Homework. The source of all evil to the average high school student.
This school year there has been lots of controversy whether homework helps students succeed in class or if it just causes unnecessary stress. As a high school student myself I took particular interest in this topic and decided to look at it in more detail.
In recent years many claims have been made that homework puts students under stress that is unnecessary. It has also become noticed that some of the countries with the highest test scores in the world don't give homework to their students.
Harris M. Cooper, a professor at Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University, studied how homework impacts a high school student and spoke about the results of his research. According to Cooper, there are many variables that must be tested while investigating this topic such as the number of subject a student has, the level of placement the student is in and what extracurricular activities a student participates in. Because of this the experiment as a whole remains inconclusive. However various trends have been noticed so far. Cooper says that according to his research a students success in school does actually have a lot to do with the amount of time a student spends studying at home. On average, the more time a student spends studying at home, the better he or she will preform in the classroom. This then brings up the question: how much homework is enough? Most districts policies say that students should have a half hour of homework for each class, with the exception of AP students who should have a little more. According Cooper, 1.5-2.5 hours of homework per night for a typical high school student is the most effective for helping students be successful; any more then that is not helping the student improve.
For now its safe to say that when its not given in excessive amounts, homework every night actually does benefit a students academic performance.
~Ally
Websites used:
http://www.sedl.org/pubs/sedl-letter/v20n02/homework.html
http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/homework-is-too-much/
http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Instruction/What-research-says-about-the-value-of-homework-At-a-glance
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