Do students really need homework? A new study has come up with the answer

Last week Treasa O’Loughlin, a mother of three from Cashel, Co Tipperary, was so busy at work that she didn’t have time to help her six-year-old daughter complete her homework on time. “So, I wrote a note to the teacher to say we just couldn’t do it,” she says.
In Kildare, Karen O’Shea, a mother of two boys aged 11 and 13, saw how hard her eldest son worked to ensure he didn’t fall behind in school after being off sick.
“He’s a good, studious kid – but you see the pressure he puts himself under to get homework done each day. There’s the volume of it, the deadlines, the Teams notifications,” O’Shea says.
In Whitehall, Dublin, Lynda Coogan saw first-hand the impact that keeping up with schoolwork was having on her son in second year.
“He was just exhausted,” she says. “Sometimes he feels it just gets too much. In that case, they were doing homework on an area which they hadn’t covered yet … He wants to please the teachers, to be the good student.”
Scenes like this play out in households across the country each day.
Evening rituals of stress at kitchen tables, in the eyes of some parents, present a compelling argument against homework and how it can cause pain rather than gain for some.
Equally, there are many who argue passionately that homework provides a vital thread of communication, connecting homes and schools through quality assessment and feedback. It allows learners time to practise skills at their own pace, consolidating their learning at school.
For all the hotly contested views, it has been a remarkably understudied area in Ireland – until now.
Researchers at Maynooth University recently decided to examine the role of homework on student achievement in maths and science
They did so by examining the homework patterns of more than 4,000 second-year students – typically aged 14 – in Ireland who participated in a global study of maths and science performance known as Timss (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study).
The findings, released on Thursday, are clear: homework has small but significant improvement in student performance. Short-duration homework tasks, lasting up to 15 minutes, are just as effective as longer assignments.
The frequency of homework is also more important than its duration. For example, daily homework assignments are most effective for improving maths achievement, while science performance benefits most from homework assigned three to four times a week.
Contrary to previous research, this study finds that all students, regardless of socioeconomic background, experience similar benefits from homework, indicating equitable advantages across diverse student populations.
Nathan McJames, the lead author, says the study provides strong evidence that regular homework can significantly enhance student performance, especially when given “little and often”.
“By avoiding very long homework assignments, this also allows students to balance schoolwork with other important activities outside of school,” he says.
The findings come as a blow for those determined to get rid of homework. Prof Andrew Parnell, one of the research team and a homework sceptic on a personal level, admits that he “really, really wanted this to show that homework was of no benefit”.
“So, I’m really annoyed,” he says with a laugh. “It’s not huge, the benefit of homework, but it is there.”
A key finding, Parnell says, is that some students who were spending up to 1½ hours on maths homework each day were not deriving a significantly greater benefit than those spending 15 minutes.
He cautions, however, that the “small but consistent” benefit of this approach to homework is specifically for second-year students at post-primary level. There may, he says, be other approaches that work better for younger or older children.
The findings ring true for O’Loughlin. She is a home economics secondary schoolteacher, as well as a mother of three, aged six, 13 and 16.
O’Loughlin, who has been teaching since 1998, says longer assignments used to be the norm. Much homework used to focus on exam-style questions and rote-learning, driven by the demands of the Inter and Junior Cert.
These days, with the introduction of junior-cycle reforms, she says there is a much greater focus on whether a student really understands a topic, as well as promoting skills such as teamwork and collaboration.
She “100 per cent” agrees that short-duration homework is most effective and engaging for young people.
“My third years are currently doing a project on room design and getting ready to present it,” she says. “They’re going to tell me the story behind the whole thing and verbally present it.
“Previously, they would have given a written answer and never have gotten up to show their work to their classmates. Their classmates will also have questions, so there’s peer-to-peer assessment and feedback, which is great. They actually have wonderful confidence from it.”
[ Homework: ‘Within a few minutes of reading, despite me trying to help, my daughter will start screaming’Opens in new window ]
Yet, she says, there are still many teachers preparing students in the “traditional” way by getting them exam-ready.
“That isn’t what Junior Cycle is about,” she says. “The pressure valve is released and it’s more task-driven, project-driven and skills-based.”
While there are progressive changes in the earlier years of second level, she says senior cycle remains a “whole other agenda” with huge pressure to juggle homework and revise against the backdrop of the CAO points race for college.
“It’s a means to an end and the eye is always on the endgame,” she says. “Until the universities decide that they want an different applications process, we’re pretty much stuck with it.”
Coogan, meanwhile, questions the value of homework. While she feels short assignments may make sense, she says it can add up to 1½ hours per night, or more, in the case of her son in second year.
“If it’s a case that they did algebra, for example, and the homework is about two more questions on the same subject, fair enough,” she says. “But I don’t think they should have essays or loads of extra work to do on top of everything else. It’s a long enough day.”
She also sees the pressure that students put themselves under to ensure assignments are completed and keep teachers happy. Her son is even talking about taking grinds in second year to stay ahead, she says.
Karen O’Shea feels there are benefit to quality homework for her boys where it reinforces learning in the classroom.
“I agree with it being a recap of what has happened at school,” she says. “But I don’t see it as a replacement to learning something new in the classroom or trying to complete the curriculum … We can’t replace a teacher in the home. There can be lots of questions from kids but as parents you can’t always sit with them. Life has got so busy for everyone.”