia Chen, Department of Psychology: [email protected]

Milenko Martinovich, Stanford News Service: (650) 725-9281, [email protected]

Does homework improve learning?

Does Homework Improve Learning?

For decades, homework has been a staple of education, with students receiving assignments to complete outside of the classroom as a way to reinforce learning and prepare for exams. But does homework truly improve learning, or is it a relic of the past that should be abandoned? In this article, we’ll explore the research on homework and its impact on student learning, highlighting both the benefits and drawbacks of giving students homework.

Direct Answer: Homwork Improves Learning…for Some

Yes, homework can improve learning for some students, particularly in certain subjects and with proper implementation. However, it is not a one-size-fits-all solution, and its effectiveness depends on a range of factors, including the type, amount, and frequency of homework, as well as the individual student’s learning style, motivation, and home environment.

The Benefits of Homework

Many educators argue that homework is essential for several reasons:

• Reinforces learning : Homework helps students retain information and retain new skills by practicing them repeatedly.
• Develops responsibility : Homework can help students develop a sense of responsibility and accountability, teaching them to prioritize and manage their time.
• Prepares for exams : Homework can help students prepare for exams by providing additional practice and reinforcing key concepts.
• Encourages independence : Homework can promote independence and self-motivation, as students learn to work independently and manage their own learning.

The Drawbacks of Homework

However, homework can also have negative consequences, including:

• Overloading : Excessive homework can lead to burnout, decreased motivation, and a lack of interest in the subject.
• Inequity : Homework can disproportionately affect certain students, such as those from low-income families or those with working parents, who may not have the same access to resources and support.
• Stress and anxiety : Homework can cause undue stress and anxiety, potentially leading to a negative impact on mental health and well-being.
• Ineffective implementation : Homework can be poorly designed or unsupervised, leading to a lack of engagement and minimal learning.

The Research on Homework

Numerous studies have investigated the impact of homework on student learning, with mixed results. Some notable findings include:

Best Practices for Effective Homework

So, how can educators ensure that homework is effective and beneficial for students? Here are some best practices to consider:

• Keep it minimal : Aim for 10-30 minutes of homework per night for elementary students, 30-60 minutes for middle school students, and 1-2 hours for high school students.
• Make it meaningful : Ensure that homework is meaningful, relevant, and aligned with learning goals. Avoid busywork or unnecessary busywork.
• Provide feedback and support : Offer regular feedback and support to help students understand and complete assignments successfully.
• Monitor and adjust : Regularly monitor student progress and adjust homework assignments as needed to ensure they are effective and fair.

While homework can be an effective tool for some students in certain subjects, its implementation is complex and context-dependent. To maximize its benefits, educators should carefully consider the type, amount, and frequency of homework, as well as the individual student’s learning style, motivation, and home environment. By following best practices and keeping student needs at the forefront, we can harness the potential of homework to support student learning and success.

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SiOWfa15: Science in Our World: Certainty and Controversy

The course website and blog for the fall 2015 instance of penn state's sc200 course.

Does Homework Promote Academic Achievement?

We all hate homework. It’s tedious, frustrating, time-consuming, and downright horrible. Sometimes we get points for doing homework and doing well which is always a good reason for getting it done, but could success on homework be the reason for fantastic final grades?

Let’s establish the basics of what we are trying to find here. The x-variable is doing your homework while the y-variable is earning excellent grades. Confounding, z-variables , could include personality traits, lack of procrastination habits, natural ability to succeed in school, etc. Our null hypothesis  is that doing your homework does not improve your final grade . Our alternative hypothesis is that doing your homework does improve your final grade and promotes academic achievement.

Harris Cooper , a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, and his colleagues compiled an analysis of dozens of studies done on homework in order to come to a conclusion on whether homework is effective. If it is effective, how much homework is too much, and what is the appropriate amount to give out to students?

Many of the studies done on this question examine students who are assigned homework with students who are not assigned homework but are still similar in other ways. Interestingly, many of the results found that homework can improve test scores at the end of a topic. “Students assigned homework in 2nd grade did better on math, 3rd and 4th graders did better on English skills and vocabulary, 5th graders on social studies, 9th through 12th graders on American history, and 12th graders on Shakespeare.” ( Cooper )

Some studies do not attempt to control for student differences. 35 studies suggest that 77% find the correlation between homework and and academic achievement to be positive; however, they fail to make this correlation among elementary students. One possible solution to control for student differences would be to randomly distribute the students based on similarities so that on average, both the homework group and the non-homework group are about the same in terms of similarities, i.e. learning disabilities, gender, and prior achievement in school. Additionally, Cooper says an explanation for why there is not a correlation among elementary students could be because they do not have well developed study habits and because they get distracted easily.

In short, Cooper suggests that through his analysis, homework is in fact beneficial to students . Not only can it have positive effects on overall grades, but it can also have other benefits such as developing responsible character traits, maturing cognitive capacities, fostering independent learning habits, and growing of good study habits. Cooper, along with most educators, says homework should not exceed 10-20 minutes for children K-2, 30-60 minutes a day for grades 3-6, and varying times depending on the subjects for middle school and high school students.

Some feel that homework can have many negative effects such as developing a disinterest in school among students, homework denies children of leisure time and takes them away from extra-curricular activities which also teach important life skills. It is important to allow teachers and administrators to have flexibility to account for the differences in some students and their families; however, sticking to the prescribed regiment is most effective for most students.

Rival ACC school, the University of Virginia, has a much different take on homework than Cooper. Co-authors Adam Maltese, assistant professor of science education at Indiana University, Robert H. Tai, associate professor of science education at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, and Xitao Fan, dean of education at the University of Macau, conducted their own studies and published “ When Is Homework Worth the Time ?”

Because the paper is twenty-two pages long, I will summarize the findings. If you would like to, the full report can be read here . 18,000, tenth grade students’s survey and transcript data were observed in the study collected from 1990 to 2002 by the National Center for Education Statistics . Unlike many studies done on homework and final grades, Maltese, Tai, and Fan found that time spent on homework did not effect the final course grade among those who did and did not do their homework. Conversely, they did find a correlation between time spent on homework and success on standardized test scores. Maltese says, “Our results hint that maybe homework is not being used as well as it could be.” In order to be more effective with homework, teachers should assign homework which is useful, sort of a quality over quantity  type of thing. Rather than give a designated amount of homework, give assignments which will keep the students engaged for a short period of time and allow for a greater chance of retaining that information. In effect, this will also allow for appropriate amounts of time to be allocated towards extracurricular activities which teach young people other valuable lessons while also learning from engaging homework.

All of this raises the question: what is the most effective type of homework assignment? I certainly feel as though this question can best be answered based on each individual person. Because some people are inherently auditory, visual, or hands-on learners, one standard type of homework cannot be called the best . I believe in order to really get the best result from everyone, each person would require their own homework regiment. Seeing as though some schools have entire graduating classes of well-over 2,000 students , creating an individualized homework regiment for each student is simply impossible. So what basic principles should teachers and administrators use to create effect homework?

The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development ( ASCD ) attempted to tackle this tricky question with their “ Five Hallmarks of Good Homework .” The first principle is purpose . Students must be given a clear end goal to their assignment such as giving simple division problems in order to understand the concept of division or writing sentences using certain vocabulary words so that students can understand the context of those specific vocabulary words. In addition, ASCD says practice is most effective when given in small doses over long periods of time, concurrent with Maltese, Tai, and Fan. The second principle is efficiency . ASCD says projects which involve cutting, gluing, and constructing are often extremely inefficient even though the teacher has great intentions when they assign them because they are fun and creative. Instead, rather than making a poster, students should be tasked to put themselves in the perspective of their project. For example, ASCD suggests if students are tasked with a history assignment, they should be asked to create a diary entry as if they were the person who experienced what they are trying to learn (writing about what it was like to immigrate from another country, writing about what World War 2 was like, etc.). The third principle is ownership . One of the easiest ways to promote ownership is by giving flexibility. Instead of prescribing a common book for the class to read, teachers could allow students to find their own sources such as magazines and academic journals which are still relevant to the topic. This keeps the students engaged and interested in what they are learning. “Instead of worrying about whether students did the reading, we should be focusing on whether the reading did them any good” ( ASCD ). The fourth principle is competence . Because, each student is different, they should be allowed to work together if they choose to and receive help on assignments. Students often get discouraged when forced to work alone and are more likely not to complete a task. The fifth, and final, principle is aesthetic appeal . First impressions are extremely important to students. As soon as they see the requirements and details of an assignment, they make a snap decision about whether they are going to do it or not and, if they are going to do it, how well they are going to do it. Students are more inclined to complete an assignment which are visually uncluttered with few information on the page. Lots of room to write answers and the use of graphics and clip art on the page are also quite appealing to students. Visuals are just as important to the student as knowing they have little work to do.

Take home message: homework is beneficial to the student in more ways than just improving final grades but only when allocated effectively . In my opinion, and I think most would agree, there need to be more studies done on the effectiveness of homework. Preferably, some kind of experimental study would be conducted to almost definitively prove that effective homework benefits the student in multiple ways. Of course, a double-blind placebo would be out of the question because the student would know if they are doing their homework or not. Maybe a single-blind study could be effective where the students are randomly placed into two groups, homework and no homework. The teacher would not know who is and who is not doing their homework, but would still assign regular assignments to the class. The students either do or do not complete their homework, and at the end of the semester or grading period, examine the results of how many students received good or bad marks on their final reports. Of course, this study would flawed in that if a student gets placed into the group who does not do their homework but normally would have done their homework and their grade suffers from not doing it, that is infringing on the student’s ability and right to learn, and compromises their own responsibility for their grades; however, at this point, this is the closest I could get to an appropriate experimental study. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated in the comments.

Picture Links:

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One thought on “ Does Homework Promote Academic Achievement? ”

Very interesting post. In high school, I was adamantly anti-homework, generally equating homework with meaningless busywork, but your post got me thinking, and I came up with an idea for a study that sort of expands on your idea. Here’s what I’ve got: a class made specially for the study is split into two groups via random assignment, and one group is assigned homework while the other is told not to do the homework. The study will include a random sample of students of the same grade level or year, and everyone will come to class as required and will be encouraged to be active in the classroom and really pay attention to what is being taught (the teacher will find a way to get around to this somehow). Besides the homework, the only real assignments given are in-class quizzes and a final at the end of the semester, which is when the grades of those who did and didn’t do the homework will be compared. The homework, of course, will be GOOD homework, as determined by the five hallmarks you went over in your post. Also, this class will institute a NO-STUDY policy. That’s important. It will be physically impossible to study for the tests anyway, because there is nothing that students can read or study from at home — no handouts, nothing. (The entire curriculum may as well be completely fabricated.) This study is far from a perfect setup and I’m sure it contains some major flaws in reasoning, the most obvious of which is the question of the students’ drive and motivation to actually try on the homework in the first place (since this won’t be a class that they’re technically graded on, so it may not be a true measure of their aptitude and ability… but that’s still better than the alternative). Anyhow, I could see it turning up some interesting results. Given that the homework demonstrates the strongest possible examples of the five hallmarks of good homework, and the students assigned homework put forth their best effort on the homework assignments, I think that the homework-assigned group could receive better overall grades than the no-homework group.

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Study: Homework Doesn’t Mean Better Grades, But Maybe Better Standardized Test Scores

Robert H. Tai, associate professor of science education at UVA's Curry School of Education

The time students spend on math and science homework doesn’t necessarily mean better grades, but it could lead to better performance on standardized tests, a new study finds.

“When Is Homework Worth The Time?” was recently published by lead investigator Adam Maltese, assistant professor of science education at Indiana University, and co-authors Robert H. Tai, associate professor of science education at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education , and Xitao Fan, dean of education at the University of Macau. Maltese is a Curry alumnus, and Fan is a former Curry faculty member.

The authors examined survey and transcript data of more than 18,000 10th-grade students to uncover explanations for academic performance. The data focused on individual classes, examining student outcomes through the transcripts from two nationwide samples collected in 1990 and 2002 by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Contrary to much published research, a regression analysis of time spent on homework and the final class grade found no substantive difference in grades between students who complete homework and those who do not. But the analysis found a positive association between student performance on standardized tests and the time they spent on homework.

“Our results hint that maybe homework is not being used as well as it could be,” Maltese said.

Tai said that homework assignments cannot replace good teaching.

“I believe that this finding is the end result of a chain of unfortunate educational decisions, beginning with the content coverage requirements that push too much information into too little time to learn it in the classroom,” Tai said. “The overflow typically results in more homework assignments. However, students spending more time on something that is not easy to understand or needs to be explained by a teacher does not help these students learn and, in fact, may confuse them.

“The results from this study imply that homework should be purposeful,” he added, “and that the purpose must be understood by both the teacher and the students.”

The authors suggest that factors such as class participation and attendance may mitigate the association of homework to stronger grade performance. They also indicate the types of homework assignments typically given may work better toward standardized test preparation than for retaining knowledge of class material.

Maltese said the genesis for the study was a concern about whether a traditional and ubiquitous educational practice, such as homework, is associated with students achieving at a higher level in math and science. Many media reports about education compare U.S. students unfavorably to high-achieving math and science students from across the world. The 2007 documentary film “Two Million Minutes” compared two Indiana students to students in India and China, taking particular note of how much more time the Indian and Chinese students spent on studying or completing homework.

“We’re not trying to say that all homework is bad,” Maltese said. “It’s expected that students are going to do homework. This is more of an argument that it should be quality over quantity. So in math, rather than doing the same types of problems over and over again, maybe it should involve having students analyze new types of problems or data. In science, maybe the students should write concept summaries instead of just reading a chapter and answering the questions at the end.”

This issue is particularly relevant given that the time spent on homework reported by most students translates into the equivalent of 100 to 180 50-minute class periods of extra learning time each year.

The authors conclude that given current policy initiatives to improve science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, education, more evaluation is needed about how to use homework time more effectively. They suggest more research be done on the form and function of homework assignments.

“In today’s current educational environment, with all the activities taking up children’s time both in school and out of school, the purpose of each homework assignment must be clear and targeted,” Tai said. “With homework, more is not better.”

Media Contact

Rebecca P. Arrington

Office of University Communications

[email protected] (434) 924-7189

Article Information

November 20, 2012

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