http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/ap_060626_math.html
A comprehensive review of academic performance around the world
gives bad marks to excessive homework.
Teachers in Japan, the Czech Republic and Denmark assign relatively
little homework, yet students there score well, researchers said
this week.
"At the other end of the spectrum, countries with very low average
scores -- Thailand, Greece, Iran -- have teachers who assign a
great deal of homework," says Penn State researcher David
Baker.
"American students appear to do as much homework as their peers
overseas -- if not more -- but still only score around the
international average," said co-researcher Gerald LeTendre.
Baker and LeTendre examined the Third International Study of
Mathematics and Sciences (TIMSS), which in 1994 collected data from
schools in 41 nations on performance in grades 4, 8 and 12.
Additional similar data from 1999 was factored in.
The homework burden is especially problematic in poorer households,
where parents may not have the time or inclination to provide an
environment conducive to good study habits, the researchers
conclude. In particular, drills designed to improve memorization
may not be suited to many homes.
"An unintended consequence may be that those children who need
extra work and drill the most are the ones least likely to get it,"
Baker said. "Increasing homework loads is likely to aggravate
tensions within the family, thereby generating more inequality and
eroding the quality of overall education."
The findings are detailed in a new book, "National Differences,
Global Similarities: World Culture and the Future of Schooling"
(Stanford University Press).
In the early 1980s, U.S. teachers began assigning more homework,
the researchers say. The shift was in response to mediocre
performance in comparison to Japanese students. At the same time,
the trend was going the other way in Japanese schools. The new
study found U.S. math teachers assigned more than two hours of
homework a week in 1994-95, while in Japan the figure was about one
hour per week.
"Undue focus on homework as a national quick-fix, rather than a
focus on issues of instructional quality and equity of access to
opportunity to learn, may lead a country into wasted expenditures
of time and energy," LeTendre says.
The homework burden might also affect performance among children of
higher-income parents.
"Parents are extremely busy with work and household chores, not to
mention chauffeuring young people to various extracurricular
activities, athletic and otherwise," LeTendre said. "Parents might
sometimes see exercises in drill and memorization as intrusions
into family time."
