how does homework create anxiety

Homework anxiety: Why it happens and how to help

By Gail Belsky

Expert reviewed by Jerome Schultz, PhD

Quick tips to help kids with homework anxiety

Quick tip 1, try self-calming strategies..

Try some deep breathing, gentle stretching, or a short walk before starting homework. These strategies can help reset the mind and relieve anxiety. 

Quick tip 2

Set a time limit..

Give kids a set amount of time for homework to help it feel more manageable. Try using the “10-minute rule” that many schools use — that’s 10 minutes of homework per grade level. And let kids know it’s OK to stop working for the night.

Quick tip 3

Cut out distractions..

Have kids do homework in a quiet area. Turn off the TV, silence cell phones, and, if possible, limit people coming and going in the room or around the space.

Quick tip 4

Start with the easiest task..

Try having kids do the easiest, quickest assignments first. That way, they’ll feel good about getting a task done — and may be less anxious about the rest of the homework.

Quick tip 5

Use a calm voice..

When kids feel anxious about homework, they might get angry, yell, or cry. Avoid matching their tone of voice. Take a deep breath and keep your voice steady and calm. Let them know you’re there for them. 

Sometimes kids just don’t want to do homework. They complain, procrastinate, or rush through the work so they can do something fun. But for other kids, it’s not so simple. Homework may actually give them anxiety.

It’s not always easy to know when kids have homework anxiety. Some kids may share what they’re feeling when you ask. But others can’t yet identify what they’re feeling, or they're not willing to talk about it.

Homework anxiety often starts in early grade school. It can affect any child. But it’s an especially big issue for kids who are struggling in school. They may think they can’t do the work. Or they may not have the right support to get it done. 

Keep in mind that some kids may seem anxious about homework but are actually anxious about something else. That’s why it’s important to keep track of when kids get anxious and what they were doing right before. The more you notice what’s happening, the better you can help.

Dive deeper

What homework anxiety looks like.

Kids with homework anxiety might:

Find excuses to avoid homework

Lie about homework being done

Get consistently angry about homework

Be moody or grumpy after school

Complain about not feeling well after school or before homework time

Cry easily or seem overly sensitive

Be afraid of making even small mistakes

Shut down and not want to talk after school

Say “I can’t do it!” before even trying

Learn about other homework challenges kids might be facing . 

Why kids get homework anxiety

Kids with homework anxiety are often struggling with a specific skill. They might worry about falling behind their classmates. But there are other factors that cause homework anxiety: 

Test prep: Homework that helps kids prepare for a test makes it sound very important. This can raise stress levels.

Perfectionism: Some kids who do really well in a subject may worry that their work “won’t be good enough.”

Trouble managing emotions: For kids who easily get flooded by emotions, homework can be a trigger for anxiety. 

Too much homework: Sometimes kids are anxious because they have more work than they can handle.

Use this list to see if kids might have too much homework .

When kids are having homework anxiety, families, educators, and health care providers should work together to understand what’s happening. Start by sharing notes on what you’re seeing and look for patterns . By working together, you’ll develop a clearer sense of what’s going on and how to help.

Parents and caregivers: Start by asking questions to get your child to open up about school . But if kids are struggling with the work itself, they may not want to tell you. You’ll need to talk with your child’s teacher to get insight into what’s happening in school and find out if your child needs help in a specific area.

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The Truth About Homework Stress: What Parents & Students Need to Know

• Fact Checked

Written by:

published on:

• December 21, 2023

Updated on:

• June 21, 2024

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Homework is generally given out to ensure that students take time to review and remember the days lessons. It can help improve on a student’s general performance and enhance traits like self-discipline and independent problem solving.

Parents are able to see what their children are doing in school, while also helping teachers determine how well the lesson material is being learned. Homework is quite beneficial when used the right way and can improve student  performance.

This well intentioned practice can turn sour if it’s not handled the right way. Studies show that if a student is inundated with too much homework, not only do they get lower scores, but they are more likely to get stressed.

The age at which homework stress is affecting students is getting lower, some even as low as kindergarten. Makes you wonder what could a five year old possibly need to review as homework?

One of the speculated reasons for this stress is that the complexity of what a student is expected to learn is increasing, while the breaks for working out excess energy are reduced. Students are getting significantly more homework than recommended by the education leaders, some even nearly three times more.

To make matters worse, teachers may give homework that is both time consuming and will keep students busy while being totally non-productive.

Remedial work like telling students to copy notes word for word from their text books will  do nothing to improve their grades or help them progress. It just adds unnecessary stress.

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Effects of homework stress at home

Both parents and students tend to get stressed out at the beginning of a new school year due to the impending arrival of homework.

Nightly battles centered on finishing assignments are a household routine in houses with students.

Research has found that too much homework can negatively affect children. In creating a lack of balance between play time and time spent doing homework, a child can get headaches, sleep deprivation or even ulcers.

And homework stress doesn’t just impact grade schoolers. College students are also affected, and the stress is affecting their academic performance.

Even the parent’s confidence in their abilities to help their children with homework suffers due increasing stress levels in the household.

Fights and conflict over homework are more likely in families where parents do not have at least a college degree. When the child needs assistance, they have to turn to their older siblings who might already be bombarded with their own homework.

Parents who have a college degree feel more confident in approaching the school and discussing the appropriate amount of school work.

“It seems that homework being assigned discriminates against parents who don’t have college degree, parents who have English as their second language and against parents who are poor.” Said Stephanie Donaldson Pressman, the contributing editor of the study and clinical director of the New England Center for Pediatric Psychology.

With all the stress associated with homework, it’s not surprising that some parents have opted not to let their children do homework. Parents that have instituted a no-homework policy have stated that it has taken a lot of the stress out of their evenings.

The recommended amount homework

The standard endorsed by the National Education Association is called the “10 minute rule”; 10 minutes per grade level per night. This recommendation was made after a number of studies were done on the effects of too much homework on families.

The 10 minute rule basically means 10 minutes of homework in the first grade, 20 minute for the second grade all the way up to 120 minutes for senior year in high school. Note that no homework is endorsed in classes under the first grade.

Parents reported first graders were spending around half an hour on homework each night, and kindergarteners spent 25 minutes a night on assignments according to a study carried out by Brown University.

Making a five year old sit still for half an hour is very difficult as they are at the age where they just want to move around and play.

A child who is exposed to 4-5 hours of homework after school is less likely to find the time to go out and play with their friends, which leads to accumulation of stress energy in the body.

Their social life also suffers because between the time spent at school and doing homework, a child will hardly have the time to pursue hobbies. They may also develop a negative attitude towards learning.

The research highlighted that 56% of students consider homework a primary source of stress.

And if you’re curious how the U.S stacks up against other countries in regards to how much time children spend on homework, it’s pretty high on the list .

Signs to look out for on a student that has homework stress

Since not every student is affected by homework stress in the same way, it’s important to be aware of some of the signs your child might be mentally drained from too much homework.

Here are some common signs of homework stress:

• Sleep disturbances
• Frequent stomachaches and headaches
• Decreased appetite or changed eating habits
• New or recurring fears
• Not able to relax
• Regressing to behavior they had when younger
• Bursts of anger crying or whining
• Becoming withdrawn while others may become clingy
• Drastic changes in academic performance
• Having trouble concentrating or completing homework
• Constantly complains about their ability to do homework

If you’re a parent and notice any of these signs in your child, step in to find out what’s going on and if homework is the source of their stress.

If you’re a student, pay attention if you start experiencing any of these symptoms as a result of your homework load. Don’t be afraid to ask your teacher or parents for help if the stress of homework becomes too much for you.

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What parents do wrong when it comes to homework stress

Most parents push their children to do more and be more, without considering the damage being done by this kind of pressure.

Some think that homework brought home is always something the children can deal with on their own. If the child cannot handle their homework then these parents get angry and make the child feel stupid.

This may lead to more arguing and increased dislike of homework in the household. Ultimately the child develops an even worse attitude towards homework.

Another common mistake parents make is never questioning the amount of homework their children get, or how much time they spend on it. It’s easy to just assume whatever the teacher assigned is adequate, but as we mentioned earlier, that’s not always the case.

Be proactive and involved with your child’s homework. If you notice they’re spending hours every night on homework, ask them about it. Just because they don’t complain doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem.

How can parents help?

• While every parent wants their child to become successful and achieve the very best, it’s important to pull back on the mounting pressure and remember that they’re still just kids. They need time out to release their stress and connect with other children.
• Many children may be afraid to admit that they’re overwhelmed by homework because they might be misconstrued as failures. The best thing a parent can do is make home a safe place for children to express themselves freely. You can do this by lending a listening ear and not judging your kids.
• Parents can also take the initiative to let the school know that they’re unhappy with the amount of homework being given. Even if you don’t feel comfortable complaining, you can approach the school through the parent-teacher association available and request your representative to plead your case.
• It may not be all the subjects that are causing your child to get stressed. Parents should find out if there is a specific subject of homework that is causing stress. You could also consult with other parents to see what they can do to fix the situation. It may be the amount or the content that causes stress, so the first step is identifying the problem.
• Work with your child to create a schedule for getting homework done on time. You can set a specific period of time for homework, and schedule time for other activities too. Strike a balance between work and play.
• Understanding that your child is stressed about homework doesn’t mean you have to allow them not to try. Let them sit down and work on it as much as they’re able to, and recruit help from the older siblings or a neighbor if possible.
• Check out these resources to help your child with their homework .

The main idea here is to not abolish homework completely, but to review the amount and quality of homework being given out. Stress, depression and lower grades are the last things parents want for their children.

The schools and parents need to work together to find a solution to this obvious problem.

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Home › Study Tips › Tackling Homework Anxiety: Your Guide to a Calmer Study Life

Tackling Homework Anxiety: Your Guide to a Calmer Study Life

• Published April 3, 2024

Navigating schoolwork can sometimes feel like you’re trying to sail through a storm. With assignments, projects, and revision piling up, it’s no surprise that many of us end up feeling a tad overwhelmed. This isn’t just about the usual stress of meeting deadlines; it’s about that extra layer of worry that can throw us off balance – something you might have heard referred to as homework anxiety. But fear not! Understanding what it is and learning some clever ways to manage it can really make a difference in how we handle our school workload.

So, What Exactly is Homework Anxiety?

Imagine your homework as a giant wave coming right at you. Homework anxiety is the feeling you get right before it crashes over you – a mix of worry, stress, and fear that can really shake you up emotionally and physically. It might come from the sheer volume of work, a fear of not doing well, putting too much pressure on yourself to be perfect, not quite getting the hang of the material, or just feeling swamped with managing your time. Symptoms can range from simply putting things off to feeling physically unwell or struggling to focus.

Spotting the Signs

Knowing the signs of homework anxiety can help you notice early and do something about it. These signs can include:

• Feeling constantly worried or filled with dread about homework.
• Physical issues like headaches or feeling run down.
• Finding it hard to concentrate or finish your homework.
• Avoiding your homework or finding any reason to do something else.
• Getting easily frustrated or feeling stuck.

How to Wave Goodbye to Homework Anxiety

1. Get Your Ducks in a Row: Keeping your work organised can help ease that feeling of being overwhelmed. Break your tasks down into smaller bits and give yourself clear deadlines.

2. Stick to a Study Schedule: Finding a routine that works for you and sticking to it can help keep the anxiety at bay. Work out when and where you study best and make it a habit.

3. Don’t Be Shy, Ask for Help: If you’re struggling with something, asking your teachers for a bit of clarity can go a long way in calming those nerves.

4. Pick Your Battles: Work out which tasks need your immediate attention and which ones can wait. Starting with the most urgent ones can make everything else feel more manageable.

5. Take a Deep Breath: Or several. Mixing in relaxation techniques like deep breathing, meditation, or a bit of exercise can help clear your head and improve your focus.

6. Balance is Key: Don’t forget to mix in things you enjoy alongside your study. Regular breaks and fun activities can be the perfect antidote to study stress.

7. Give Yourself a Pep-Talk: Swap out those nagging negative thoughts with some positivity! Reminding yourself of what you’ve already achieved can give you a nice confidence boost.

8. Lean on Your Squad: Talking things through with family, friends, or even teachers can give you a fresh perspective and some much-needed support. And sometimes, it might be worth chatting with a professional to find new ways to tackle your anxiety.

Final Notes:

Dealing with homework anxiety is definitely a challenge, but it’s one you can overcome with the right approach and support. Keeping an eye out for the warning signs and adopting some of these strategies can help you face your schoolwork with a bit more confidence and a lot less stress. Remember, it’s all about finding that sweet spot between doing your best and taking care of yourself. Here’s to smoother sailing ahead!

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Homework Struggles May Not Be a Behavior Problem

Exploring some options to understand and help..

Posted August 2, 2022 | Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

• What Is Anxiety?
• Take our Generalized Anxiety Disorder Test
• Find a therapist to overcome anxiety
• Mental health challenges and neurodevelopmental differences directly affect children's ability to do homework.
• Understanding what difficulties are getting in the way—beyond the usual explanation of a behavior problem—is key.
• Sleep and mental health needs can take priority over homework completion.

Chelsea was in 10th grade the first time I told her directly to stop doing her homework and get some sleep. I had been working with her since she was in middle school, treating her anxiety disorder. She deeply feared disappointing anyone—especially her teachers—and spent hours trying to finish homework perfectly. The more tired and anxious she got, the harder it got for her to finish the assignments.

One night Chelsea called me in despair, feeling hopeless. She was exhausted and couldn’t think straight. She felt like a failure and that she was a burden to everyone because she couldn’t finish her homework.

She was shocked when I told her that my prescription for her was to go to sleep now—not to figure out how to finish her work. I told her to leave her homework incomplete and go to sleep. We briefly discussed how we would figure it out the next day, with her mom and her teachers. At that moment, it clicked for her that it was futile to keep working—because nothing was getting done.

This was an inflection point for her awareness of when she was emotionally over-cooked and when she needed to stop and take a break or get some sleep. We repeated versions of this phone call several times over the course of her high school and college years, but she got much better at being able to do this for herself most of the time.

When Mental Health Symptoms Interfere with Homework

Kids with mental health or neurodevelopmental challenges often struggle mightily with homework. Challenges can come up in every step of the homework process, including, but not limited to:

• Remembering and tracking assignments and materials
• Getting the mental energy/organization to start homework
• Filtering distractions enough to persist with assignments
• Understanding unspoken or implied parts of the homework
• Remembering to bring finished homework to class
• Being in class long enough to know the material
• Tolerating the fear of not knowing or failing
• Not giving up the assignment because of a panic attack
• Tolerating frustration—such as not understanding—without emotional dysregulation
• Being able to ask for help—from a peer or a teacher and not being afraid to reach out

This list is hardly comprehensive. ADHD , autism spectrum disorder, social anxiety , generalized anxiety, panic disorder, depression , dysregulation, and a range of other neurodevelopmental and mental health challenges cause numerous learning differences and symptoms that can specifically and frequently interfere with getting homework done.

The Usual Diagnosis for Homework Problems is "Not Trying Hard Enough"

Unfortunately, when kids frequently struggle to meet homework demands, teachers and parents typically default to one explanation of the problem: The child is making a choice not to do their homework. That is the default “diagnosis” in classrooms and living rooms. And once this framework is drawn, the student is often seen as not trying hard enough, disrespectful, manipulative, or just plain lazy.

The fundamental disconnect here is that the diagnosis of homework struggles as a behavioral choice is, in fact, only one explanation, while there are so many other diagnoses and differences that impair children's ability to consistently do their homework. If we are trying to create solutions based on only one understanding of the problem, the solutions will not work. More devastatingly, the wrong solutions can worsen the child’s mental health and their long-term engagement with school and learning.

To be clear, we aren’t talking about children who sometimes struggle with or skip homework—kids who can change and adapt their behaviors and patterns in response to the outcomes of that struggle. For this discussion, we are talking about children with mental health and/or neurodevelopmental symptoms and challenges that create chronic difficulties with meeting homework demands.

How Can You Help a Child Who Struggles with Homework?

How can you help your child who is struggling to meet homework demands because of their ADHD, depression, anxiety, OCD , school avoidance, or any other neurodevelopmental or mental health differences? Let’s break this down into two broad areas—things you can do at home, and things you can do in communication with the school.

Helping at Home

The following suggestions for managing school demands at home can feel counterintuitive to parents—because we usually focus on helping our kids to complete their tasks. But mental health needs jump the line ahead of task completion. And starting at home will be key to developing an idea of what needs to change at school.

• Set an end time in the evening after which no more homework will be attempted. Kids need time to decompress and they need sleep—and pushing homework too close to or past bedtime doesn’t serve their educational needs. Even if your child hasn’t been able to approach the homework at all, even if they have avoided and argued the whole evening, it is still important for everyone to have a predictable time to shut down the whole process.
• If there are arguments almost every night about homework, if your child isn’t starting homework or finishing it, reframe it from failure into information. It’s data to put into problem-solving. We need to consider other possible explanations besides “behavioral choice” when trying to understand the problem and create effective solutions. What problems are getting in the way of our child’s meeting homework demands that their peers are meeting most of the time?
• Try not to argue about homework. If you can check your own anxiety and frustration, it can be more productive to ally with your child and be curious with them. Kids usually can’t tell you a clear “why” but maybe they can tell you how they are feeling and what they are thinking. And if your child can’t talk about it or just keeps saying “I don't know,” try not to push. Come back another time. Rushing, forcing, yelling, and threatening will predictably not help kids do homework.

Helping at School

The second area to explore when your neurodiverse child struggles frequently with homework is building communication and connections with school and teachers. Some places to focus on include the following.

• Label your child’s diagnoses and break down specific symptoms for the teachers and school team. Nonjudgmental, but specific language is essential for teachers to understand your child’s struggles. Breaking their challenges down into the problems specific to homework can help with building solutions. As your child gets older, help them identify their difficulties and communicate them to teachers.
• Let teachers and the school team know that your child’s mental health needs—including sleep—take priority over finishing homework. If your child is always struggling to complete homework and get enough sleep, or if completing homework is leading to emotional meltdowns every night, adjusting their homework demands will be more successful than continuing to push them into sleep deprivation or meltdowns.
• Request a child study team evaluation to determine if your child qualifies for services under special education law such as an IEP, or accommodations through section 504—and be sure that homework adjustments are included in any plan. Or if such a plan is already in place, be clear that modification of homework expectations needs to be part of it.

The Long-Term Story

I still work with Chelsea and she recently mentioned how those conversations so many years ago are still part of how she approaches work tasks or other demands that are spiking her anxiety when she finds herself in a vortex of distress. She stops what she is doing and prioritizes reducing her anxiety—whether it’s a break during her day or an ending to the task for the evening. She sees that this is crucial to managing her anxiety in her life and still succeeding at what she is doing.

Task completion at all costs is not a solution for kids with emotional needs. Her story (and the story of many of my patients) make this crystal clear.

Candida Fink, M.D. , is board certified in child/adolescent and general psychiatry. She practices in New York and has co-authored two books— The Ups and Downs of Raising a Bipolar Child and Bipolar Disorder for Dummies.

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End Homework Anxiety: Stress-Busting Techniques for Your Child

Sometimes kids dread homework because they'd rather be outside playing when they're not at school. But, sometimes a child's resistance to homework is more intense than a typical desire to be having fun, and it can be actually be labeled as homework anxiety: a legitimate condition suffered by some students who feel intense feelings of fear and dread when it comes to doing homework. Read on to learn about what homework anxiety is and whether your child may be suffering from it.

What is Homework Anxiety?

Homework anxiety is a condition in which students stress about and fear homework, often causing them to put homework off until later . It is a self-exacerbating condition because the longer the student puts off the homework, the more anxiety they feel about it, and the more pressure they experience to finish the work with less time. Homework anxiety can cripple some kids who are perfectly capable of doing the work, causing unfinished assignments and grades that slip.

What Causes Homework Anxiety?

There are many causes of homework anxiety, and there can be multiple factors spurring feelings of fear and stress. Some common causes of homework anxiety include:

• Other anxiety issues: Students who tend to suffer anxiety and worry, in general, can begin to associate anxiety with their homework, as well.
• Fear of testing: Often, homework is associated with upcoming tests and quizzes, which affect grades. Students can feel pressure related to being "graded" and avoid homework since it feels weighty and important.
• General school struggle: When students are struggling in school or with grades, they may feel a sense of anxiety about learning and school in general.
• Lack of support: Without a parent, sibling, tutor, or other help at home, students may feel that they won't have the necessary support to complete an assignment.
• Perfectionism: Students who want to perform perfectly in school may get anxious about completing a homework assignment perfectly and, in turn, procrastinate.

Basic Tips for Helping with Homework Anxiety

To help your child with homework anxiety, there are a few basic tips to try. Set time limits for homework, so that students know there is a certain time of the day when they must start and finish assignments. This helps them avoid putting off homework until it feels too rushed and pressured. Make sure your student has support available when doing their work, so they know they'll be able to ask for help if needed. Teaching your child general tips to deal with anxiety can also help, like deep breathing, getting out to take a short walk, or quieting racing thoughts in their mind to help them focus.

How can the Brain Balance Program Help with Homework Anxiety?

Extensive scientific research demonstrates that the brain is malleable, allowing for brain connectivity change and development and creating an opportunity for improvement at any age. Brain Balance has applied this research to develop a program that focuses on building brain connectivity and improving the foundation of development, rather than masking or coping with symptoms.

If you have a child or a teenager who struggles with homework anxiety, an assessment can help to identify key areas for improvement and create an action plan for you and your child. To get started, take our quick, free online assessment by clicking the link below. 

Get started with a plan for your child today.

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Does Homework Cause Stress? Exploring the Impact on Students’ Mental Health

How much homework is too much?

Homework has become a matter of concern for educators, parents, and researchers due to its potential effects on students’ stress levels. It’s no secret students often find themselves grappling with high levels of stress and anxiety throughout their academic careers, so understanding the extent to which homework affects those stress levels is important. 

By delving into the latest research and understanding the underlying factors at play, we hope to curate insights for educators, parents, and students who are wondering whether homework causing stress in their lives?

The Link Between Homework and Stress: What the Research Says

Over the years, numerous studies investigated the relationship between homework and stress levels in students. 

One study published in the Journal of Experimental Education found that students who reported spending more than two hours per night on homework experienced higher stress levels and physical health issues . Those same students reported over three hours of homework a night on average.

This study, conducted by Stanford lecturer Denise Pope, has been heavily cited throughout the years, with WebMD producing the below video on the topic– part of their special report series on teens and stress : 

Additional studies published by Sleep Health Journal found that long hours on homework on may be a risk factor for depression , suggesting that reducing workload outside of class may benefit sleep and mental fitness .

Homework’s Potential Impact on Mental Health and Well-being

Homework-induced stress on students can involve both psychological and physiological side effects. 

1. Potential Psychological Effects of Homework-Induced Stress:

• Anxiety: The pressure to perform well academically and meet homework expectations can lead to heightened levels of anxiety in students. Constant worry about completing assignments on time and achieving high grades can be overwhelming.

• Sleep Disturbances : Homework-related stress can disrupt students’ sleep patterns, leading to sleep anxiety or sleep deprivation, both of which can negatively impact cognitive function and emotional regulation.

• Reduced Motivation: Excessive homework demands could drain students’ motivation, causing them to feel fatigued and disengaged from their studies. Reduced motivation may lead to a lack of interest in learning, hindering students’ overall academic performance.

2. Potential Physiological Effects of Homework-Induced Stress:

• Impaired Immune Function: Prolonged stress could weaken the immune system, making students more susceptible to illnesses and infections.

• Disrupted Hormonal Balance : The body’s stress response triggers the release of hormones like cortisol, which, when chronically elevated due to stress, can disrupt the delicate hormonal balance and lead to various health issues.

• Gastrointestinal Disturbances: Stress has been known to affect the gastrointestinal system, leading to symptoms such as stomachaches, nausea, and other digestive problems.

• Cardiovascular Impact: The increased heart rate and elevated blood pressure associated with stress can strain the cardiovascular system, potentially increasing the risk of heart-related issues in the long run.

• Brain impact: Prolonged exposure to stress hormones may impact the brain’s functioning , affecting memory, concentration, and other cognitive abilities.

The Benefits of Homework

It’s important to note that homework also offers many benefits that contribute to students’ academic growth and development, such as: 

• Development of Time Management Skills: Completing homework within specified deadlines encourages students to manage their time efficiently. This valuable skill extends beyond academics and becomes essential in various aspects of life.

• Preparation for Future Challenges : Homework helps prepare students for future academic challenges and responsibilities. It fosters a sense of discipline and responsibility, qualities that are crucial for success in higher education and professional life.

• Enhanced Problem-Solving Abilities: Homework often presents students with challenging problems to solve. Tackling these problems independently nurtures critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

While homework can foster discipline, time management, and self-directed learning, the middle ground may be to  strike a balance that promotes both academic growth and mental well-being .

How Much Homework Should Teachers Assign?

As a general guideline, educators suggest assigning a workload that allows students to grasp concepts effectively without overwhelming them . Quality over quantity is key, ensuring that homework assignments are purposeful, relevant, and targeted towards specific objectives. 

Advice for Students: How to balance Homework and Well-being

Finding a balance between academic responsibilities and well-being is crucial for students. Here are some practical tips and techniques to help manage homework-related stress and foster a healthier approach to learning:

• Effective Time Management : Encourage students to create a structured study schedule that allocates sufficient time for homework, breaks, and other activities. Prioritizing tasks and setting realistic goals can prevent last-minute rushes and reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed.

• Break Tasks into Smaller Chunks : Large assignments can be daunting and may contribute to stress. Students should break such tasks into smaller, manageable parts. This approach not only makes the workload seem less intimidating but also provides a sense of accomplishment as each section is completed.

• Find a Distraction-Free Zone : Establish a designated study area that is free from distractions like smartphones, television, or social media. This setting will improve focus and productivity, reducing time needed to complete homework.

• Be Active : Regular exercise is known to reduce stress and enhance mood. Encourage students to incorporate physical activity into their daily routine, whether it’s going for a walk, playing a sport, or doing yoga.

• Practice Mindfulness and Relaxation Techniques : Encourage students to engage in mindfulness practices, such as deep breathing exercises or meditation, to alleviate stress and improve concentration. Taking short breaks to relax and clear the mind can enhance overall well-being and cognitive performance.

• Seek Support : Teachers, parents, and school counselors play an essential role in supporting students. Create an open and supportive environment where students feel comfortable expressing their concerns and seeking help when needed.

How Healium is Helping in Schools

Stress is caused by so many factors and not just the amount of work students are taking home.  Our company created a virtual reality stress management solution… a mental fitness tool called “Healium” that’s teaching students how to learn to self-regulate their stress and downshift in a drugless way. Schools implementing Healium have seen improvements from supporting dysregulated students and ADHD challenges to empowering students with body awareness and learning to self-regulate stress . Here’s one of their stories. 

By providing students with the tools they need to self-manage stress and anxiety, we represent a forward-looking approach to education that prioritizes the holistic development of every student. 

To learn more about how Healium works, watch the video below.

About the Author

Sarah Hill , a former interactive TV news journalist at NBC, ABC, and CBS affiliates in Missouri, gained recognition for pioneering interactive news broadcasting using Google Hangouts. She is now the CEO of Healium, the world’s first biometrically powered immersive media channel, helping those with stress, anxiety, insomnia, and other struggles through biofeedback storytelling. With patents, clinical validation, and over seven million views, she has reshaped the landscape of immersive media.

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Education scholar Denise Pope has found that too much homework has negative effects on student well-being and behavioral engagement. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

A Stanford researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.

“Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good,” wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .

The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students’ views on homework.

Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.

Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.

“The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students’ advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being,” Pope wrote.

Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.

Their study found that too much homework is associated with:

* Greater stress: 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.

* Reductions in health: In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.

* Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits: Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were “not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills,” according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.

A balancing act

The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.

Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as “pointless” or “mindless” in order to keep their grades up.

“This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points,” Pope said.

She said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.

“Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development,” wrote Pope.

High-performing paradox

In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. “Young people are spending more time alone,” they wrote, “which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities.”

Student perspectives

The researchers say that while their open-ended or “self-reporting” methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for “typical adolescent complaining” – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.

The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Media Contacts

Denise Pope, Stanford Graduate School of Education: (650) 725-7412, [email protected] Clifton B. Parker, Stanford News Service: (650) 725-0224, [email protected]

Is it time to get rid of homework? Mental health experts weigh in.

It's no secret that kids hate homework. And as students grapple with an ongoing pandemic that has had a wide range of mental health impacts, is it time schools start listening to their pleas about workloads?

Some teachers are turning to social media to take a stand against homework. 

Tiktok user @misguided.teacher says he doesn't assign it because the "whole premise of homework is flawed."

For starters, he says, he can't grade work on "even playing fields" when students' home environments can be vastly different.

"Even students who go home to a peaceful house, do they really want to spend their time on busy work? Because typically that's what a lot of homework is, it's busy work," he says in the video that has garnered 1.6 million likes. "You only get one year to be 7, you only got one year to be 10, you only get one year to be 16, 18."

Mental health experts agree heavy workloads have the potential do more harm than good for students, especially when taking into account the impacts of the pandemic. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether.

Emmy Kang, mental health counselor at Humantold , says studies have shown heavy workloads can be "detrimental" for students and cause a "big impact on their mental, physical and emotional health."

"More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies," she says, adding that staying up late to finish assignments also leads to disrupted sleep and exhaustion.

Cynthia Catchings, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist at Talkspace , says heavy workloads can also cause serious mental health problems in the long run, like anxiety and depression. 

And for all the distress homework  can cause, it's not as useful as many may think, says Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, a psychologist and CEO of Omega Recovery treatment center.

"The research shows that there's really limited benefit of homework for elementary age students, that really the school work should be contained in the classroom," he says.

For older students, Kang says, homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night. 

"Most students, especially at these high achieving schools, they're doing a minimum of three hours, and it's taking away time from their friends, from their families, their extracurricular activities. And these are all very important things for a person's mental and emotional health."

Catchings, who also taught third to 12th graders for 12 years, says she's seen the positive effects of a no-homework policy while working with students abroad.

"Not having homework was something that I always admired from the French students (and) the French schools, because that was helping the students to really have the time off and really disconnect from school," she says.

The answer may not be to eliminate homework completely but to be more mindful of the type of work students take home, suggests Kang, who was a high school teacher for 10 years.

"I don't think (we) should scrap homework; I think we should scrap meaningless, purposeless busy work-type homework. That's something that needs to be scrapped entirely," she says, encouraging teachers to be thoughtful and consider the amount of time it would take for students to complete assignments.

The pandemic made the conversation around homework more crucial 

Mindfulness surrounding homework is especially important in the context of the past two years. Many students will be struggling with mental health issues that were brought on or worsened by the pandemic , making heavy workloads even harder to balance.

"COVID was just a disaster in terms of the lack of structure. Everything just deteriorated," Kardaras says, pointing to an increase in cognitive issues and decrease in attention spans among students. "School acts as an anchor for a lot of children, as a stabilizing force, and that disappeared."

But even if students transition back to the structure of in-person classes, Kardaras suspects students may still struggle after two school years of shifted schedules and disrupted sleeping habits.

"We've seen adults struggling to go back to in-person work environments from remote work environments. That effect is amplified with children because children have less resources to be able to cope with those transitions than adults do," he explains.

'Get organized' ahead of back-to-school

In order to make the transition back to in-person school easier, Kang encourages students to "get good sleep, exercise regularly (and) eat a healthy diet."

To help manage workloads, she suggests students "get organized."

"There's so much mental clutter up there when you're disorganized. ... Sitting down and planning out their study schedules can really help manage their time," she says.

Breaking up assignments can also make things easier to tackle.

"I know that heavy workloads can be stressful, but if you sit down and you break down that studying into smaller chunks, they're much more manageable."

If workloads are still too much, Kang encourages students to advocate for themselves.

"They should tell their teachers when a homework assignment just took too much time or if it was too difficult for them to do on their own," she says. "It's good to speak up and ask those questions. Respectfully, of course, because these are your teachers. But still, I think sometimes teachers themselves need this feedback from their students."

More: Some teachers let their students sleep in class. Here's what mental health experts say.

More: Some parents are slipping young kids in for the COVID-19 vaccine, but doctors discourage the move as 'risky'

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Stress and The Dangers of Homework

The anxiety of not completing an assignment that you have been stuck on for the past hour can be overwhelming, right? What if I told you millions of people feel the same way you do and there can be consequences of it, I’m not talking grade wise, I’m talking mentally. Homework as we have experienced causes a great amount of stress which can lead you to a poor mental state, sleep deprivation, and many more bad things. Which can be prevented by decreasing the amount of homework significantly and/or being taught how to combat such stress. [A couple of such ways is by managing time, controlling emotions, and monitoring your motivation.] (https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1054844.pdf)

[Controlling Emotion] (https://www.rewireme.com/brain-insight/how-to-control-your-emotions/)

[Time Management] (https://www.liquidplanner.com/blog/7-essential-time-management-strategies/)

[Motivation] (https://ucsccaps.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/staying-motivated/)

A school can start to teach these things so life can be easier for the students, but not just for them though but their family and their teachers too. A study made in 2017 about [the effects of homework on middle class families] (https://digitalcommons.csp.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&=&context=cup_commons_grad_edd&=&sei-redir=1&referer=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252Furl%253Fq%253Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fdigitalcommons.csp.edu%252Fcgi%252Fviewcontent.cgi%253Farticle%25253D1069%252526context%25253Dcup_commons_grad_edd%2526sa%253DD%2526source%253Deditors%2526ust%253D1616434140114000%2526usg%253DAOvVaw0FRSYatcLU9NO7fYRvpdUB#search=%22https%3A%2F%2Fdigitalcommons.csp.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1069%26context%3Dcup_commons_grad_edd%22) shows that homework is the leading cause of stress in the household because it’s hard to have a “healthy balance of homework and family life”. This stress and less family time can lead to troubles in a family, and might even lead to divorce if it is disruptive enough.

The Parent Teacher Association (PTA), suggests there to be ten minutes of homework per grade level which is seemed to not be followed, [some kindergarteners are getting up to] (https://www.healthline.com/health-news/children-more-homework-means-more-stress-031114) 25 minutes of homework per day when they even aren’t supposed to get homework at all according to the National Education Association (NEA), and some second and third graders are even getting 28-29 minutes of homework per day taken in a survey in rhode island. It just doesn’t affect younger grades [but college students as] (https://mellowed.com/homework-stress/) well.

[Chart] (https://mellowed.com/homework-stress/)

The stress can be overwhelming sometimes but the United States is not the only country with a homework problem, Italy, UK, France, and many more suffer the consequences. A survey taken in the UK, in March of 2020 shows that 66% of students in the age range of 8-17 said that “they felt most stressed about homework and/or exams” compared to everything else. Which is pretty alarming considering that this was a survey with almost 2,000 kids, and 66% of 2,000 is 1,320. Just imagine how many people are struggling with it as well on a global level.

Now you might be wondering how can we stop this monstrosity of stress, well looking at countries like [Finland, Japan, and South Korea] (https://www.geekycamel.com/countries-give-less-homework-theyre-successful/#:~:text=Finland,they%20are%20seven%20years%20old.) which are countries that give very little homework per week, ranging from 2.9 hours to 3.9. They mostly rely on trust in the teachers and students, more testing, and new ways to learn that is more beneficial for the students later in life. And it seems to have paid off, Finland, South Korea, and Japan seem to be at the [top in the world for Math and Science at the age of 15.] (https://www.bbc.com/news/education-37716005) So why don’t we start making the change to no homework? Well, that’s the next step, students should start to spread awareness and make petitions to the school board calling for change.

[Bibliography] (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JCUpxbJm75pB3KNpx6rgm3gX1t_oSuAePhx-5FVyNws/edit#)

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When Is Homework Stressful? Its Effects on Students’ Mental Health

Are you wondering when is homework stressful? Well, homework is a vital constituent in keeping students attentive to the course covered in a class. By applying the lessons, students learned in class, they can gain a mastery of the material by reflecting on it in greater detail and applying what they learned through homework. 

However, students get advantages from homework, as it improves soft skills like organisation and time management which are important after high school. However, the additional work usually causes anxiety for both the parents and the child. As their load of homework accumulates, some students may find themselves growing more and more bored.

Students may take assistance online and ask someone to do my online homework . As there are many platforms available for the students such as Chegg, Scholarly Help, and Quizlet offering academic services that can assist students in completing their homework on time. 

Negative impact of homework

There are the following reasons why is homework stressful and leads to depression for students and affect their mental health. As they work hard on their assignments for alarmingly long periods, students’ mental health is repeatedly put at risk. Here are some serious arguments against too much homework.

No uniqueness

Homework should be intended to encourage children to express themselves more creatively. Teachers must assign kids intriguing assignments that highlight their uniqueness. similar to writing an essay on a topic they enjoy.

Moreover, the key is encouraging the child instead of criticizing him for writing a poor essay so that he can express himself more creatively.

Lack of sleep

One of the most prevalent adverse effects of schoolwork is lack of sleep. The average student only gets about 5 hours of sleep per night since they stay up late to complete their homework, even though the body needs at least 7 hours of sleep every day. Lack of sleep has an impact on both mental and physical health.

No pleasure

Students learn more effectively while they are having fun. They typically learn things more quickly when their minds are not clouded by fear. However, the fear factor that most teachers introduce into homework causes kids to turn to unethical means of completing their assignments.

Excessive homework

The lack of coordination between teachers in the existing educational system is a concern. As a result, teachers frequently end up assigning children far more work than they can handle. In such circumstances, children turn to cheat on their schoolwork by either copying their friends’ work or using online resources that assist with homework.

Anxiety level

Homework stress can increase anxiety levels and that could hurt the blood pressure norms in young people . Do you know? Around 3.5% of young people in the USA have high blood pressure. So why is homework stressful for children when homework is meant to be enjoyable and something they look forward to doing? It is simple to reject this claim by asserting that schoolwork is never enjoyable, yet with some careful consideration and preparation, homework may become pleasurable.

No time for personal matters

Students that have an excessive amount of homework miss out on personal time. They can’t get enough enjoyment. There is little time left over for hobbies, interpersonal interaction with colleagues, and other activities. 

However, many students dislike doing their assignments since they don’t have enough time. As they grow to detest it, they can stop learning. In any case, it has a significant negative impact on their mental health.

Children are no different than everyone else in need of a break. Weekends with no homework should be considered by schools so that kids have time to unwind and prepare for the coming week. Without a break, doing homework all week long might be stressful.

How do parents help kids with homework?

Encouraging children’s well-being and health begins with parents being involved in their children’s lives. By taking part in their homework routine, you can see any issues your child may be having and offer them the necessary support.

Set up a routine

Your student will develop and maintain good study habits if you have a clear and organized homework regimen. If there is still a lot of schoolwork to finish, try putting a time limit. Students must obtain regular, good sleep every single night.

Observe carefully

The student is ultimately responsible for their homework. Because of this, parents should only focus on ensuring that their children are on track with their assignments and leave it to the teacher to determine what skills the students have and have not learned in class.

Listen to your child

One of the nicest things a parent can do for their kids is to ask open-ended questions and listen to their responses. Many kids are reluctant to acknowledge they are struggling with their homework because they fear being labelled as failures or lazy if they do.

However, every parent wants their child to succeed to the best of their ability, but it’s crucial to be prepared to ease the pressure if your child starts to show signs of being overburdened with homework.

Talk to your teachers

Also, make sure to contact the teacher with any problems regarding your homework by phone or email. Additionally, it demonstrates to your student that you and their teacher are working together to further their education.

Homework with friends

If you are still thinking is homework stressful then It’s better to do homework with buddies because it gives them these advantages. Their stress is reduced by collaborating, interacting, and sharing with peers.

Additionally, students are more relaxed when they work on homework with pals. It makes even having too much homework manageable by ensuring they receive the support they require when working on the assignment. Additionally, it improves their communication abilities.

However, doing homework with friends guarantees that one learns how to communicate well and express themselves. 

Review homework plan

Create a schedule for finishing schoolwork on time with your child. Every few weeks, review the strategy and make any necessary adjustments. Gratefully, more schools are making an effort to control the quantity of homework assigned to children to lessen the stress this produces.

Bottom line

Finally, be aware that homework-related stress is fairly prevalent and is likely to occasionally affect you or your student. Sometimes all you or your kid needs to calm down and get back on track is a brief moment of comfort. So if you are a student and wondering if is homework stressful then you must go through this blog.

While homework is a crucial component of a student’s education, when kids are overwhelmed by the amount of work they have to perform, the advantages of homework can be lost and grades can suffer. Finding a balance that ensures students understand the material covered in class without becoming overburdened is therefore essential.

Zuella Montemayor did her degree in psychology at the University of Toronto. She is interested in mental health, wellness, and lifestyle.

Psychreg is a digital media company and not a clinical company. Our content does not constitute a medical or psychological consultation. See a certified medical or mental health professional for diagnosis.

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Feeling overwhelmed by your nightly homework grind? You’re not alone. Our Student Life in America survey results show that teens spend a third of their study time feeling worried, stressed, or stuck. If you’re spending close to four hours a night on your homework (the national average), that’s over an hour spent spent feeling panicky and still not getting your work done. Homework anxiety can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: If you’re already convinced that calculus is unconquerable, that anxiety can actually block your ability to learn the material.

Whether your anxiety is related to handling your workload (we know you’re getting more homework than ever!), mastering a particular subject like statistics, or getting great grades for your college application, stress doesn’t have to go hand-in-hand with studying .

In fact, a study by Stanford University School of Medicine and published in The Journal of Neuroscience shows that a student’s fear of math (and, yes, this fear is completely real and can be detectable in scans of the brain) can be eased by a one-on-one math tutoring program. At The Princeton Review this wasn’t news to us! Our online tutors are on-call 24/7 for students working on everything from AP Chemistry to Pre-Calc. Here’s a roundup of what our students have to say about managing homework stress by working one-one-one with our expert tutors .

1. Work the Best Way for YOU

From the way you decorate your room to the way you like to study, you have a style all your own:

"I cannot thank Christopher enough! I felt so anxious and stressed trying to work on my personal statement, and he made every effort to help me realize my strengths and focus on writing in a way that honored my personality. I wanted to give up, but he was patient with me and it made the difference."

"[My] tutor was 1000000000000% great . . . He made me feel important and fixed all of my mistakes and adapted to my learning style . . . I have so much confidence for my midterms that I was so stressed out about."

"I liked how the tutor asked me how was I starting the problem and allowed me to share what I was doing and what I had. The tutor was able to guide me from there and break down the steps and I got the answer all on my own and the tutor double checked it... saved me from tears and stress."

2. Study Smarter, Not Harder

If you’ve read the chapter in your history textbook twice and aren’t retaining the material, don’t assume the third time will be the charm. Our tutors will help you break the pattern, and learn ways to study more efficiently:

"[My] tutor has given me an easier, less stressful way of seeing math problems. It is like my eyes have opened up."

"I was so lost in this part of math but within minutes the tutor had me at ease and I get it now. I wasn't even with her maybe 30 minutes or so, and she helped me figure out what I have been stressing over for the past almost two days."

"I can not stress how helpful it is to have a live tutor available. Math was never and still isn't my favorite subject, but I know I need to take it. Being able to talk to someone and have them walk you through the steps on how to solve a problem is a huge weight lifted off of my shoulder."

3. Get Help in a Pinch

Because sometimes you need a hand RIGHT NOW:

"I was lost and stressed because I have a test tomorrow and did not understand the problems. I fully get it now!"

"My tutor was great. I was freaking out and stressed out about the entire assignment, but she really helped me to pull it together. I am excited to turn my paper in tomorrow."

"This was so helpful to have a live person to validate my understanding of the formulas I need to use before actually submitting my homework and getting it incorrect. My stress level reduced greatly with a project deadline due date."

4. Benefit from a Calming Presence

From PhDs and Ivy Leaguers to doctors and teachers, our tutors are experts in their fields, and they know how to keep your anxiety at bay:

"I really like that the tutors are real people and some of them help lighten the stress by making jokes or having quirky/witty things to say. That helps when you think you're messing up! Gives you a reprieve from your brain jumbling everything together!"

"He seemed understanding and empathetic to my situation. That means a lot to a new student who is under stress."

"She was very thorough in explaining her suggestions as well as asking questions and leaving the changes up to me, which I really appreciated. She was very encouraging and motivating which helped with keeping me positive about my paper and knowing that I am not alone in my struggles. She definitely eased my worries and stress. She was wonderful!"

5. Practice Makes Perfect

The Stanford study shows that repeated exposure to math problems through one-on-one tutoring helped students relieve their math anxiety (the authors’ analogy was how a fear of spiders can be treated with repeated exposure to spiders in a safe environment). Find a tutor you love, and come back to keep practicing:

"Love this site once again. It’s so helpful and this is the first time in years when I don’t stress about my frustration with HW because I know this site will always be here to help me."

"I've been using this service since I was in seventh grade and now I am a Freshman in High School. School has just started and I am already using this site again! :) This site is so dependable. I love it so much and it’s a lot easier than having an actual teacher sitting there hovering over you, waiting for you to finish the problem."

"I can always rely on this site to help me when I'm confused, and it always makes me feel more confident in the work I'm doing in school."

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The New York Times

Motherlode | when homework stresses parents as well as students, when homework stresses parents as well as students.

Educators and parents have long been concerned about students stressed by homework loads , but a small research study asked questions recently about homework and anxiety of a different group: parents. The results were unsurprising. While we may have already learned long division and let the Magna Carta fade into memory, parents report that their children’s homework causes family stress and tension — particularly when additional factors surrounding the homework come into play.

The researchers, from Brown University, found that stress and tension for families (as reported by the parents) increased most when parents perceived themselves as unable to help with the homework, when the child disliked doing the homework and when the homework caused arguments, either between the child and adults or among the adults in the household.

The number of parents involved in the research (1,173 parents, both English and Spanish-speaking, who visited one of 27 pediatric practices in the greater Providence area of Rhode Island) makes it more of a guide for further study than a basis for conclusions, but the idea that homework can cause significant family stress is hard to seriously debate. Families across income and education levels may struggle with homework for different reasons and in different ways, but “it’s an equal opportunity problem,” says Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman , a contributing editor to the research study and co-author of “ The Learning Habit .”

“Parents may find it hard to evaluate the homework,” she says. “They think, if this is coming home, my child should be able to do it. If the child can’t, and especially if they feel like they can’t help, they may get angry with the child, and the child feels stupid.” That’s a scenario that is likely to lead to more arguments, and an increased dislike of the work on the part of the child.

The researchers also found that parents of students in kindergarten and first grade reported that the children spent significantly more time on homework than recommended. Many schools and organizations, including the National Education Association and the Great Schools blog , will suggest following the “10-minute rule” for how long children should spend on school work outside of school hours: 10 minutes per grade starting in first grade, and most likely more in high school. Instead, parents described their first graders and kindergartners working, on average, for 25 to 30 minutes a night. That is consistent with other research , which has shown an increase in the amount of time spent on homework in lower grades from 1981 to 2003.

“This study highlights the real discrepancy between intent and what’s actually happening,” Ms. Donaldson-Pressman said, speaking of both the time spent and the family tensions parents describe. “When people talk about the homework, they’re too often talking about the work itself. They should be talking about the load — how long it takes. You can have three problems on one page that look easy, but aren’t.”

The homework a child is struggling with may not be developmentally appropriate for every child in a grade, she suggests, noting that academic expectations for young children have increased in recent years . Less-educated or Spanish-speaking parents may find it harder to evaluate or challenge the homework itself, or to say they think it is simply too much. “When the load is too much, it has a tremendous impact on family stress and the general tenor of the evening. It ruins your family time and kids view homework as a punishment,” she said.

At our house, homework has just begun; we are in the opposite of the honeymoon period, when both skills and tolerance are rusty and complaints and stress are high. If the two hours my fifth-grade math student spent on homework last night turn out the be the norm once he is used to the work and the teacher has had a chance to hear from the students, we’ll speak up.

We should, Ms. Donaldson-Pressman says. “Middle-class parents can solve the problem for their own kids,” she says. “They can make sure their child is going to all the right tutors, or get help, but most people can’t.” Instead of accepting that at home we become teachers and homework monitors (or even taking classes in how to help your child with his math ), parents should let the school know that they’re unhappy with the situation, both to encourage others to speak up and to speak on behalf of parents who don’t feel comfortable complaining.

“Home should be a safe place for students,” she says. “A child goes to school all day and they’re under stress. If they come home and it’s more of the same, that’s not good for anyone.”

Read more about homework on Motherlode: Homework and Consequences ; The Mechanics of Homework ; That’s Your Child’s Homework Project, Not Yours and Homework’s Emotional Toll on Students and Families.

What's Next

Is homework a necessary evil?

After decades of debate, researchers are still sorting out the truth about homework’s pros and cons. One point they can agree on: Quality assignments matter.

By Kirsten Weir

March 2016, Vol 47, No. 3

Print version: page 36

• Schools and Classrooms

Homework battles have raged for decades. For as long as kids have been whining about doing their homework, parents and education reformers have complained that homework's benefits are dubious. Meanwhile many teachers argue that take-home lessons are key to helping students learn. Now, as schools are shifting to the new (and hotly debated) Common Core curriculum standards, educators, administrators and researchers are turning a fresh eye toward the question of homework's value.

But when it comes to deciphering the research literature on the subject, homework is anything but an open book.

The 10-minute rule

In many ways, homework seems like common sense. Spend more time practicing multiplication or studying Spanish vocabulary and you should get better at math or Spanish. But it may not be that simple.

Homework can indeed produce academic benefits, such as increased understanding and retention of the material, says Duke University social psychologist Harris Cooper, PhD, one of the nation's leading homework researchers. But not all students benefit. In a review of studies published from 1987 to 2003, Cooper and his colleagues found that homework was linked to better test scores in high school and, to a lesser degree, in middle school. Yet they found only faint evidence that homework provided academic benefit in elementary school ( Review of Educational Research , 2006).

Then again, test scores aren't everything. Homework proponents also cite the nonacademic advantages it might confer, such as the development of personal responsibility, good study habits and time-management skills. But as to hard evidence of those benefits, "the jury is still out," says Mollie Galloway, PhD, associate professor of educational leadership at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. "I think there's a focus on assigning homework because [teachers] think it has these positive outcomes for study skills and habits. But we don't know for sure that's the case."

Even when homework is helpful, there can be too much of a good thing. "There is a limit to how much kids can benefit from home study," Cooper says. He agrees with an oft-cited rule of thumb that students should do no more than 10 minutes a night per grade level — from about 10 minutes in first grade up to a maximum of about two hours in high school. Both the National Education Association and National Parent Teacher Association support that limit.

Beyond that point, kids don't absorb much useful information, Cooper says. In fact, too much homework can do more harm than good. Researchers have cited drawbacks, including boredom and burnout toward academic material, less time for family and extracurricular activities, lack of sleep and increased stress.

In a recent study of Spanish students, Rubén Fernández-Alonso, PhD, and colleagues found that students who were regularly assigned math and science homework scored higher on standardized tests. But when kids reported having more than 90 to 100 minutes of homework per day, scores declined ( Journal of Educational Psychology , 2015).

"At all grade levels, doing other things after school can have positive effects," Cooper says. "To the extent that homework denies access to other leisure and community activities, it's not serving the child's best interest."

Children of all ages need down time in order to thrive, says Denise Pope, PhD, a professor of education at Stanford University and a co-founder of Challenge Success, a program that partners with secondary schools to implement policies that improve students' academic engagement and well-being.

"Little kids and big kids need unstructured time for play each day," she says. Certainly, time for physical activity is important for kids' health and well-being. But even time spent on social media can help give busy kids' brains a break, she says.

All over the map

But are teachers sticking to the 10-minute rule? Studies attempting to quantify time spent on homework are all over the map, in part because of wide variations in methodology, Pope says.

A 2014 report by the Brookings Institution examined the question of homework, comparing data from a variety of sources. That report cited findings from a 2012 survey of first-year college students in which 38.4 percent reported spending six hours or more per week on homework during their last year of high school. That was down from 49.5 percent in 1986 ( The Brown Center Report on American Education , 2014).

The Brookings report also explored survey data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which asked 9-, 13- and 17-year-old students how much homework they'd done the previous night. They found that between 1984 and 2012, there was a slight increase in homework for 9-year-olds, but homework amounts for 13- and 17-year-olds stayed roughly the same, or even decreased slightly.

Yet other evidence suggests that some kids might be taking home much more work than they can handle. Robert Pressman, PhD, and colleagues recently investigated the 10-minute rule among more than 1,100 students, and found that elementary-school kids were receiving up to three times as much homework as recommended. As homework load increased, so did family stress, the researchers found ( American Journal of Family Therapy , 2015).

Many high school students also seem to be exceeding the recommended amounts of homework. Pope and Galloway recently surveyed more than 4,300 students from 10 high-achieving high schools. Students reported bringing home an average of just over three hours of homework nightly ( Journal of Experiential Education , 2013).

On the positive side, students who spent more time on homework in that study did report being more behaviorally engaged in school — for instance, giving more effort and paying more attention in class, Galloway says. But they were not more invested in the homework itself. They also reported greater academic stress and less time to balance family, friends and extracurricular activities. They experienced more physical health problems as well, such as headaches, stomach troubles and sleep deprivation. "Three hours per night is too much," Galloway says.

In the high-achieving schools Pope and Galloway studied, more than 90 percent of the students go on to college. There's often intense pressure to succeed academically, from both parents and peers. On top of that, kids in these communities are often overloaded with extracurricular activities, including sports and clubs. "They're very busy," Pope says. "Some kids have up to 40 hours a week — a full-time job's worth — of extracurricular activities." And homework is yet one more commitment on top of all the others.

"Homework has perennially acted as a source of stress for students, so that piece of it is not new," Galloway says. "But especially in upper-middle-class communities, where the focus is on getting ahead, I think the pressure on students has been ratcheted up."

Yet homework can be a problem at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum as well. Kids from wealthier homes are more likely to have resources such as computers, Internet connections, dedicated areas to do schoolwork and parents who tend to be more educated and more available to help them with tricky assignments. Kids from disadvantaged homes are more likely to work at afterschool jobs, or to be home without supervision in the evenings while their parents work multiple jobs, says Lea Theodore, PhD, a professor of school psychology at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. They are less likely to have computers or a quiet place to do homework in peace.

"Homework can highlight those inequities," she says.

Quantity vs. quality

One point researchers agree on is that for all students, homework quality matters. But too many kids are feeling a lack of engagement with their take-home assignments, many experts say. In Pope and Galloway's research, only 20 percent to 30 percent of students said they felt their homework was useful or meaningful.

"Students are assigned a lot of busywork. They're naming it as a primary stressor, but they don't feel it's supporting their learning," Galloway says.

"Homework that's busywork is not good for anyone," Cooper agrees. Still, he says, different subjects call for different kinds of assignments. "Things like vocabulary and spelling are learned through practice. Other kinds of courses require more integration of material and drawing on different skills."

But critics say those skills can be developed with many fewer hours of homework each week. Why assign 50 math problems, Pope asks, when 10 would be just as constructive? One Advanced Placement biology teacher she worked with through Challenge Success experimented with cutting his homework assignments by a third, and then by half. "Test scores didn't go down," she says. "You can have a rigorous course and not have a crazy homework load."

Still, changing the culture of homework won't be easy. Teachers-to-be get little instruction in homework during their training, Pope says. And despite some vocal parents arguing that kids bring home too much homework, many others get nervous if they think their child doesn't have enough. "Teachers feel pressured to give homework because parents expect it to come home," says Galloway. "When it doesn't, there's this idea that the school might not be doing its job."

Galloway argues teachers and school administrators need to set clear goals when it comes to homework — and parents and students should be in on the discussion, too. "It should be a broader conversation within the community, asking what's the purpose of homework? Why are we giving it? Who is it serving? Who is it not serving?"

Until schools and communities agree to take a hard look at those questions, those backpacks full of take-home assignments will probably keep stirring up more feelings than facts.

Further reading

• Cooper, H., Robinson, J. C., & Patall, E. A. (2006). Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research, 1987-2003. Review of Educational Research, 76 (1), 1–62. doi: 10.3102/00346543076001001
• Galloway, M., Connor, J., & Pope, D. (2013). Nonacademic effects of homework in privileged, high-performing high schools. The Journal of Experimental Education, 81 (4), 490–510. doi: 10.1080/00220973.2012.745469
• Pope, D., Brown, M., & Miles, S. (2015). Overloaded and underprepared: Strategies for stronger schools and healthy, successful kids . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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How to better balance academic achievement and learning anxiety from time on homework? A multilevel and classification and regression tree analyses

Xiaopeng wu.

1 Faculty of Education, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China

2 Department of Science Education, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States

Carol Hanley

3 College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, United States

Hongyun Liu

4 Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

5 Collaborative Innovative Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing, China

Associated Data

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding authors.

Using education survey data from 153, 317 Grade 4 students and 150, 040 Grade 8 students in China, this study examined the relationship between time on homework and academic achievement and learning anxiety with hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) and classification and regression tree (CART) approaches. With a classification of time spent on homework into four related variables, this study found that, firstly, time spent on in-school homework during weekdays had positive effects on students’ achievement for both grades, and the positive effect was stronger for Grade 8 students than Grade 4 students. Moreover, a maximum of 1 h was recommended for Grade 4 students. Secondly, time spent on out-of-school homework on weekdays was negatively correlated with students’ academic achievement and positively with learning anxieties. It had greater detrimental effect on Grade 8 than Grade 4. Thirdly, Grade 8 students were encouraged to have more out-of-school homework on weekend with more than 2.8 h on average recommended. It was expected to complement extant studies and provide the practical findings for teachers, practitioners and school policy makers in making any homework assignment planning or conducting interventions.

1. Introduction

Extensive literature confirms the effectiveness of homework in students’ academic achievement and engagement ( Cooper, 1989 ; Keith et al., 2004 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Katz et al., 2012 ; Fan et al., 2017 ). In the 2022 report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), it reports that time spent on homework was increasing for different age groups (9-year-old, 13-year-old, and 17-year-old) from 1984 through 2012 ( U.S. Department of Education, 2022 ). Due to its complicated characteristics (e.g., frequency, purpose, and amount), homework has been viewed as one trigger for excessive pressure and anxiety that impedes students from success ( Cooper, 2015 ; Hong et al., 2015 ). With the facilitating effect of homework, whether there is a tradeoff between students’ academic achievement and learning anxiety has become an urgent issue for researchers to take a closer examination ( Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper and Valentine, 2001 ).

However, in previous research, though large body of homework related meta-analyses exist (e.g., Cooper et al., 2006 ; Fan et al., 2017 ), homework has been widely considered as a variable linearly related with the outcome (e.g., academic achievement) with support from schools and families. To say it alternatively, they stated that the more (the less) homework is, the better the student outcome. In addition, studies do exist that discuss the possible curvilinear relationship between homework and outcomes ( Cooper and Valentine, 2001 ). Nonetheless, there are rarely any studies that have taken homework and its two closely related outcomes, which are academic achievement and learning anxiety together into one analysis. Considering its significance and less investigation of the topic, this study was aimed to explore deeper the relationship between students’ time on homework and their academic achievement and learning anxiety.

2. Theoretical background

2.1. homework and academic achievement.

Homework, “tasks assigned to students by teachers to be carried out during the non-school hours” ( Cooper, 1989 , p. 7), is an essential instructional strategy that aims to supplement students’ learning in school. A large body of existing studies have investigated the relationship between time spent on homework and academic achievement ( Cooper et al., 2001 ; Trautwein et al., 2002 ; Trautwein and Köller, 2003 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Trautwein, 2007 ; Dettmers et al., 2009 ; Fan et al., 2017 ; Flunger et al., 2021 ). Most researchers have considered homework-achievement relationship as linear, and the conclusions varied greatly. Cooper et al. (2006) synthesized US studies from 1987 to 2003 across subjects and found the positive relationship between homework and achievement was stronger for Grades 7–12 than that for K-6. Fan et al. (2017) indicated a small positive relationship between homework time and math and science from 1986 to 2015 across the US, Europe, and Asia. Negative correlations were also identified throughout the studies. For instance, using nationally representative Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) German and American samples, Trautwein (2007) indicated negative relationships between homework time and math achievement. Studies showed no correlations were also found, for instance, using a sample of 1,976 middle school students, Trautwein et al. (2002) indicated that the amount of homework and time spent on homework were not correlated with students’ achievement.

There are also researchers who support a non-linear relationship between homework time and achievement. They believe that time on homework can reach a plateau at which increases in time has only a marginal effect on learning outcome ( Fredrick and Walberg, 1980 ; Keith, 1982 ; Cooper and Valentine, 2001 ). Keith (1982) stated that the effects of time spent on homework may be curvilinear, with each additional hour showing a smaller payoff in achievement. Cooper and Valentine (2001) reported that for junior high school students, minimal amount of time on homework can have positive relationship with achievement but the effect disappeared entirely after students reported doing homework between 1 and 2 h each night. For high school students, suggested a time range between 1.5 and 2.5 h per night as optimal. One theoretical foundation can support these findings is the Opportunity to Learn paradigm ( Carroll, 1963 ; Paschal et al., 1984 ). It recognizes that learning does yield positive learning outcomes but can only up to the amount needed to learn new materials. The effect of learning occurs at the conjunction of time spent on learning and time needed to learn .

2.2. Homework and learning anxiety

Except for the facilitating effect of homework on students’ academic achievement, contemporary learning theories also expressed the concern of the negative impact such as anxiety that homework may bring to students, which can greatly associate with homework effectiveness and undermine the positive effects of homework ( Cheung and Leung-Ngai, 1992 ; Conner et al., 2009 ; Katz et al., 2012 ; Galloway et al., 2013 ; Hong et al., 2015 ). Galloway et al. (2013) found students in upper middle-class on average spent 3 h of homework per night, but beyond 3 h, students experienced more academic stress and physical health problems. Michaud et al. (2015) also found more hours spent on homework was associated with physical health problems and they have emphasized an extra attention should be paid to stressful mental work due to homework duration. To better measure stress experienced by doing homework, Katz et al. (2012) validated a relevant homework stress scale, in which a series of psychological reactions such as tension, distraction and irritability caused by doing homework were depicted. Hong et al. (2015) described anxiety toward homework as one kind of cognitive concerns about the negative expectations, and potential consequences of homework performance. Children with different backgrounds may exhibit different intensities of anxieties in doing homework as well. Xiao et al. (2022) identified that time spent on homework were associated with higher scores in anxiety for dyslexic children compared to normal children. In our proposed study, we used the scale learning anxiety to refer to the general anxiety that students experience in schools. It mainly refers to the situation-specific anxiety responding to the learning-related situations (e.g., general academic, test, or social performance) in school context ( Wu et al., 2023 ).

2.3. Classifications of homework

When and where homework is completed have been identified as factors impacting students’ academic achievement ( Keith et al., 2004 ). Some teachers have argued that there existed different effects of homework completion in schools or out of schools ( Cooper and Valentine, 2001 ; Keith et al., 2004 ). In Cooper and Valentine (2001) ’s meta-analysis, they showed some slight effect for out-of-school homework over in-school supervised homework. Keith et al. (2004) discovered that time spent doing homework in school had no effect while time spent doing homework out of school had quite a substantial effect on high school students’ grades. So far, very limited quantitative studies have taken the homework characteristics into consideration while conducting relevant research. What’s more, in current learning environment, students have been assigned varieties of formats of out-of-school homework except for those assigned by schoolteachers, and they even need to squeeze their weekend time working on the in-school and out-of-school homework as well ( Mau and Lynn, 2000 ; Hagger et al., 2015 ). To have a deeper understanding of the effect of homework on students’ academic achievement and learning anxiety and provide more practical findings for schoolteachers, parents, and policymakers, this study made a more nuanced classification of time spent on homework and compared their differences of effects on academic achievement and learning anxiety. Specifically in our study, homework time has been classified into (1) time on in-school homework on weekdays; (2) time on in-school homework on weekends; (3) time on out-of-school homework on weekdays; and (4) time on out-of-school homework on weekends.

2.4. The present study

Informed by theoretical framework and related previous studies, below were two research hypotheses that we proposed for the current study. First, it was hypothesized that school-level homework related variables relate with students’ academic achievement and learning anxieties. Second, it was hypothesized that thresholds and range of time existed for optimal academic achievement and minimal learning anxiety. Since students in different grades may exhibit various characteristics ( Cooper, 1989 ; Cooper et al., 1998 ; Cooper and Valentine, 2001 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Fan et al., 2017 ), a sample of students from both Grade 4 and Grade 8 in a national large-scale dataset were applied in this study. Using statistical technique Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM), we first examined how these homework related variables impact students’ academic achievement and learning anxieties within the school context ( De Jong et al., 2000 ; Trautwein, 2007 ; Trautwein et al., 2009 ). To closely capture local variable manifestations and experiment with the data to derive insights ( Ma, 2005 ), we then followed up with classification and regression tree (CART) to investigate whether there existed any thresholds or ranges of time for students to spend on homework related variables to reach an optimal achievement outcome while minimizing students’ learning anxiety. Specifically, the following research questions were to be answered:

• Were schools responsible for the variation in students’ academic achievement and learning anxiety for both Grade 4 and 8? If there were school effects, what specific school-level homework related variable(s) showed statistically significant relationships with the outcome variables?
• What were the local manifestations of thresholds or range of time for students to spend on homework variables related with optimal achievement outcome and minimal students’ learning anxiety?

3.1. Data source and procedure

With high prevalence and long tradition in homework, China has been a “frontier” offering plenty of opportunities to examine the effect of homework ( Hong et al., 2009 ). This study used data from the Program of Regional Education Assessment implemented annually in China by the Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality (CICA-BEQ) at one university in Beijing. Through conducting standardized achievement tests toward students, teachers, and principals, the main purpose of the program was to understand the changes in teaching quality and students’ learning outcomes in different locations of China ( Liu et al., 2021 ). Variables and scales used in this national survey have all gone through rigorous reliability and validity examination. All participators were informed about goals of the study and assured that their data would be used for scientific purposes only. In accordance with the recommendations of the university, the administration was implemented with the written informed consent from the participants. Institutional Review Board (IRB) was also approved by the university.

The current dataset consisted of 158,318 Grade 4 students (Male: 54.10%, Female: 45.90%) from 1,739 elementary schools and 158,277 Grade 8 students (boys: 53.30%, girls: 46.70%) from 1,065 secondary schools in various provinces of China in 2016. More demographic information can be seen in Table 1 .

Demographic information of Grade 4 and Grade 8.

ISHWD is in-school homework time on weekdays, ISHWE is in-school homework time on weekends, OSHWD is out-of-school homework time on weekdays, and OSHWE is out-of-school homework time on weekends.

3.2. Variables

Dependent variables used in this study were two separate variables students’ academic achievement and learning anxiety . Independent variables were classified into student-level and school-level characteristics. Student-level variables included four homework related variables, which were in-school homework time on weekdays, in-school homework time on weekends, out-of-school homework time on weekdays, out-of-school homework time on weekends , as well as two control variables gender and individual socioeconomic status (ISES) . School-level variables included four relevant school-level homework variables; school context variables, which were school size and mean SES ; and school climate variables teacher-student relationship, peer relationship, school belongingness and schoolteacher leadership . The variables were specifically described as below.

3.2.1. Students’ academic achievement

Since students’ academic achievement is relatively stable across all subjects ( Chang et al., 2014 ), in this study, the students’ average scores across subjects were used as students’ academic achievement. For Grade 4, students’ academic score was an average of main subjects’ scores reading, science, and math ( M  = 552.13, SD  = 85.76); for Grade 8, students’ academic score was an average of students’ reading, science, math, and English scores ( M  = 538.23, SD  = 81.95).

3.2.2. Learning anxiety

Anxiety literature showed that working on homework for a long time easily result in poor homework performance and learning anxiety. Designed by CICA-BEQ ( Liu et al., 2021 ), learning anxiety was measured with eight dichotomous items for both grades, which were “Will you feel nervous when teachers raise questions in class?,” “Will you feel nervous when knowing an ‘exam’ is around the corner?,” “Will you feel nervous if you do not do well in your exam?,” “Will you feel nervous if you do not do well in your daily learning?,” “Will you feel nervous about the scores after taking the exam?,” “Will you feel nervous that you could not do well before taking the exam?,” “Will you feel nervous that you cannot complete the tasks before the work starts?” and “Will you feel nervous to present in class?” (Cronbach’s alpha a  = 0.86).

3.2.3. Student-level characteristics

Variables related to students’ time spent on homework included four specific student-level variables, which were (1) in-school homework time on weekdays (ISHWD) : what is the average amount of time you spend on in-school homework on weekdays; (2) in-school homework time on weekends (ISHWE) : what is the average amount of time you spend on in-school homework on weekends; (3) out-of-school homework time on weekdays (OSHWD) : what is the average amount of time you spend on out-of-school homework on weekdays; and (4) out-of-school homework time on weekends (OSHWE) : what is the average amount of time you spend on out-of-school homework on weekends. There were five response options for each of the variable: (1) never, (2) under 3 h (3 h is not included), (3) 3 to 6 h (6 h is not included), (4) 6 to 8 h (8 h is not included), and (5) 8 h and more. To have a more accurate analysis of the variable in the model, these responses have been sequentially recoded into (1) 0 h, (2) 1.5 h, (3) 4.5 h, (4) 7.5 h, and (5) 10 h. In addition, Gender (“Are you female,” Yes = 1, No = 0) and ISES (derived from three relevant variables, Liu et al., 2021 ) were also included as control variables in the student level.

3.2.4. School-level characteristics

School characteristics were classified into school context variables, including school size (true school level values) and mean SES (average mean from the student level SES). School climate variables were teacher-student relationship (TSR) (Cronbach’s alpha a  = 0.93) measured with five items (e.g., I get along with the teachers ); peer relationship (PEER) (Cronbach’s alpha a  = 0.85) measured with 10 items (e.g., I am happy with my schoolmates ); school belongingness (SBEL) (Cronbach’s alpha a  = 0.85) measured with four items (e.g., I like being in the school ); schoolteacher leadership (TLEA) (Cronbach’s alpha a  = 0.85) measured with 14 items (e.g., I am fair to every teacher regarding the issue of teachers’ assessment ). These school climate variables were all measured using 5-point Likert scale “strongly disagree,” “disagree,” “not sure,” “agree,” and “strongly agree.” The four relevant school-level homework variables SISHWD, SISHWE, SOSHWD , and SOSHWE were the averages of student-level homework related variables.

The correlations among student-level variables were examined to assess multicollinearity. The ranges of correlations were between 0.01 and 0.66, therefore, no correlations were large enough to warrant caution in either Grade 4 or 8 analyses ( Table 2 ). In addition, for the convenience of data analysis and comparison, continuous variables at the student and school levels were all standardized with mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1 in HLM and original means of independent variables were used in CART analysis.

Correlations for all student-level variables in Grades 4 and 8.

** p  < 0.01, *** p  < 0.001. ISHWD is in-school homework time on weekdays, ISHWE is in-school homework time on weekends, OSHWD is out-of-school homework time on weekdays, and OSHWE is out-of-school homework time on weekends. The left below diagonal shows the correlations in Grade 8, and the right upper diagonal shows the correlations in Grade 4.

3.3. Analytical approach

3.3.1. hierarchical linear analysis.

As an advanced statistic, HLM can take the data analyses into the multilevel context and partition the total variance of outcome variable into within- and between-school variances. It was employed first to develop the multilevel models that estimated students’ outcome variables academic achievement and learning anxiety one by one for each grade. Null models were conducted first in which no explanatory variables at either the student- or school-level were included and then further expanded to include predictors at both levels. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), an indicator of whether there is evidence of clustering or nesting in a model, can be obtained from the null model ( Raudenbush and Bryk, 2002 ). All variables were grand mean-centered except for gender , and the coefficients from the student-level model were fixed. Pairwise deletion was conducted for all student-level and listwise deletion for the school-level analyses was conducted to deal with missing data. Sampling weights were also added to ensure each sample make an equal contribution to parameter estimation. Statistical software SPSS ( IBM Corp, 2017 ) was used for data management and HLM 8.0 ( Raudenbush et al., 2019 ) was used for hierarchical model construction and analysis.

Null model:

Level 1 : AcademicScore ij  =  β 0j  +  r ij .

& LearningAnxiety ij  =  β 0j  +  r ij .

Level 2: β 0j  =  γ 00  +  u 0j .

HLM then estimated the student and school effects with adjustments for the control variables in the full model. The level-1 model was the student-level model, with a set of individual linear regressions, one for each student. Students’ average academic score and learning anxiety were separately regressed on gender, ISES, ISHWD, ISHWE, OSHWD, and OSHWE. The intercept of each regression represented the average measure of students’ academic scores or learning anxieties within each school, adjusted for student characteristics in that school. The slope of the regression represented the relationship between the outcome variables with each specific variable in that model. These parameters were then used as outcome measures in the second-level model. The second level represented the school-level model, a set of linear regressions that regressed the average school measures of students’ academic scores and learning anxieties on the four school-level predicted variables SISHWD, SISHWE, SOSHWD and SOSHWE along with school context and climate variables. Assumptions for the HLM models were also examined. For instance, (a) residuals at the student and school levels have a normal distribution with a population mean of zero and constant variance, and (b) residuals at the school level are independent across the schools. No serious violation of HLM assumptions were detected.

Full model:

3.3.2. Classification and regression tree analysis

The study followed up with CART analyses which can identify all nonlinear interactive relationships between variables with no need for pre-specification in the models ( Breiman et al., 1984 ). It formulates mutually exclusive and exhaustive groups through the decomposition of interactions among independent variables, so cases are homogeneous within each group and heterogeneous between groups. Therefore, researchers can easily capture local variable manifestations of interest and experiment with the data to derive insights that eventually might be pieced together to formulate a theory ( Ma, 2005 ). This process provides researchers with an instant picture of the interaction effects of key explanatory measures ( Berk, 2016 ). CART works by performing binary splitting of groups based on impurity, which measures how persons in a node vary on an outcome measure. The splitting and pruning process starts with the most influential root node to the least, and each explanatory variable is examined for how well it splits the participants into two groups in the child nodes. The nodes that cannot be split further are called terminal nodes. Terminal nodes are always worth noting since they often show dramatically different outcomes depending on the outcome variable. To avoid a tree with too many branches, we decided to trim the CART with three to four levels in our study. Focusing the second research question in the study, the two dependent variables academic score and learning anxiety and the independent school-level homework related variables which showed statistically significance in HLM were selected to be used in the CART analysis.

4.1. HLM analysis

The null models with only dependent variables included were tested one by one, and ICC values were obtained. Table 3 showed that substantial number of variances in students’ average academic score and learning anxiety were attributable to schools for both grades. Specifically, schools were attributable for 29% of the variance in students’ academic scores for Grade 4 and 35% for Grade 8; and 11% of the variance in students’ learning anxiety for Grade 4 and 7% for Grade 8. Therefore, all ICCs demonstrated that there was a necessity for the two-level modeling in explaining the outcome variables.

Proportions of variance in students’ academic score and learning anxiety within and between schools.

ICC, Intraclass correlation coefficient.

The full models were then tested with all the independent variables and controlling variables included. Table 4 showed the student- and school-level effects of academic score and learning anxiety. Since homework was the work assigned and monitored by teachers and school administrations rather than the students themselves ( Trautwein and Köller, 2003 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ), its effect on the school level was the focus in our study. Overall, for Grades 4 and 8, SISHWD showed significant positive relationships with students’ academic achievement for Grade 4 ( B  = 3.30, SE  = 1.60) and Grade 8 ( B  = 5.40, SE  = 2.23) after controlling for all other variables in the model and the effect for Grade 8 was even higher than that for Grade 4. In addition, SISHWD did not associate with students’ learning anxieties for Grades 4 or 8 either. However, for Grade 4, SISHWE was statistically positively correlated with students’ academic achievement ( B  = 3.62, SE  = 1.50), but it greatly associated with students’ learning anxieties ( B  = 0.17, SE  = 0.04). Moreover, in terms of SOSHWD , it was negatively correlated with students’ academic achievement for both grades: Grade 4 ( B  = −6.04, SE  = 1.49) and Grade 8 ( B  = −14.63, SE  = 2.13) though it did not relate with or positively relate with students’ learning anxieties for either of the grade. In terms of SOSHWE , it had a statistically positive effect on students’ academic achievement ( B  = 14.59, SE  = 1.92) and did not relate with learning anxiety for Grade 8 students.

Results of student and school effects on students’ academic achievement and learning anxiety.

* p  < 0.05; ** p  < 0.001. ISHWD is in-school homework time on weekdays, ISHWE is in-school homework time on weekends, OSHWD is out-of-school homework time on weekdays, and OSHWE is out-of-school homework time on weekends. SISHWD , SISHWE , SOSHWD , and SOSHWE are the average means of ISHWD , ISHWE , OSHWD , and OSHWE in the school level.

4.2. CART analysis

4.2.1. classification tree for academic scores.

Using academic scores as the outcome variable, the total number of schools for Grade 4 into the CART analysis was 1,738 and the average score was 570 points. The root node was split with the most important variable SISHWD , the mean of which in the left node was 565 with SISHWD  ≥ 1 h while the mean of scores in the right node was 600 with SISHWD  < 1 h. In addition, SISHWD was shown in several branch nodes, both of which indicated that SISHWD was a primary important indicator in classifying Grade 4 students’ academic scores in the model. Moreover, these branch nodes showed that spending equal with or more than 1, 1.5 and 1.6 h on SISHWD were the major cutoff points that classified schools with comparable lower academic scores for Grade 4 school students. Therefore, though SISHWD was positively related with academic score in HLM analysis, it was showed that SISHWD  < 1 h was associated with comparatively higher academic scores for Grade 4 students. In addition, the left child node containing 1,490 schools was split with variable SOSHWD . Obviously, schools with SOSHWD  < 0.69 was linked with higher academic score ( M  = 574, n  = 778) than those that had SOSHWD  ≥ 0.69 h ( M  = 556, n  = 712; Figure 1 ).

Classification tree in academic scores for Grade 4.

For the academic scores of Grade 8 schools, the tree was comparatively more complex. SOSHWE, SOSHWD , and SISHWD all showed up in the tree three to five times at multiple nodes, indicating the significant roles of these variables in dividing the students’ academic scores for Grade 8. First, SOSHWE was in the root node, indicating its most important role in dividing all schools into two groups. This root node resulted in a right terminal node containing 160 schools with an average academic score of 593 if SOSHWE  ≥ 2.8 h. If, however, SOSHWE  < 1.7 h with other conditions included, the schools’ average academic score was only 481 points. It reflected a strong positive impact of the variable SOSHWE on Grade 8 students’ academic scores. Second, in each branch node that had SISHWD as the decisive variable, the schools’ academic scores with higher SISHWD were higher than those with lower SISHWD . Since HLM also indicated that SISHWD was positively related with students’ academic scores for Grade 8, it validated one more time the positive relationship of SISHWD throughout the tree. On the contrary, in the child nodes that had SOSHWD as the decisive variable, the schools’ academic scores were lower with relatively high SOSHWD than those with low SOSHWD , which reflected the negative effect of SOSHWD on academic scores for Grade 8 ( Figure 2 ).

Classification tree in academic scores for Grade 8.

4.2.2. Classification tree for learning anxiety

In terms of learning anxiety, the average students’ learning anxiety score for Grade 4 schools was 4. The variable SISHWE was the only decisive factor that related with students’ learning anxieties. When SISHWE  ≥ 1.7 h, students’ learning anxieties in most schools in Grade 4 ( M  = 4.3, n  = 1,343) were higher than the average ( M  = 4, n  = 1,739), as was reflected in the right child node. In addition, there was a big contrast between the right and left terminal node. On average, the mean of school students’ learning anxieties was 4.3 when students’ time spent on in-school homework on weekends ≥1.9 ( n  = 1,119), while the mean was 2.5 when students spent <1.1 h on it ( n  = 116). However, this was only a small percentage of schools in China currently ( Figure 3 ).

Classification tree in learning anxiety for Grade 4.

For learning anxiety in Grade 8, the classification tree was straightforward. Overall, it contained 1,065 schools, and the average score for learning anxiety was 4.8. The variable SOSHWD played a primary decisive role dividing Grade 8 students’ learning anxieties. There was a large contrast between the average learning anxiety in the left child but also terminal node ( M  = 3.3, n  = 29) when SOSHWD  < 0.13 h and the right child node ( M  = 4.8, n  = 1,036) when SOSHWD  ≥ 0.13 h. The right terminal node also showed that most schools ( n  = 831) had the highest learning anxieties ( M  = 4.9) when SOSHWD  ≥ 0.13 h and SISHWE  ≥ 2.5 h than any other interactions of variables ( Figure 4 ).

Classification tree in learning anxiety for Grade 8.

5. Discussion and educational implications

This study was the first large-scale assessment that examined the effect of homework related variables on academic achievement and learning anxiety, as well as the variables’ local manifestations for Grades 4 and 8 in China. With a more nuanced classification of time spent on homework into in-school homework on weekdays, in-school homework on weekends, out-of-school homework on weekdays and out-of-school homework on weekends , it aimed to provide a more comprehensive picture and nuanced details regarding the effects of time spent on homework. Extant studies ( Trautwein and Köller, 2003 ; Trautwein, 2007 ) were more of simple measures of overall time spent on homework, which cannot adequately describe the complex processes inherent in the specific homework time arrangement.

With two-level HLM and CART analyses, this study examined and confirmed the relationship of homework related variables with academic achievement and learning anxieties in the school context. There were a few significant findings identified from both analyses. First, for both Grade 4 and Grade 8, time spent on in-school homework during weekdays had positive effects on students’ academic achievement from HLM analysis. The positive effect was stronger for Grade 8 students than that for Grade 4 students, which aligns with the prior research ( Muhlenbruck et al., 1999 ; Cooper et al., 2006 ; Chang et al., 2014 ). More detailed findings can be seen from the CART analyses as well. For Grade 4, though SISHWD showed a positive relationship with academic achievement, a maximum of 1 h was correlated with the highest students’ academic achievement. Therefore, except for the effects of other variables, to reach the optimal academic performance for Grade 4, more time spent on in-school homework on weekdays was recommended, but not exceeding 1 h was preferred. Comparatively, for Grade 8, one manifestation for higher academic scores from Figure 2 was more time spent on SISHWD , but no clear maximum time can be identified, therefore, no clear cutoff score of SISHWD could be recommended for Grade 8 students from the tree. In addition, since this variable had no effect on students’ learning anxiety at both grades from HLM analysis, it was one of the most efficient ways to improve students’ academic scores and there were no concerns that it would increase students’ learning anxieties. Therefore, it was appropriate to assign students certain amount of time on in-school homework on weekdays to reinforce learning content, which is beneficial for students to cultivate a self-disciplined learning habit. For Grade 4 students who had relatively lower working load in content learning, a maximum of 1 h on average was recommended; for Grade 8 students who had a much heavier load, it was recommended to assign them more amount of homework time during the weekdays. However, there are also other literature which support different opinions in the recent years (e.g., Fan et al., 2017 ), it is still worth exploring deeper this finding in other cultural contexts.

The second practical finding is that time spent on out-of-school homework on weekdays was negatively correlated with students’ academic achievement for both grades. The initial HLM analysis indicated the negative effect on academic achievement and its greater detrimental effect on Grade 8 than Grade 4. The follow-up CART analysis showed that for Grade 4, scores could be 574 with SOSHWD less than 0.69 h on average, while scores were only 556 with SOSHWD higher than or equal with 0.69 h. For Grade 8, students spent time on SOSHWD less than 0.4, 0.6, 0.57, and 0.81 h all showed a manifestation of higher scores than the groups on the other side of nodes. In addition, SOSHWD was statistically positively correlated with students’ learning anxieties for Grade 8 in HLM, therefore, time spent on out-of-school homework on weekdays was not recommended for either increasing students’ academic scores or lessening their learning anxieties. Combined with the results together, it was indicated that, during weekdays for either Grade 4 or Grade 8, students should develop a regulated self-disciplined habit to spend time on their in-school homework assigned by schoolteachers but not out-of-school homework. Only with appropriate arrangement and completion of in-school homework on weekdays, their academic achievement can be observed with improvement with no learning anxieties accompanied. If mixing in-school and out-of-school homework on weekdays, students will be burdened with more tasks than normal from everywhere, which brings students more pressure rather than efficiency and enjoyment from doing homework.

Whether students should spend time doing in-school or out-of-school homework on weekends is also a topic worthy our attention. In terms of time spent on in-school homework on weekends, for both grades, this factor was positively associated with student’ learning anxieties in the HLM analysis. Though it was positively correlated with Grade 4 students’ academic scores, the CART analysis ( Figure 3 ) provided a clear cut-off score for students who had the highest learning anxieties (4.3) when time spent on in-school homework on weekends was equal with or higher than 1.9 h on average. Therefore, students should do their best to not leave their in-school homework on weekends, which is not a good option for students to increase their academic scores or lessen learning anxieties. In terms of time spent on out-of-school homework on weekends, it showed an obvious positive correlation with students’ academic scores from the HLM analysis and no impact on the learning anxieties for Grade 8. In addition, CART analysis ( Figure 2 ) showed in the right end that SOSHWE higher than or equal with 2.8 h was a manifestation of the highest students’ academic achievement ( M  = 593). Several branches in the Grade 8 tree showed that higher academic scores were associated with out-of-school homework time on weekends exceeding 1.7 or 2.3 h. Moreover, since this factor did not associate with students’ learning anxieties, time spent on out-of-school homework on weekends was encouraged for Grade 8 students. On the contrary, this variable was not a factor correlated with academic scores or learning anxieties for Grade 4 students, therefore, it was not recommended for Grade 4 students to execute the same method. According to Piaget’s (1976) theory of child development stages, Grade 4 students focus mostly on image thinking and creative thinking while Grade 8 students need more time on knowledge and content learning. Therefore, it is not suitable to arrange too much out-of-school homework on weekends for Grade 4 students since on one hand, they need more extracurricular activities but not out-of-school homework to cultivate their image and creative thinking; on the other hand, Grade 4 students are not self-disciplined enough to concentrate for a specific long time, but Grade 8 students are relatively concentrated and can be assigned homework with questions focusing on deeper thinking to achieve a thoughtful and comprehensive understanding of the problems. With an increase of learning subjects and pressure to get into better high schools, the study load for Grade 8 students becomes heavier and more complex than that for Grade 4 students, therefore, it is reasonable to strengthen and consolidate the content learning through spending some time on out-of-school homework on weekends ( Weiss and Kipnes, 2006 ). All of these results were expected to provide teachers, parents, school policymakers with more critical insights when assigning students time and types of homework.

One last thing to be noted was that, among the school-level control variables, peer relationship and teacher-student relationship both showed positive relationships with students’ academic achievement and negative association with students’ learning anxieties. It proved the significance and benefit of favorable communication with teachers and peers in students’ development academically and mentally ( Ma, 2007 ). A harmonious interactive school environment can cultivate students with a strong sense of school belongingness and nourish them into well-rounded students.

Besides emphasizing time spent with homework (quality) and school environment, we also need to recognize the importance of quality of parent support ( Dumont et al., 2014 ; Barger et al., 2019 ; Moè et al., 2020 ). With the quality of parent support provided, students usually would reduce much homework stress and have a better schooling experience. Moreover, though this study did not specifically target the analysis into the group of students with different disabilities (e.g., learning disability), we need to take these groups of students into consideration in the real life. Since parents of students with learning anxiety were reported more stress, need frustration than parents of typically developing students ( Moè and Katz, 2018 ; Katz et al., 2022 ), the thresholds and time of range of homework for optimal outcome analyzed from this study may not apply for these groups of students with special needs. Studies with targeted groups of students might need to further understand the issue.

Overall, with a closer examination of the relationship between four homework related variables with students’ academic achievement as well as learning anxieties using a large-scale dataset in China, this study was expected to provide a deeper understanding of the potential balance between students’ academic achievement and learning anxieties. Methodologically, with the relationship identified between homework and achievement and learning anxieties and the manifestation of the variables in the classification trees, these research findings were expected to complement other statistical analyses on worldwide homework research and be of any interest to educational researchers and scholars who increasingly deal with the issue in their local settings. Practically, it was expected to provide the school executors’ data support when any early prevention or school-based intervention was executed.

6. Limitation

The current investigation made a valuable contribution to the incomplete body of empirical research on homework. However, still some limitations should be noted. First, though individual-level and school-level control variables were included in the study, parents’ guidance cannot be ignored. Parent facilitation was an essential mediator in the relationship between student norms, student ability, and parent attitudes toward homework ( Cooper et al., 2001 ). Therefore, additional studies might include parent-level variables into consideration. Second, this study used students’ self-reported questionnaires as the primary data source, which carried associated risks based on variable respondent knowledge, comprehension, and interpretation of scale items. Third, homework has been measured with different scales, such as frequency (from never to every day) and effort (using three Likert-type items). With only time measured on homework, it might lead to a rather biased judgment that time is the only and most important measure of homework. More analyses with different perspectives of homework time, frequency or effect could be conducted to understand the relationships better. Also, at the student level, aside from gender and individual socioeconomic status, this study did not incorporate other important controlling variables in homework models (e.g., homework quality, feedback quality, homework expectancy, and homework effort; Cooper, 1989 ; Trautwein et al., 2006 ; Xu and Corno, 2022 ). These could all possibly lead to a slight change of our result. Another limitation was that we did not adopt a domain-specific approach to homework (e.g., by using average scores across multiple disciplines) since students from Grades 4 and 8 could be assigned homework besides these main disciplines, as suggested by homework models and recent studies (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2006 ; Xu and Corno, 2022 ). Without a domain-specific approach, it might not be able to provide practitioners with accurate guidance of homework time assignment in each specific discipline. Last, further research could be measured longitudinally. A large-scale study that follows a cohort of students from the early grades into adolescence would produce invaluable results. A cross-sectional study will only provide analytic results on the current state, but it is hard to infer it from a long time run.

Data availability statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by all procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration from all individual participants included in the research. Informed consent was also obtained from all individual participants included in the research. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.

Author contributions

XW and RW are in charge of the design and drafts of the manuscript. CH assists with the revision of the manuscript and provided with comments. HL and JL provided the original data, comments, and suggestions. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This work was support by Yuanhui Youth Development Program: A study on the appropriateness of cognitive diagnostic assessment in Mathematics; Teacher Education “JIEBANGLINGTI” Project of Northeast Normal University: Learning Progression Construction and Learning Path Analysis Based on Cognitive Diagnosis (JSJY20220305).

Conflict of interest

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.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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More than two hours of homework may be counterproductive, research suggests.

A Stanford education researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.   "Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good," wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .   The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students' views on homework.   Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.   Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.   "The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students' advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being," Pope wrote.   Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.   Their study found that too much homework is associated with:   • Greater stress : 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.   • Reductions in health : In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.   • Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits : Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were "not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills," according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.   A balancing act   The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.   Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as "pointless" or "mindless" in order to keep their grades up.   "This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points," said Pope, who is also a co-founder of Challenge Success , a nonprofit organization affiliated with the GSE that conducts research and works with schools and parents to improve students' educational experiences..   Pope said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.   "Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development," wrote Pope.   High-performing paradox   In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. "Young people are spending more time alone," they wrote, "which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities."   Student perspectives   The researchers say that while their open-ended or "self-reporting" methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for "typical adolescent complaining" – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.   The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Clifton B. Parker is a writer at the Stanford News Service .

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How does homework affect students anxiety?

Galloway’s study indicated that students who spent more than 3 hours on homework per night, experienced greater behavioral engagement in school but also more academic stress , physical health problems and lack of balance in their lives. The study described homework as a stressor causing anxiety in students’ lives.

Table of Contents

Does homework lead to depression?

Cynthia Catchings, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist at Talkspace, says heavy workloads can also cause serious mental health problems in the long run, like anxiety and depression. And for all the distress homework can cause, it’s not as useful as many may think, says Dr.

How does homework affect stress?

Their study found that too much homework is associated with: Greater stress: 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category.

How school negatively affects mental health?

Research shows that academic stress leads to less well-being and an increased likelihood of developing anxiety or depression. Additionally, students who have academic stress tend to do poorly in school. This shows how this stress can keep kids from doing as well as they could.

How many students are stressed because of homework?

But student experiences don’t always match these results. On our own Student Life in America survey, over 50% of students reported feeling stressed, 25% reported that homework was their biggest source of stress, and on average teens are spending one-third of their study time feeling stressed, anxious, or stuck.

Is homework harmful or helpful?

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.

Why do I cry every time I study?

An example of test anxiety is crying. Many people cry during study time and their exams, because the anxiety and stress add up. It can be so that you cry because you are scared of the exam which you have the next day, or because you think that you have failed a certain exam.

How much homework is too much?

How much is too much? According to the National PTA and the National Education Association, students should only be doing about 10 minutes of homework per night per grade level. But teens are doing a lot more than that, according to a poll of high school students by the organization Statistic Brain.

How does homework waste time?

Homework is taking up a large chunk of their time, too — around 15-plus hours a week, with about one-third of teens reporting that it’s closer to 20-plus hours. The stress and excessive homework adds up to lost sleep, the BSC says.

How do students feel about homework?

A large majority (73 percent) of the respondents said they think homework is “very important” to students’ school success, while 20 percent said it is “somewhat important.” Only 7 percent of the respondents said homework is “not very important” to student success.

Why should students get less homework?

By reducing homework, students have proven to get more sleep which can lead to better physical and mental health. By reducing homework it allows for students to create a more balanced life at home. By reducing the homework load, students have proven to be more encouraged to learn.

Do grades affect mental health?

Rates of anxiety, depression and even suicidal ideation have spiked dramatically, and academic stress tied to grades is a leading cause of this escalation.

How many kids mental health is affected by school?

A CDC study examined mental health symptoms in four different U.S. school districts during 2014–2018. Based on teacher and parent reports, about 1 in 6 students had enough behavioral or emotional symptoms and impairment to be diagnosed with a childhood mental disorder; rates varied among the different sites.

What causes mental health problems in students?

Mental distress among university students has been associated with several factors such as sex (i.e. female students reporting higher levels compared to males), lack of interest towards the field of study, not having close friends, never attending religious programs, conflict with friends, financial problems, family …

Why does homework cause anxiety?

Perfectionism: Some kids who do really well in a subject may worry that their work “won’t be good enough.” Trouble managing emotions: For kids who easily get flooded by emotions, homework can be a trigger for anxiety. Too much homework: Sometimes kids are anxious because they have more work than they can handle.

What do psychologists say about homework?

The Journal of Experimental Education published research indicating that when high school students were assigned too much homework, they were more susceptible to serious mental and physical health problems, high-stress levels, and sleep deprivation.

Does homework remove family time?

Does homework affect family time? Excessive homework can cut down on productive family time. This is especially true in families where the parents are incapable of assisting with the homework. As the stress levels increase, fights begin, which takes away from any quality family time students can spend on school nights.

How does school cause stress?

Students with busy schedules can quickly become overwhelmed because they are left with no free time to relax. As your child progresses from elementary school to high school, the amount and difficulty level of schoolwork increases—and students without good time management skills can experience even more stress.

Why does homework exist?

Homework teaches lessons beyond just what’s taught in the classroom, too. Bringing homework home, completing it correctly, and turning it in promptly teaches a host of other important life skills, from time management and responsibility to organization and prioritization.

How often do men cry?

The average number of times a year that women cry emotional tears, as compared with 5 to 17 times per year for men, according to a study of self-reports from more than 7,000 people in 37 countries.

Is it OK to cry before exam?

It’s normal to feel a little nervous and stressed before a test. Just about everyone does. And a little nervous anticipation can actually help you do better on a test. But for some people, test anxiety is more intense.

Can you cry without tears?

Clearly, people can cry without tears and be sad or remorseful without crying. The question is whether we can tell whether people are faking sadness and crying. Research has demonstrated people can somewhat differentiate between fake and genuine emotion, including crying and tears.

What is the 10 minute rule homework?

He recommends following a “10 minute rule”: students should receive 10 minutes of homework per day in first grade, and 10 additional minutes each subsequent year, so that by twelfth grade they are completing 120 minutes of homework daily.

Why homework does more harm than good?

In fact, too much homework can do more harm than good. Researchers have cited drawbacks, including boredom and burnout toward academic material, less time for family and extracurricular activities, lack of sleep and increased stress.

How much homework should an 11 year old get?

Years 10 and 11 During this age, we recommend they spend an hour each day on their homework. This time will increase before exams or when they’re doing past papers. If they still need help studying, it might be a good idea to get help from a private tutor. Learn how to deal with a lot of homework.

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How to Reduce Homework Stress

If homework is a source of frustration and stress in your home, it doesn’t have to be that way! Read on to learn effective strategies to reduce your child’s homework stress.

Author Katie Wickliff

Published March 2024

 If homework is a source of frustration and stress in your home, it doesn’t have to be that way! Read on to learn effective strategies to reduce your child’s homework stress.

• Key takeaways
• Homework stress can be a significant problem for children and their families
• An appropriate amount of quality homework can be beneficial for students
• Parents can help reduce homework stress in several key ways

Table of contents

• Homework stress effects
• How to reduce homework stress

As a parent who has felt the frustration of watching my child be reduced to tears because of her homework each night, I’ve often wondered: do these math worksheets and reading trackers really make a difference to a child’s academic success? Or does homework cause stress without having a positive impact on learning? 

If your child experiences a significant amount of homework stress, you may feel at a loss to help. However, there are several things you can do at home to minimize the negative effects of this stress on your child–and you! We’ve put together a list of research-based practices that can help your child better handle their homework load.

The Effects of Homework Stress on Students

Does homework cause stress? Short answer: Yes. It’s been well documented that too much homework can cause stress and anxiety for students–and their parents. However, do the benefits of homework outweigh the costs? Is homework “worth” the frustration and exhaustion that our children experience? 

Findings on the benefits of homework at the elementary school level are mixed, with studies showing that homework appears to have more positive effects under certain conditions for certain groups of students.

After examining decades of studies on the relationship between homework and academic achievement, leading homework researcher Harris M. Cooper has proposed the “10-minute rule,” suggesting that homework be limited to 10 minutes per grade level. For example, children in 3rd grade should do no more than 30 minutes of homework daily, while a 1st grader should do no more than 10 minutes of homework. The National Parent Teacher Association and the National Education Association both endorse this guideline as a general rule of thumb. 

Because of these research findings, Doodle believes that an appropriate amount of quality homework can help students feel more positive about learning and can provide parents with a critical connection to their child’s school experience . But to keep learning positive, we need to reduce the amount of stress both students and parents feel about homework.

1. Routine, Routine, Routine

Creating an after-school routine and sticking to it helps children feel organized, but with sports, tutoring, or music lessons, many children have varying weekday schedules. As a former classroom teacher and private tutor, I suggest that families post a weekly schedule somewhere visible and communicate that schedule with their child. 

At our house, we have a dry-erase calendar posted on the wall. Every Sunday evening, I write both of my children’s schedules for the following week–including homework time. We go through the calendar together, and they reference it often throughout the week. I can tell both my son and daughter feel better when they know when they’ll get their homework done.

2. Create a Homework Space

Ideally, your child should have a dedicated homework space. It doesn’t matter if that space is a desk, a dining room table, or a kitchen countertop. What does matter is that the homework area is tidy, because an unorganized homework area is very distracting.

3. Start Homework Early

Encourage your child to start their homework as early as possible. Help them review their assignments, make a plan for what needs to be completed, and then dive in. Naturally, children are more tired later in the evening which can lead to more stress.

4. Encourage Breaks

If you can see your child becoming frustrated or overwhelmed by their homework, encourage them to take a breather and come back to it later. As a teacher and tutor, I called this a “brain break” and believe these breaks are essential. Taking a short break will give your child a chance to step away from a frustrating problem or assignment.

5. It’s Okay to Ask for Help

Sometimes, homework can become just too stressful and overwhelming. In that case, it really is okay to stop. Children can learn to advocate for themselves by making a list of questions for their teacher and asking for help the next day. Depending on their age, you might need to help role-play how to approach their teacher with their frustrations. 

Additionally, parents should never feel afraid to contact their child’s teacher to talk about homework issues. When I was teaching elementary school, I always wanted parents to feel comfortable reaching out about any issues, including homework stress.

6. Get Plenty of Rest

Sleep is critical to a child’s overall wellbeing , which includes their academic performance. Tired kids can’t concentrate as well, which can lead to feeling more overwhelmed about homework assignments. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, kids aged 6-12 should get at least 9 hours of sleep each night.

7. Consider a Homework Group

Organizing a homework group a few times a week is another way for your child to view homework more positively. Working as a group encourages collaboration, while discussions can solidify concepts learned in class.

8. Encourage Positivity

No matter what your school experience was like, it’s important to model a growth mindset for your child. A growth mindset is the belief that your abilities can develop and improve over time. So if your child says something like “ I can’t do this! ” first acknowledge their frustration. Then, encourage them to say, “ I may not understand this yet, but I will figure it out. ” Speaking positively about tough experiences takes practice, but it will go a long way in reducing homework stress for your child.

9. Develop Skills With Fun Games

Feeling stressed about homework is no fun. Completing worksheets and memorizing facts is necessary, but playing games is a great way to inject some excitement into learning. Doodle’s interactive math app is filled with interactive exercises, engaging math games, and unique rewards that help kids develop their skills while having fun.

Lower Math Anxiety with DoodleMath

Does your child struggle with math anxiety? DoodleMath is an award-winning math app f illed with fun, interactive math questions aligned to state standards. Doodle creates a unique work program tailored to each child’s skill level to boost confidence and reduce math anxiety. Try it free  today!

FAQs About Homework Stress

Many studies have shown that homework and stress often go hand-in-hand, often because many children feel pressure to perform perfectly or they have trouble managing their emotions–they get overwhelmed or flooded easily.

You can help your child reduce homework stress in several ways, including by establishing a routine, creating a homework space, encouraging breaks, and making homework fun with online games or math apps.

Lesson credits

Katie Wickliff

Katie holds a master’s degree in Education from the University of Colorado and a bachelor’s degree in both Journalism and English from The University of Iowa. She has over 15 years of education experience as a K-12 classroom teacher and Orton-Gillingham certified tutor. Most importantly, Katie is the mother of two elementary students, ages 8 and 11. She is passionate about math education and firmly believes that the right tools and support will help every student reach their full potential.

Parents, sign up for a DoodleMath subscription and see your child become a math wizard!

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August 16, 2021

Is it time to get rid of homework? Mental health experts weigh in

by Sara M Moniuszko

It's no secret that kids hate homework. And as students grapple with an ongoing pandemic that has had a wide-range of mental health impacts, is it time schools start listening to their pleas over workloads?

Some teachers are turning to social media to take a stand against homework .

Tiktok user @misguided.teacher says he doesn't assign it because the "whole premise of homework is flawed."

For starters, he says he can't grade work on "even playing fields" when students' home environments can be vastly different.

"Even students who go home to a peaceful house, do they really want to spend their time on busy work? Because typically that's what a lot of homework is, it's busy work," he says in the video that has garnered 1.6 million likes. "You only get one year to be 7, you only got one year to be 10, you only get one year to be 16, 18."

Mental health experts agree heavy work loads have the potential do more harm than good for students, especially when taking into account the impacts of the pandemic. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether.

Emmy Kang, mental health counselor at Humantold, says studies have shown heavy workloads can be "detrimental" for students and cause a "big impact on their mental, physical and emotional health."

"More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies," she says, adding that staying up late to finish assignments also leads to disrupted sleep and exhaustion.

Cynthia Catchings, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist at Talkspace, says heavy workloads can also cause serious mental health problems in the long run, like anxiety and depression.

And for all the distress homework causes, it's not as useful as many may think, says Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, a psychologist and CEO of Omega Recovery treatment center.

"The research shows that there's really limited benefit of homework for elementary age students, that really the school work should be contained in the classroom," he says.

For older students, Kang says homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night.

"Most students, especially at these high-achieving schools, they're doing a minimum of three hours, and it's taking away time from their friends from their families, their extracurricular activities. And these are all very important things for a person's mental and emotional health."

Catchings, who also taught third to 12th graders for 12 years, says she's seen the positive effects of a no homework policy while working with students abroad.

"Not having homework was something that I always admired from the French students (and) the French schools, because that was helping the students to really have the time off and really disconnect from school ," she says.

The answer may not be to eliminate homework completely, but to be more mindful of the type of work students go home with, suggests Kang, who was a high-school teacher for 10 years.

"I don't think (we) should scrap homework, I think we should scrap meaningless, purposeless busy work-type homework. That's something that needs to be scrapped entirely," she says, encouraging teachers to be thoughtful and consider the amount of time it would take for students to complete assignments.

The pandemic made the conversation around homework more crucial

Mindfulness surrounding homework is especially important in the context of the last two years. Many students will be struggling with mental health issues that were brought on or worsened by the pandemic, making heavy workloads even harder to balance.

"COVID was just a disaster in terms of the lack of structure. Everything just deteriorated," Kardaras says, pointing to an increase in cognitive issues and decrease in attention spans among students. "School acts as an anchor for a lot of children, as a stabilizing force, and that disappeared."

But even if students transition back to the structure of in-person classes, Kardaras suspects students may still struggle after two school years of shifted schedules and disrupted sleeping habits.

"We've seen adults struggling to go back to in-person work environments from remote work environments. That effect is amplified with children because children have less resources to be able to cope with those transitions than adults do," he explains.

'Get organized' ahead of back-to-school

In order to make the transition back to in-person school easier, Kang encourages students to "get good sleep, exercise regularly (and) eat a healthy diet."

To help manage workloads, she suggests students "get organized."

"There's so much mental clutter up there when you're disorganized... sitting down and planning out their study schedules can really help manage their time," she says.

Breaking assignments up can also make things easier to tackle.

"I know that heavy workloads can be stressful, but if you sit down and you break down that studying into smaller chunks, they're much more manageable."

If workloads are still too much, Kang encourages students to advocate for themselves.

"They should tell their teachers when a homework assignment just took too much time or if it was too difficult for them to do on their own," she says. "It's good to speak up and ask those questions. Respectfully, of course, because these are your teachers. But still, I think sometimes teachers themselves need this feedback from their students."

©2021 USA Today Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Understanding Homework Anxiety and How to Cope

Posted by Dinesh De Alwis | Feb 5, 2021 | Education | 0 |

Students of all grade levels experience some form of anxiety when it comes to homework assignments. Some students don’t like doing homework, while others don’t mind completing assignments if they can be completed fast enough to get it out of the way. Some find it stressful to complete their work making it more challenging to focus, especially with looming deadlines or fear of not meeting academic expectations. Fortunately, there are practical ways to combat homework anxiety, including establishing a homework routine and knowing who you can reach out to when you need help.

Tips for Managing Homework Anxiety

Addressing anxiety concerns includes understanding how it affects your ability to complete assignments. In some cases, students may have a mental health concern such as an anxiety disorder, learning disorder, or ADHD. Here are a few ways to manage homework anxiety others have found helpful:

• * Address or acknowledge any mental health concerns. Sometimes students have trouble concentrating on homework if they fell behind in class. For younger children, parents may want to ask their child’s teacher about school issues such as bullying or if the student is having problems understanding the work.
• * Make a homework routine to help you focus. Anxiety is controllable when your expectations are planned. Set a time and space that will let you focus on the work. Make your workspace comfortable with little distractions. Use your time wisely when given additional time to complete lengthy assignments.
• * Set realistic expectations. Sometimes anxiety comes from pushing yourself too hard to get things done. It is okay to make mistakes, and that is how you learn.
• * Establish good communication with your teacher. Parents with young children should have good communication with their child’s teacher. Older students should feel comfortable asking questions about their assignments for clarity. Your teacher could offer tips or advice for completing assignments.
• * Know who to turn to when you need help. Having someone such as a parent, guardian, counselor, and peer support will make a difference. People you rely on for help should encourage, motivate, and provide the support you need. Parents with younger children should get involved with their child’s learning. Experts suggest students with moral backing perform better academically.
• * Learn stress-relieving strategies . Sometimes homework is challenging to complete when you’re stressed out. Look for ways to reduce your stress, including doing activities you enjoy or gaining a new hobby that helps calm your mood. Consider a quick strategy to do before starting an assignment, such as deep breathing, stretching, or listening to music.
• * Get a homework buddy or tutor. Some subjects like mathematics can be stressful when learning new problem-solving processes. Working with someone may help reduce stress while getting the direct support you need.
• * Consider homework apps. Some digital apps offer tips and advice on how to complete homework while providing academic support. Use an app to schedule your work, such as making time for research.

Talk to Someone About Your Anxiety

Sometimes people need additional support dealing with anxiety. If you find your anxiety is making things beyond getting homework done more complicated, it may be time to seek professional help. Talk to your doctor about anxiety concerns. Therapy sessions for anxiety are also useful, and you can read more about that here . Therapy has helped students of all ages cope with stress.

You don’t have to dread doing homework assignments because you have options. Feeling anxious about completing schoolwork is common. If you feel overwhelmed or unsure what to do, reach out for help. Finding practical ways to deal with your anxiety can make getting future assignments done easier.

Marie Miguel has been a writing and research expert for nearly a decade, covering a variety of health- related topics. Currently, she is contributing to the expansion and growth of a free online mental health resource with  BetterHelp.com . With an interest and dedication to addressing stigmas associated with mental health, she continues to specifically target subjects related to anxiety and depression.

About The Author

Dinesh De Alwis

This website is maintained by a Freelance Journalist. He is mainly focusing Education and higher education fields. He is currently contributing to “University World News”.

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