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As schools close due to the coronavirus, some U.S. students face a digital ‘homework gap’

As K-12 officials in many states close schools and shift classes and assignments online due to the spread of the new coronavirus , they confront the reality that some students do not have reliable access to the internet at home – particularly those who are from lower-income households.

Here are key findings about the internet, homework and how the digital divide impacts American youth.

[bignumber]The majority of eighth-grade students in the United States rely on the internet at home to get their homework done. Roughly six-in-ten students (58%) say they use the internet at their home to do homework every day or almost every day, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the 2018 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Just 6% of students say they never use the internet at home for this purpose.

There are differences in these patterns by community type and parents’ education level. Roughly two-thirds of students attending suburban schools (65%) say they use the internet for homework every day or almost every day, compared with 58% who attend schools in cities, 50% of those who attend in rural areas and 44% of those attending schools in towns. Students whose parents graduated from college are more likely to use the internet for homework at home. Some 62% of these students use the internet at home for homework, compared with smaller shares of students whose parents have some post-high school education (53%), have only a high school education (52%) or have no high school education (48%).

This analysis examines the impact of the internet and the digital divide on youth in the United States. The survey data cited here comes from a Pew Research Center poll of 743 U.S. teens conducted March 7 to April 10, 2018, using the NORC AmeriSpeak panel. AmeriSpeak is a nationally representative, probability-based panel of the U.S. household population. Randomly selected U.S. households are sampled with a known probability of selection from the NORC National Frame, and then contacted by U.S. mail, telephone or face-to-face interviewers. More details about the NORC AmeriSpeak panel methodology are available here .

Part of this analysis also relies on data from the 2018 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The NAEP administers the digitally based Technology and Engineering Literacy assessment to better understand what students in the U.S. know and can do in the areas of technology and engineering. For more, see the assessment methodology .

Another part of this analysis uses the 2015 American Community Survey (ACS) data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The ACS is a national survey using continuous measurement methods. In the survey, a series of monthly samples produce annual estimates for the same small areas (census tracts and block groups) formerly surveyed via the decennial census long-form sample. For more, see the ACS methodology .

[bignumber]The “homework gap” – which refers to school-age children lacking the connectivity they need to complete schoolwork at home – is more pronounced for black, Hispanic and lower-income households. Some 15% of U.S. households with school-age children do not have a high-speed internet connection at home, according to a previously published Pew Research Center analysis of 2015 U.S. Census Bureau data. School-age children in lower-income households are especially likely to lack broadband access. Roughly one-third (35%) of households with children ages 6 to 17 and an annual income below $30,000 a year do not have a high-speed internet connection at home, compared with just 6% of such households earning $75,000 or more a year. These broadband gaps are particularly pronounced in black and Hispanic households with school-age children – especially those with low incomes.

[bignumber]Some lower-income teens say they lack resources to complete schoolwork at home. In a 2018 Center survey , about one-in-five teens ages 13 to 17 (17%) said they are often or sometimes unable to complete homework assignments because they do not have reliable access to a computer or internet connection. Black teens and those living in lower-income households were more likely to say they cannot complete homework assignments for this reason.

For example, one-quarter of black teens said they often or sometimes cannot do homework assignments due to lack of reliable access to a computer or internet connectivity, compared with 13% of white teens and 17% of Hispanic teens. Teens with an annual family income below $30,000 were also more likely to say this than teens with a family income of at least $75,000 a year (24% vs. 9%).

In the same survey, around one-in-ten teens (12%) said they often or sometimes use public Wi-Fi to do schoolwork because they lack a home internet connection. Again, black and lower-income teens were more likely to do this. Roughly one-in-five black teens (21%) said they use public Wi-Fi to do schoolwork due to a lack of home internet connection, compared with 11% of white teens and 9% of Hispanic teens. And around a fifth (21%) of teens with an annual family income under $30,000 reported having to use public Wi-Fi to do homework, compared with 11% of teens in families with a household income of $30,000-$74,999 and just 7% of those living in households earning at least $75,000.

[bignumber]A quarter of lower-income teens do not have access to a home computer. One-in-four teens in households with an annual income under $30,000 lack access to a computer at home, compared with just 4% of those in households earning over $75,000, according to the 2018 survey. There are also differences by race and ethnicity. Hispanic teens were especially likely to say they do not have access to a home computer: 18% said this, compared with 9% of white teens and 11% of black teens.

• Age & Generations
• COVID-19 & Politics
• COVID-19 & Technology
• Digital Divide
• Education & Learning Online
• Teens & Tech
• Teens & Youth

Brooke Auxier is a former research associate focusing on internet and technology at Pew Research Center .

Monica Anderson is a director of research at Pew Research Center .

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Digital Homework

The Federal Communications Commission reports that about 65% of students used the internet at home to complete their homework and 70% of teachers assigned homework that required access to broadband. As technology becomes increasingly common in households, how can educators and parents harness technology to foster students' problem-solving skills?

Going Paperless but Not Effortless

“Alexa, what’s 5 minus 3?” A 6-year-old boy discreetly asked Amazon’s voice-activated assistant for the answer to his homework; he got a perfect answer right back, while his mother was busy doing household chores. This short video was posted on Twitter and received more than 8.5 million views.

National Public Radio introduced this case to raise awareness among parents and educators of the challenges posed by the pervasiveness of digital technology and artificial intelligence in everyday life. As technology is increasingly common in households, one pressing question for educators and parents alike is how technology-assisted homework can foster students’ problem-solving skills rather than crippling indolence. 

Going Paperless

Technology makes our life easy — bills can be paperless; homework can be completed via the internet. Online homework is a major component of e-learning through network technologies. Previous research shows that most U.S. students in sixth grade and above have experience using computers and the internet to complete such “paperless” homework. As students advance in higher grades and education levels, the percentage of digital homework increases correspondingly.

There is no clear-cut definition of what digital homework is. It can be any assignment that students need to complete with the assistance of a computer, the internet, or other information and communication technologies (ICT). Although it would seem the opposite to the traditional homework that students complete with pen, pencil, and paper, it should be noted that, in a broad sense, digital homework includes homework that students write on paper but also requires using computer and/or internet assistance for its completion.

Data show that digital homework is growing in popularity in the 21st century. In 2009, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reported that about 65 percent of U.S. students used the internet at home to complete their homework, and approximately 70 percent of teachers assigned homework that required access to broadband. Surveys conducted by the nonprofit educational organization Speak Up in 2017 showed that nearly half of the students in grades six to 12 reported getting internet-based homework assignments daily or almost daily. About 90 percent of high-schoolers reported that they had to do internet-based homework at least a few times a month.

Advantages and Disadvantages

The transition from traditional homework to digital assignments offers both advantages and disadvantages. A 2014 study by researchers Marco Gui, Marina Micheli, and Brunella Fiore shows that students who used the internet moderately for homework performed higher academically than students who used the internet too often or infrequently for homework. Many factors can affect the learning outcomes that students are expected to achieve through digital homework, but critical thinking is always the key to success in using technology for learning.

Digital homework benefits students when educators and parents effectively guide students to maximize the use of ICT for learning. For instance, digital homework can increase students’ interest in doing homework, boost their efficiency in submitting assignments as well as teachers’ efficiency in providing feedback (if submitted online), and inspire students to learn more and more deeply by providing immediate feedback (if graded automatically).

Digital homework fosters and hones the skill of using ICT to solve problems, which is important for students’ postsecondary life. Research shows that people who can solve problems using ICT have higher chances of being employed, and even earn more than people without ICT experience. Meaningful digital homework encourages students to think through what they are learning and enriches their experience using ICT.

Parents and educators have legitimate concerns about digital homework. For elementary school students, the concern is that the use of hi-tech mechanization may hinder their cognitive development, such as memorization and sensory motor skills. For high school students, the worry is that students may largely depend on technology for their assignments rather than use their brains for the thought process.

Digital Divide

Educators also consider the digital divide a matter of big concern. In a 2016 nationwide survey (Speak Up, 2016), 49 percent of principals said that ensuring students’ access to technology outside the school was a major challenge, and 44 percent of teachers worried that they could not effectively integrate technology in the classroom because their students may not have access to consistent and safe internet outside the school. It should be noted that among the surveyed students:

• 48 percent went to school early or stayed late so they could use their school’s internet
• 32 percent would access the internet at fast food restaurants or cafes to do their homework
• 30 percent used their public library internet.

Digital homework should be effective in supporting students to master what they have learned and strengthening their problem-solving skills. The data of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP 2017) show that students who frequently used computers and the internet for math homework performed at much lower rates than students who never or rarely used digital devices for math assignments ( see chart). By contrast, students who received 45 minutes to an hour of math homework every day, regardless of whether digital or traditional, performed the best. The data suggest that persistent practice matters the most for math performance.

Age, grade and subject appropriateness are always the key to the use of technology in education. In sum, digital homework may go paperless, but should never be effortless.

Jinghong Cai Senior Research Analyst

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Homework Gap

16.9 million children remain logged out because they don’t have internet at home.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a near-total shutdown of the U.S. school system, forcing more than 55 million students to transition to home-based remote learning practically overnight. In most cases, that meant logging in to online classes and accessing lessons and assignments through a home internet connection. Sadly, that was not an option for children in one out of three Black, Latino, and American Indian/Alaska Native households.

Nationwide, across all racial and ethnic groups, 16.9 million children remain logged out from instruction because their families lack the home internet access necessary to support online learning, a phenomenon known as the “homework gap.” According to an analysis of data from the 2018 American Community Survey conducted for All4Ed, National Urban League , UnidosUS , and the National Indian Education Association , millions of households with children under the age of 18 years lack two essential elements for online learning: (1) high-speed home internet service and (2) a computer.

Lack of High-Speed Internet and Connected Devices

Five Facts About Home Internet Access for Students

#1 – 8.4 million households with children lack high-speed home internet service..

This includes 16.9 million children. For this analysis, “high-speed home internet” refers to a wireline broadband internet subscription—high-speed internet service provided via cable, fiber, or digital subscriber line (DSL). While many households have wireless broadband internet access through smartphones, these services generally are insufficient for educational purposes since they do not have the same capacity, reliability, or speeds available through wireline services. (1) A study from Michigan State University  finds that students who do not have home internet access or who rely solely on a mobile plan for their internet access spend more time on their homework, have lower grade point averages, and have weaker digital skills, even after controlling for socioeconomic factors that potentially influence academic performance (2) . In fact, “[t]he gap in digital skills between students with no home access or cell phone only and those with fast or slow home Internet access is equivalent to the gap in digital skills between 8th and 11th grade students,” according to the study. (3)

#2 – 3.6 Million Households Lack a Computer, putting 7.3 Million Children at an Academic Disadvantage.

In this analysis, a computer refers to a laptop, desktop, or tablet. Students who rely exclusively on smartphones for completing homework must contend with smaller screens on slower devices that have fewer features. Smartphone applications lack the full functionality of software that is available on computers. Therefore, it may be difficult, if not impossible, for students to complete assignments that require detailed writing, editing, calculations, and graphics. Additionally, these students may need to monitor data caps or recharge prepaid phone plans to maintain their internet access. (4) Consequently, these students are less likely to complete and submit assignments online outside of school or engage in other online activities such as conducting research, video chatting with peers about school work, or looking up classroom information. (5)

#3 – 4.7 Million Black, Latino, Asian, and American Indian/Alaska Native Families combined lack the High-Speed Home Internet Service Necessary for Online Learning.

Nationally, only about 23% of all households with children do not have high-speed home internet service and about 10% do not have a computer. However, rates vary widely by race. 34% of American Indian/Alaska Native families and about 31% each of Black and Latino families lack access to high-speed home internet, compared to only 21% of White families.

Furthermore, lack of high-speed home internet access disproportionately affects children of color. For example, Latino households make up 20.9% of all households with children, but represent 28.7% of households without high-speed home internet access. This totals 2.4 million Latino families and 5.1 million Latino children. Similarly, Black households make up 14.4% of all households with children, but represent 19.5% of households without high-speed home internet access. This totals 1.6 million Black families and 3.3 million Black children.

Home access to computers and other devices is also limited for students of color. About 17% each of Black and Latino families and nearly 16% of American Indian/Alaska Native families do not have a computer at home, compared to only 8% of White families.

#4 – 4.6 Million Families Earning Less than $50,000 Per Year lack Access to high-Speed Home Internet Service.

Four in ten families that earn less than $25,000 annually do not have high-speed home internet access and three in ten do not have a computer. Similarly, among households that earn between $25,000 and $50,000 annually, one-third lack high-speed home internet service and nearly one-fifth do not have a computer.

Lack of Internet and Device Access by Household Income

#5 – 1.7 Million Households in Nonmetropolitan (or Rural) Areas Lack High-Speed Home Internet.

That is nearly two out of every five families living in rural locations. (6) The greatest disparities exist in rural southern and southwestern states, with Mississippi having the highest percentage of families who lack high-speed home internet service—nearly 42%.

Lack of Internet and Device Access by Location

Learn More About Internet Access in Your State

As you click on your state, you will find information by race, income, and location.

The Cost to Close the Homework Gap

Most of the burden for equipping students with devices and internet access for online learning will fall to schools, districts, and states. But they cannot resolve the existing disparities alone. Bringing high-speed home internet access to all 8.4 million households that currently are offline will require Congress to approve additional funding to support students’ learning needs.

Congress should appropriate the $6.8 billion necessary to cover immediate costs related to high-speed home internet access and devices in any upcoming funding packages passed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, additional substantial resources will be necessary to build out the infrastructure in rural areas where connectivity is not currently available. This is critical to do in the long term to ensure students in isolated regions have full access to a high-quality education. However, these costs fall outside the scope of the immediate response to COVID-19 necessary for students to participate in online learning during the 2020–2021 school year.

Methodology

The data used for the analysis presented in “Students of Color Caught in the Homework Gap” comes from the 2018 American Community Survey (ACS). This survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, contacts 3.5 million households per year. Households receive notices through the mail that they have been selected for the survey, and they can respond through the mail, using the internet, or by telephone. If contacted households do not respond, ACS follows up with phone calls to ask that the survey be completed. About 90 percent of contacted households complete the ACS.

The large sample size of ACS allows analysis of fairly disaggregated geographic units. Since the ACS is an ongoing survey, the Census Bureau aggregates the data in different ways. For analysis of census tracts, which generally have populations of about  4,000 people  (although census tracts can be geographically large in rural areas), ACS aggregates data over five years. That means that about 17.5 million households are available for analysis. For larger geographic areas such as states, the “ 1-year ACS estimates ” are appropriate, since that survey can be used to analyze places with populations of 65,000 or more.

To calculate the numbers of children without digital tools, this analysis used ACS data on the number of related children in the household. That figure varies depending on income, race, and state. The calculations in the state-by-state tables account for these variations. For example, households in Texas, on average, have more children than those in Vermont, while low-income households generally have more children than upper-income ones. In other words, a separate figure for the average number of children in households was calculated for each state and, within each state, across income and race/ethnicity categories. The ACS downloadable PUMS data does not capture all children in the United States, but the ACS provides data on the total number of children in the country. The number of children in the ACS PUMS data differs from the total reported on the Census website by about 7 percent. The analysis allocated this difference proportionately across states and subcategories.

1 John B. Horrigan, senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute, conducted the data analysis referenced in this document. To read the full methodology for this analysis, visit  all4ed.org/homeworkgap .

2 Columbia Telecommunications Corporation,  Mobile Broadband Service Is Not an Adequate Substitute for Wireline  (Kensington, MD: Author, 2017).

3 K. Hampton et al.,  Broadband and Student Performance Gaps  (East Lansing, MI: James H. and Mary B. Quello Center, Michigan State University, 2020).

7 Following the U.S. Census Bureau’s practice, this analysis defines metropolitan areas as urbanized areas of 50,000 or more people and urban clusters of at least 2,500 people but less than 50,000. Remaining areas are nonmetropolitan. The American Community Survey does not use the term “rural” in characterizing geographies.

Homework Gap in California

An analysis from All4Ed and the Linked Learning Alliance shows the very students who could benefit the most from the college- and career-focused approach of Linked Learning are the least likely to have the internet and devices needed to access it from home.

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Why Millions of Teens Can't Finish Their Homework

The push toward technology-focused education overlooks the students who lack the resources needed to complete their assignments.

In decades past, students needed little more than paper, pencils, and time to get their schoolwork done. For the vast majority of students, that's no longer the case. Most schoolwork these days necessitates a computer and an internet connection, and that includes work to be done at home. One federal survey found that 70 percent of American teachers  assign homework that needs to be done online; 90 percent of high schoolers say they have to do internet-based homework at least a few times a month. Nearly half of all students say they get such assignments daily or almost daily.

Yet despite the seemingly ever-growing embrace of digital learning in schools, access to the necessary devices remains unequal, with a new report from the Pew Research Center finding that 15 percent of U.S. households with school-age children lack high-speed internet at home. The problem is particularly acute for low-income families: One in three households that make below $30,000 a year lacks internet. This is despite an emerging reality in which poorer students are attending schools that evangelize technology-based learning while their more affluent counterparts, as The New York Times reported this past weekend, are “going back to wooden toys and the luxury of human interaction.”

It’s a glaring irony that’s also a major force behind class- and race-based discrepancies in academic achievement. In what’s often referred to as the “homework gap,” the unequal access to digital devices and high-speed internet prevents 17 percent of teens from completing their homework assignments, according to the new Pew analysis, which surveyed 743 students ages 13 through 17. Black teens are especially burdened by the homework gap: One in four of them at least sometimes struggle to complete assignments because of a lack of technology at home. And close to half of teenagers in the bottom income bracket have to do their homework on a cellphone occasionally or often.

Read: The futile resistance against classroom tech

From a history-class assignment on the political debate over immigration to required participation in an online discussion board for AP Environmental Science, access to a functioning computer and high-speed internet is all but a prerequisite for success in high school. This is becoming especially true as schools gravitate toward software where students file assignments and papers virtually, as well as schools that equip each student with a laptop or tablet ; one 2017 survey found that half of U.S. teachers have one device for each of their students, up 10 percentage points from the year prior. Close to two in three teachers use technology in their classroom daily, according to a separate 2017 survey .

The homework gap can have major consequences, with some studies suggesting that teens who lack access to a computer at home are less likely to graduate from high school than their more technologically equipped peers. The “challenge to complete homework in safe, predictable, and productive environments can have lifelong impacts on their ability to achieve their full potential,” wrote John Branam, who runs an initiative to provide lacking teens with internet access, in an op-ed for The Hechinger Report last year.

Although the big telecom providers offer subsidies to low-income families, these programs are generally underused . And while disadvantaged students can resort to public libraries and other venues that offer free Wi-Fi, such alternatives are still major obstacles to finishing homework every night. “Your aunt has internet access [at home] but she lives a 40-minute bus trip across town,” Branam wrote, illustrating the roadblocks for teens without internet access. “The public library does, but it has a 30-minute computer use limit and, as a young woman, you don’t feel comfortable there late at night. McDonald’s has free Wi-Fi but it’s noisy, you have to buy food and you can’t linger there forever.”

Read: When students can’t go online

With a team of researchers, the University of Texas at Austin professor S. Craig Watkins spent a year and a half observing and interacting with high schoolers to better understand the digital divide. The researchers’ forthcoming book, The Digital Edge: How Black and Latino Youth Navigate Digital Inequality , chronicles the ways low-income students of color get around not having access to the internet and a computer. In what Watkins calls “social hacking,” students often “reengineer their socioeconomic circumstances in order to get access to technology that they otherwise would not have access to.” For example, the researchers observed that students without such resources at home were adept at developing relationships with teachers who could, say, give them special weekend access to laptops and software for use at home. They also tended to rely on other needy classmates to find work-arounds, sharing with one another smartphones and tablets that more affluent students often take for granted, for instance. “It was an inventive way of cultivating social capital,” Watkins says, “but it also created a kind of sharing economy.”

Watkins says the digital divide is an “institutional blind spot” for many school leaders and policy makers. “I suspect that people a pay grade or two above teachers likely don’t understand the depth at which this access- and participation-gap divide still exists,” he says.

While embedding technology into the curriculum is all the rage in some schools, “oftentimes there’s a lack of clarity and vision in terms of what learning should look like with technology,” Watkins says. “There’s this assumption that just by providing access to technology you’re somehow creating a better learning future for kids, but that is not always the case.” After all, technology in schools is going to be of limited success if kids don’t have access to the internet and a computer once the final bell rings.

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How to create digital homework that students love

By Laura McClure on April 26, 2016 in TED-Ed Innovative Educators , TED-Ed Lessons

US History teacher Jennifer Hesseltine combined TED-Ed Lessons with an interactive blackboard to create a digital homework space that students love.

Let’s redesign homework. When’s the last time your students got excited to do homework? Or said things like, “Wow…just WOW. It is amazing how much is out there that we just don’t know about”? What if every homework assignment could expand a student’s worldview while engaging a kid’s natural curiosity? One middle school teacher took on this challenge — so you don’t have to.

For her  TED-Ed Innovation Project , US History teacher  Jennifer Hesseltine  created a digital homework space that students love. Here are her step-by-step instructions on how you can do it too:

1. Go to TED-Ed and create a lesson . This will be your next homework assignment.

You can either create a lesson using any engaging video of your choice, or simply customize an existing TED-Ed Original  or TED-Ed Select  lesson. If you need help creating a lesson, read this . If you need help customizing a lesson, read this .

2. Create space for lessons in your current learning management system. This is your new digital homework space.

Give this homework space a fun title and a quick description. For inspiration, check out mine  on Padlet. You don’t have to use Padlet — your school’s current interactive learning tools will probably work fine for this project. For more options, check out a few teacher-recommended apps  or try the free tools for teachers from Google, Apple and Microsoft.

3. Add your TED-Ed lesson to your digital homework space using the customized lesson link.

If you need help sharing a customized lesson link,  read this . Easy, right? You can complete Steps 1-3 of this project today.

“Wow…just WOW. It is amazing how much is out there that we just don’t know about.” — 8th grade student after watching the  TED-Ed Lesson: “Exploring other dimensions ”

4. Add and remove lessons often from your digital homework space to keep the content fresh and exciting for students.

Students love TED-Ed lessons and the opportunity to learn. Here are a few quotes from my students on a midyear class survey:

• “TED-Ed videos are more fun than normal homework assignments.”
• “One pro about watching a TED-Ed homework video is that you get to answer the questions while you watch the video.”
• “One pro about watching a TED-Ed homework video is that I get to choose what videos to watch. I’m learning about things that interest me.”

5. Take the opportunity in class to highlight the latest lessons.

I always take 5-10 minutes to show students the new lessons I have added (and always make sure to tell them about my favorites).

6. Share the link to your digital homework space once with students at the beginning of the school year.

Your students will have access to any of your recommended TED-Ed Lessons for the remainder of the school year. I gave my students a list of due dates for the entire school year so that students can plan ahead to complete the assignments.

7. Be prepared for student engagement and student feedback.

Students will likely start going directly to the TED-Ed website and giving you ideas of which lessons they would like to see on the homework space, and/or they will want to create some lessons of their own! As a matter of fact…a few of my students have helped to create homework lessons.

An example of a lesson inspired by an 8th grade student (who approached me with the video and created the questions in the “Think” section) is “Francine’s Interview.” This student’s lesson, as one would imagine, is a favorite among her peers.

Send reminders to students about upcoming homework assignments since the assignment due dates are not on a regular schedule (i.e. — due every day, or every other day). Students forget about upcoming assignments since the assignments are all digital, and the due dates are spaced more than one week apart.

Prepare for students who either do not have internet access, or have a difficult time accessing a working computer/piece of technology outside of school. We need to work together to figure out times each week for them to access their homework. I have been very flexible with students in this regard, and will continue to work with these students to be sure that they have a fair opportunity to complete the homework assignments.

• If you have questions about how to replicate this project , please reach out to me on Twitter. 

This article is part of the TED-Ed Innovation Project series, which highlights 25+  TED-Ed Innovation Projects  designed by educators, for educators, with the support and guidance of the  TED-Ed Innovative Educator  program. You are welcome to share, duplicate and modify projects under  this Creative Commons license  to meet the needs of students and teachers. To get started, click here to take the first step.

Is Homework Beneficial: Exploring the Pros, Cons, and Current Debates

Homework has been a cornerstone of education for generations. It has sparked endless debates among educators, parents, and students. Some see it as a vital tool for children’s learning. Others view it as an unnecessary burden that can cause stress and burnout. Still, most teachers assign homework. They believe additional tasks improve student achievement. As educational methods evolve, we must ask: does homework help students? Does it assist in learning and good study habits? Or does it just add to the pressures of a demanding school establishment? Let’s delve into the pros and cons of homework students receive daily to understand its role in modern education.

Table of Content

Tracing the Roots: A Historical Perspective on Homework

Homework has a long, varied history. It goes back centuries to the start of formal education. In ancient civilizations, only the upper classes received an education. Learning often took place at home, under a tutor or family member. In the 19th century, public education systems developed. Then, homework became a standard practice. It aimed to reinforce school lessons and instill discipline in students.

In the early 20th century, homework faced backlash in the U.S. Some educators and parents argued it stressed kids and cut into family time. During this time, progressive education movements gained momentum. They advocated for less rote memorization and more hands-on learning. However, the Cold War changed views on homework. The 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik spurred the U.S. to prioritize math and science education. Homework was then seen as essential for academic competitiveness and national security. Indeed, teachers see till now how homework improves student achievement.

Today, the debate continues. We are reassessing homework’s role in a changing education system. We must balance academic rigor with students’ well-being. Understanding the history of homework helps us see its deep roots. It also explains why it is a contentious issue in education. The National Parent-Teacher Association oversees the quality of the educational process.

Homework has long been a staple in education. It bridges school and home, reinforcing learning and building skills. However, homework’s role in education is more complex than just extra student practice.

Psychological Impacts

One often overlooked aspect of homework is its influence on students’ psychics. Moderate homework can build discipline and responsibility. However, too much of it can cause stress and anxiety. Younger students may lack the skills to handle heavy homework, which can harm their mental health and love of learning. Educators and parents must recognize these stressors. They should adjust homework policies to support, not hinder, a child’s education.

The Role of Socioeconomic Status

Socioeconomic status plays a crucial role in how homework affects students. For affluent families, homework may be easy. They have a good environment and access to resources like books, the Internet, and quiet study spaces. In contrast, lower-income students might face challenges. They may lack access to the necessary resources. They might live in a noisy, crowded home. They may also have to work part-time or care for siblings. These disparities can make homework harder and widen the achievement gap. For this reason, schools must consider these factors when assigning homework. They should also support students to ensure a fair chance to succeed.

The Influence of Technology on Homework

Technology has significantly changed how homework is assigned and completed in today’s digital age. Many educators use online platforms to assign, collect, and grade homework, which can make learning more interactive and engaging. However, this shift also raises concerns about digital equity. Some students lack access to computers or reliable Internet at home, hindering their ability to complete home tasks. Additionally, there is a debate about screen time’s impact on students’ health. It suggests that digital homework should be balanced with offline assignments.

Cultural Perspectives on Homework

Cultural attitudes towards homework vary significantly around the world. In some countries, homework is vital to education. It shows a strong focus on academic success and discipline. Otherwise, some nations want to reduce homework. They seek a better balance with time for play, creativity, and family. Educators in diverse communities must understand these cultural differences. It’s key to developing homework policies that respect all students and families.

Strengthening Learning and Developing Skills

Homework has various benefits:

• It can greatly improve a student’s education and growth.
• It helps students retain skills, build life skills, and boost parental involvement.
• One of the most notable advantages is its role in reinforcing classroom learning.
• Homework helps students remember what they learned in school by revisiting those concepts.

Repeated exposure is crucial for mastering subjects. It’s especially true in math and language arts, where skills are built incrementally if you attend college. As a result, HW tasks help to develop children’s academic strengths.

Moreover, homework fosters essential skills that extend beyond academics. Students develop many skills by completing assignments outside of class. These include time management, self-discipline, and responsibility. Students learn to organize, prioritize, and work independently by dedicating time to study and homework. These skills are vital for academic success in school and work.

Also, homework lets parents engage with their child’s education. When parents help with assignments to high school boys and girls, they learn what their kids are studying. This can improve communication and collaboration with teachers. This helps create a supportive home learning environment. It reinforces that education is a shared responsibility among students, teachers, and families.

When students feel confident, they have good college attendance. Together, these create a better education. If you need help with HW assignments, feel free to address Edubrain for homework answers .

The Drawbacks of Homework

Homework aims to benefit students. However, it has downsides, and some teachers prefer to eliminate homework. This has sparked debate among educators, parents, and students. One of the most significant concerns is the stress and burnout that homework can cause. As academic demands rise, students feel overwhelmed by too many assignments and marks in a high school journal.

This causes anxiety and harms their mental health. This stress can hinder their ability to socialize, relax, and join activities. All are crucial for healthy development and well-being.

Another major drawback is the role homework can play in exacerbating educational inequalities. Not all students have the same access to resources and support outside of school. For instance, low-income students may lack a quiet space to study, have limited access to educational materials for homework, or face extra responsibilities at home. These factors can make it hard to complete homework. This gap can widen the academic achievement gap, hurting struggling students. These students need to finish homework fast, so they need help.

Also, there is debate about homework’s effectiveness in improving learning. Some research suggests that too much homework can backfire. This is especially true for elementary school students.

They may lack the skills or attention span to benefit from long study sessions during the school day and outside of school. In such cases, homework may not help learning. It can instead cause frustration and disengagement. Homework and academic success influence attending college.

Here’s a comparative table outlining the pros and cons of homework:

This table shows the pros and cons of schoolwork. It shows the need for a balanced approach to HW tasks, weighing its benefits and drawbacks.

The Complex Homework’s Impact on Learning

Research on the effectiveness of homework reveals a complex and often contradictory picture. Many studies have explored how homework affects students. Results vary by age, subject, and assignment quality.

Homework for the Youngest

Research generally suggests that homework has limited benefits for younger students. It reveals no academic gains for elementary students. Too much homework now can hurt kids’ love of learning, raise stress, and lower their enthusiasm for school. Experts agree that homework should be minimal for young kids. It should foster a love of learning, not drill-specific skills.

Homework in Middle and High School Periods

As students move to middle and high school, additional homework helps improve their grades. Research shows that moderate homework can boost learning and grades. This is especially true for math and science. However, this positive correlation plateaus when the amount of homework is excessive. Studies show that high school students swamped with homework may suffer. The stress can harm their mental health and well-being.

Homework Develops Kid as a Person

Research also shows that homework helps develop skills beyond academics. It improves time management, self-discipline, and independent problem-solving, which are crucial for success in higher education and the workforce. However, the effectiveness of homework in fostering these skills depends on the nature of the assignments. Homework that is meaningful and well-designed is better than busywork. It is more likely to help students if it aligns with classroom instruction. Busy work just wastes time and adds no value.

Overall, research findings underscore the importance of a balanced approach to homework. Homework can help learn and build skills. Still, its benefits depend on its quality and quantity. It also helps prepare for standardized tests. Finding the right balance is key to maximizing its positive impact on students’ education and well-being. Students can use different resources for assignments.

For example, they can Google “ how to use AI for homework ” and use AI to improve academic achievement.

Rethinking the Role of Homework in Modern Education

Homework’s role in education is a hot debate. Views and practices are shifting, reflecting changes in educational philosophies and priorities. A recent movement is growing among educators, parents, and policymakers. They want to reassess the traditional approach to completing homework. Concerns over student well-being and homework’s effectiveness in promoting learning drive this.

One major trend is the push toward a more personalized approach to homework. Some schools are testing differentiated homework policies. They know each student has unique needs, abilities, and home environments. This approach tailors homework to each student’s learning style and pace. It aims to make it more relevant and manageable. Personalized homework wants to engage middle school students and encourage ownership of their learning. Still, it should not overwhelm them with tasks that may not suit their needs.

Another trend is to assign less homework, particularly in elementary schools. Some educators and schools are adopting a “no homework” policy for young students, and others are reducing homework. This shift is based on research. It suggests that less excessive homework in the early years can foster a positive attitude towards school and prevent burnout. It also allows time for play, family, and activities, essential for holistic development.

In addition, there is a growing emphasis on the quality rather than the quantity of homework. Educators are urged to assign meaningful homework. It should reinforce learning and promote critical thinking, not memorization or busy work. Pupils should not just finish homework fast ; they should understand what and why they did it. This trend supports many education goals, including building problem-solving skills and a love of learning.

Technological advancements are also influencing current debates about homework. Digital tools and online resources offer new opportunities for engaging, interactive assignments. They let high school students access a wealth of information and learn in more dynamic ways. However, this shift raises concerns about screen time and access to technology. It also highlights the need for guidance on using digital resources effectively.

Overall, the current debates and trends in homework reflect a broader reevaluation of its role in education. Excessive homework will be a hot topic as schools adapt to students’ diverse needs. Discussions will focus on best supporting elementary school students’ learning and well-being.

Conclusion: Striking the Right Balance in Homework Practices

The debate over homework’s value is ongoing. It reflects varying views on its effect on student learning, social skills and well-being. Homework can reinforce learning and build life skills. However, it can also cause stress, increase inequality, and fail to boost grades. As education changes, we must rethink the role of homework. It should support, not hinder, student success.

Recommendations for Effective Homework Practices:

• Quality over Quantity: Focus on the quality of assignments rather than the amount. Homework should be meaningful, purposeful, and aligned with what elementary school students are learning in the classroom. It should promote critical thinking and problem-solving, not just drill facts or practice repetitive tasks.
• Age-Appropriate Assignments: Tailor homework to the student’s developmental stage. Younger children should have little homework. It should foster a love of learning. Older students can handle increased homework and can take home assignments. Homework should build on classroom lessons and prepare them for college and jobs.
• Personalized Homework: Consider each student’s unique needs, abilities, and circumstances. Personalized homework can help here. It can engage all students, no matter their background, with the material in a meaningful, manageable way.
• Encourage a Balanced Approach: Recognize the importance of balance in students’ lives. Homework should not overwhelm elementary students. It should not cut into family time, extracurriculars, or rest. These are critical for their development.
• Utilize Technology Wisely: Use digital tools to create engaging, interactive assignments and effective homework, such as AI science solver . But limit screen time. Ensure all students have equal access to the needed resources.

References:

For a deeper look at the research on homework, see these sources:

• Cooper, H. (2006). The Battle Over Homework: Common Ground for Administrators, Teachers, and Parents. Corwin Press.
• Kohn, A. (2006). The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing. Da Capo Press.
• OECD (2014). PISA 2012 Results: What Students Know and Can Do. Volume I, Revised edition, February 2014.
• Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (2007). The Case For and Against Homework. Educational Leadership, 64(6), 74-79.

By carefully considering these recommendations and drawing from a wide range of research, educators and parents can work together to create homework practices that enhance learning, support well-being, and foster a positive educational experience for all students.

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Most Students Now Have Home Internet Access. But What About the Ones Who Don’t?

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A year after the pandemic exposed deep inequities in K-12 students’ access to technology at home, the picture is looking very different.

In a recent EdWeek Research Center survey, more than three-quarters of teachers said more than 75 percent of their students have adequate internet access at home for consistent participation in remote learning.

Access to digital devices like tablets and laptops is even more widespread: More than half of respondents said every student has adequate access to the devices they need for online learning, and another third said that’s true for more than three-quarters of their students.

The flip side of that coin, though, is that 6 percent of respondents said fewer than half their students have adequate home internet access.

Similarly, 5 percent of respondents said half of their students or fewer have adequate access to devices.

Those percentages of students without devices may seem small, but it’s worth putting them in context: If even 5 percent of K-12 students in the United States aren’t adequately connected to learn from home, that’s more than 2 million students.

It makes sense, then, that close to half of district leaders said they plan to invest “a lot” of money going forward in devices, and close to three-fifths said they’ll be investing “some” or “a lot” of money to expand home internet access for students and families.

Some of the factors delaying progress to close the digital divide are out of schools’ hands.

Schools are still feeling the effects of supply chain strain from the early days of the pandemic, when factories were running out of the materials needed to make laptops fast enough for them to be shipped on time. Nearly a third of respondents to the EdWeek Research Center survey said they still haven’t received all the technology items they ordered during the pandemic.

Here’s a look at the work currently underway at the different levels of government—school districts, states, and federal agencies—to bridge tech access gaps.

School districts are aware much more work needs to be done

Districts have gotten creative with expanding technology access during the pandemic, partnering with local businesses and Native American communities, distributing devices and hotspots, and paying for families’ internet service. One Wisconsin district is even using drones tethered to a power source on the ground to expand internet connectivity for families in rural areas.

A recent Common Sense Media report found that the K-12 internet access gap has shrunk by between 20 percent and 40 percent over the last year, and the device access gap by between 40 percent and 60 percent.

Still, the report estimates between 9 million and 12 million U.S. students still lack adequate internet access at home for remote learning. Progress for Latinx families has been particularly slow, the report says, possibly because of “certain adoption barriers more commonly or acutely experienced by Latinx families, including language barriers and reluctance toward providing personal information.”

Celebrations of progress toward closing the digital divide tend to leave out the work that remains to be done. Much of it will require a concerted effort to funnel more resources to low-income communities in both rural and urban areas.

Thomasville, Ala., lies 60 miles from the nearest interstate highway and 100 miles from the nearest metropolitan area. “We’re the rural of the rural,” said Sheldon Day, the city’s mayor since 1996.

During the pandemic, the city government has broadcast its internet signal to as many public facilities as it can, asked local businesses to share their networks as well, and brought Wi-Fi-enabled school buses closer to where students could reach them and complete online schoolwork.

The town sent hotspots to families who didn’t have internet access at home. “If they had a decent cell signal, they could access those. The challenge has been, in the middle of Timber Country, cell signals get absorbed by the timber,” Day said.

Families who did have internet access at home struggled through even slower connections than their urban counterparts, because the service providers’ networks in rural areas weren’t strong enough to withstand the unusual increase in online activity.

“We’ve got children who are going to lose two years of educational attainment and adults who are going to lose two years of opportunities to bridge a gap in their technical training attainment that could help them get a real good paying job,” Day said.

Thomasville is in the southern Black Belt region, characterized by its rich black soil. That region is lagging behind much of the country when it comes to internet connectivity. According to a recent report from the University of Alabama’s edPolicy center , more than 10 Black Belt counties have less than 50 percent internet connectivity, and two counties have virtually none.

These numbers highlight the formidable challenge ahead for turning the rapid nationwide progress on closing the digital divide into change that lasts over the long haul. Providing robust home connectivity, experts say, will require gaining the trust of families who might be skeptical of school districts’ or governments’ involvement in their daily lives, or confused about how to operate unfamiliar technology.

It’s worthwhile to view the value of efforts to close the digital divide for the ripple effects they may provide.

Day said many parents in the area have grown more technologically savvy than ever before as they’ve had to play a more active role in helping their students learn on their newly acquired digital devices.

“Over the past year our parents have probably been more educated on technology than the children, which is going to make us better going forward,” Day said.

States that put a device in the hands of nearly every student offer roadmaps to replicate

A handful of states have recently declared that they’ve officially closed the digital divide, at least when it comes to device access. These states offer roadmaps that could be replicated elsewhere.

Every K-12 student in Texas now has access to a working digital device at home, thanks to a coordinated effort among district superintendents, the state education department, state legislators, and the governor’s office.

Launched in May, Operation Connectivity quickly surveyed hundreds of districts to find out their immediate technology needs. Among the first findings: Many districts were struggling with bulk deliveries of laptops and tablets on back order. The state used its bargaining power for a bulk purchase of 1.3 million devices for $200 million—at a 40 percent discount from market rate—in less than three months.

This is not a problem that we can throw enough money at and it will go away. It’s systemic.

By the end of 2020, in a state with 5.5 million K-12 students—including 3.3 million who are economically disadvantaged—the connectivity initiative had helped districts add 4.6 million devices.

“We feel very confident that at the end of the first phase of connectivity efforts, we went from having a very low ratio of devices in students’ hands to being truly one-to-one across our entire state,” said Gaby Rowe, who’s leading the Operation Connectivity initiative in Texas. “We know now we’ve built one leg of that stool very firmly.”

The state was able to provide resources that individual districts couldn’t have put together on their own. The connectivity initiative crafted a machine-learning platform that helped quickly analyze more than 120,000 invoices, leading to faster reimbursements for districts that used their own money to buy technology. “The best advice I can give people is, ‘Think like a startup,’ ” Rowe said.

Connecticut has also provided every K-12 student with a laptop or digital device. Efforts to bolster internet connectivity are ongoing.

Nick Simmons, director of strategic initiatives for the Connecticut governor’s office, believes these efforts reflect the positive outcomes that come from a coordinated government approach to longstanding challenges.

“We played the role of an aggregator for districts—this is how many students in that area need your support, and then connected the internet company directly with the district,” Simmons said. “We sent families a voucher so they could call the cable company, give that company their voucher, and get a technician over to the house. All of that was paid for by the state.”

Federal government eyes continued support for addressing tech equity challenges

A bipartisan group of U.S. House members has re-introduced a bill called the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act . If passed, the bill would authorize $94 billion to build internet infrastructure in places where it doesn’t exist, expand affordable options for families who struggle to pay internet bills, and ensure that all K-12 students can access online schooling from home.

Notably, it would also nullify existing state laws that prevent the creation of local and municipal broadband networks, and prevent such laws from being written in the future. Close to two dozen states currently either prohibit municipal broadband networks or make them difficult to create.

Broadband advocates view municipal networks as valuable tools for lowering the cost of internet access across the board, and for serving as a stable public option that can work well for areas that traditional internet service providers don’t have a financial incentive to reach.

In the meantime, the $2 trillion federal stimulus package recently signed into law by President Joe Biden includes $7 billion for school districts to get students and families connected to the internet at home, not just in the physical classroom.

That support will be very helpful now but doesn’t represent a comprehensive solution to the problem, advocates say.

Last month, Biden proposed a massive federal infrastructure investment package that aims to build universal broadband access in the United States by 2030.

“An emergency broadband benefit is great, but it’s just a start,” said Kim Keenan, co-chairwoman of the Internet Innovation Alliance. “This is not a problem that we can throw enough money at and it will go away. It’s systemic.”

A version of this article appeared in the April 21, 2021 edition of Education Week as Most Students Now Have Home Internet Access. But What About the Ones Who Don’t?

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The impact of the digital “homework gap” on our students

Computer and internet access is increasingly becoming a requirement for success in school, according to this article from the Atlantic . 70% of American teachers assign homework that requires an internet connection, and nearly half of American students say they must do online homework daily. Common Sense Media reports that the number of teens and tweens who use computers for homework every day has more than doubled in the last four years, and that nearly a third of teachers think that not having access to a computer or internet would limit their students’ learning.

Where does this leave students whose families can’t afford computers or internet access? Research shows that 1/3 of households making below $30,000 per year lack internet access, and 17% of teens can’t complete homework due to lack of access to technology. In California, 52% of low-income households don’t have a computer that connects to the internet. In South LA, the percentage of school-age children who live in internet-connected in households fell from 76% to 71% between 2013 and 2015. These students experience the “homework gap” – they’re unable to complete assignments and fall behind in school due to circumstances out of their control. 

The families we serve at School on Wheels experience extreme poverty, and can rarely afford computers. Many homeless shelters do not have internet access or computer labs. Some of our families live in vehicles. As a result, students often complete their homework on phones, or not at all. 

That is why we have made it a priority to connect our students to the digital tools they need to succeed. We’ve installed 15 Digital Learning Centers at shelters and schools, where every student has access to the internet and a laptop at least once per week. We’ve given nearly 300 laptops, tablets, and other devices to students to use for schoolwork. We train our volunteer tutors to use Digital Learning programs when working with our students, including adaptive programs that help students catch up in math and reading and coding and typing programs that teach essential digital literacy skills. We’ve also partnered with local organizations like Walnut Robotics to lead STEM workshops. 

We also provide technology to students for online tutoring . Our online tutors work with students remotely over audio/video chat on a variety of devices. This allows us to reach students in areas where we are not able to send in-person tutors, and provide specialized instruction to students who need extra help.

This year, Bel Air Internet generously provided free high-speed internet access to three shelters and our Skid Row Learning Center. This is huge for hundreds of our students, who would otherwise have to stay after school, go to a library, or buy something at a coffee shop just to get access to online assignments. We are excited to grow our partnership with Bel Air Internet to bridge the digital divide for our students.

There’s still a lot of work to be done to close the digital “homework gap” for students like ours. You can support a student experiencing homelessness by volunteering , donating , and spreading the word to your friends about School on Wheels.

JOIN ‘THE WEEKND’ IN HELPING OUR STUDENTS SUCCEED IN SCHOOL AND BECOME A VOLUNTEER TUTOR TODAY!

Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

A conversation with a Wheelock researcher, a BU student, and a fourth-grade teacher

“Quality homework is engaging and relevant to kids’ lives,” says Wheelock’s Janine Bempechat. “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.” Photo by iStock/Glenn Cook Photography

Do your homework.

If only it were that simple.

Educators have debated the merits of homework since the late 19th century. In recent years, amid concerns of some parents and teachers that children are being stressed out by too much homework, things have only gotten more fraught.

“Homework is complicated,” says developmental psychologist Janine Bempechat, a Wheelock College of Education & Human Development clinical professor. The author of the essay “ The Case for (Quality) Homework—Why It Improves Learning and How Parents Can Help ” in the winter 2019 issue of Education Next , Bempechat has studied how the debate about homework is influencing teacher preparation, parent and student beliefs about learning, and school policies.

She worries especially about socioeconomically disadvantaged students from low-performing schools who, according to research by Bempechat and others, get little or no homework.

BU Today  sat down with Bempechat and Erin Bruce (Wheelock’17,’18), a new fourth-grade teacher at a suburban Boston school, and future teacher freshman Emma Ardizzone (Wheelock) to talk about what quality homework looks like, how it can help children learn, and how schools can equip teachers to design it, evaluate it, and facilitate parents’ role in it.

BU Today: Parents and educators who are against homework in elementary school say there is no research definitively linking it to academic performance for kids in the early grades. You’ve said that they’re missing the point.

Bempechat : I think teachers assign homework in elementary school as a way to help kids develop skills they’ll need when they’re older—to begin to instill a sense of responsibility and to learn planning and organizational skills. That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success. If we greatly reduce or eliminate homework in elementary school, we deprive kids and parents of opportunities to instill these important learning habits and skills.

We do know that beginning in late middle school, and continuing through high school, there is a strong and positive correlation between homework completion and academic success.

That’s what I think is the greatest value of homework—in cultivating beliefs about learning and skills associated with academic success.

You talk about the importance of quality homework. What is that?

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.

What are your concerns about homework and low-income children?

The argument that some people make—that homework “punishes the poor” because lower-income parents may not be as well-equipped as affluent parents to help their children with homework—is very troubling to me. There are no parents who don’t care about their children’s learning. Parents don’t actually have to help with homework completion in order for kids to do well. They can help in other ways—by helping children organize a study space, providing snacks, being there as a support, helping children work in groups with siblings or friends.

Isn’t the discussion about getting rid of homework happening mostly in affluent communities?

Yes, and the stories we hear of kids being stressed out from too much homework—four or five hours of homework a night—are real. That’s problematic for physical and mental health and overall well-being. But the research shows that higher-income students get a lot more homework than lower-income kids.

Teachers may not have as high expectations for lower-income children. Schools should bear responsibility for providing supports for kids to be able to get their homework done—after-school clubs, community support, peer group support. It does kids a disservice when our expectations are lower for them.

The conversation around homework is to some extent a social class and social justice issue. If we eliminate homework for all children because affluent children have too much, we’re really doing a disservice to low-income children. They need the challenge, and every student can rise to the challenge with enough supports in place.

What did you learn by studying how education schools are preparing future teachers to handle homework?

My colleague, Margarita Jimenez-Silva, at the University of California, Davis, School of Education, and I interviewed faculty members at education schools, as well as supervising teachers, to find out how students are being prepared. And it seemed that they weren’t. There didn’t seem to be any readings on the research, or conversations on what high-quality homework is and how to design it.

Erin, what kind of training did you get in handling homework?

Bruce : I had phenomenal professors at Wheelock, but homework just didn’t come up. I did lots of student teaching. I’ve been in classrooms where the teachers didn’t assign any homework, and I’ve been in rooms where they assigned hours of homework a night. But I never even considered homework as something that was my decision. I just thought it was something I’d pull out of a book and it’d be done.

I started giving homework on the first night of school this year. My first assignment was to go home and draw a picture of the room where you do your homework. I want to know if it’s at a table and if there are chairs around it and if mom’s cooking dinner while you’re doing homework.

The second night I asked them to talk to a grown-up about how are you going to be able to get your homework done during the week. The kids really enjoyed it. There’s a running joke that I’m teaching life skills.

Friday nights, I read all my kids’ responses to me on their homework from the week and it’s wonderful. They pour their hearts out. It’s like we’re having a conversation on my couch Friday night.

It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Bempechat : I can’t imagine that most new teachers would have the intuition Erin had in designing homework the way she did.

Ardizzone : Conversations with kids about homework, feeling you’re being listened to—that’s such a big part of wanting to do homework….I grew up in Westchester County. It was a pretty demanding school district. My junior year English teacher—I loved her—she would give us feedback, have meetings with all of us. She’d say, “If you have any questions, if you have anything you want to talk about, you can talk to me, here are my office hours.” It felt like she actually cared.

Bempechat : It matters to know that the teacher cares about you and that what you think matters to the teacher. Homework is a vehicle to connect home and school…for parents to know teachers are welcoming to them and their families.

Ardizzone : But can’t it lead to parents being overbearing and too involved in their children’s lives as students?

Bempechat : There’s good help and there’s bad help. The bad help is what you’re describing—when parents hover inappropriately, when they micromanage, when they see their children confused and struggling and tell them what to do.

Good help is when parents recognize there’s a struggle going on and instead ask informative questions: “Where do you think you went wrong?” They give hints, or pointers, rather than saying, “You missed this,” or “You didn’t read that.”

Bruce : I hope something comes of this. I hope BU or Wheelock can think of some way to make this a more pressing issue. As a first-year teacher, it was not something I even thought about on the first day of school—until a kid raised his hand and said, “Do we have homework?” It would have been wonderful if I’d had a plan from day one.

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Senior Contributing Editor

Sara Rimer A journalist for more than three decades, Sara Rimer worked at the Miami Herald , Washington Post and, for 26 years, the New York Times , where she was the New England bureau chief, and a national reporter covering education, aging, immigration, and other social justice issues. Her stories on the death penalty’s inequities were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cited in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision outlawing the execution of people with intellectual disabilities. Her journalism honors include Columbia University’s Meyer Berger award for in-depth human interest reporting. She holds a BA degree in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Profile

She can be reached at [email protected] .

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There are 81 comments on Does Homework Really Help Students Learn?

Insightful! The values about homework in elementary schools are well aligned with my intuition as a parent.

when i finish my work i do my homework and i sometimes forget what to do because i did not get enough sleep

same omg it does not help me it is stressful and if I have it in more than one class I hate it.

Same I think my parent wants to help me but, she doesn’t care if I get bad grades so I just try my best and my grades are great.

I think that last question about Good help from parents is not know to all parents, we do as our parents did or how we best think it can be done, so maybe coaching parents or giving them resources on how to help with homework would be very beneficial for the parent on how to help and for the teacher to have consistency and improve homework results, and of course for the child. I do see how homework helps reaffirm the knowledge obtained in the classroom, I also have the ability to see progress and it is a time I share with my kids

The answer to the headline question is a no-brainer – a more pressing problem is why there is a difference in how students from different cultures succeed. Perfect example is the student population at BU – why is there a majority population of Asian students and only about 3% black students at BU? In fact at some universities there are law suits by Asians to stop discrimination and quotas against admitting Asian students because the real truth is that as a group they are demonstrating better qualifications for admittance, while at the same time there are quotas and reduced requirements for black students to boost their portion of the student population because as a group they do more poorly in meeting admissions standards – and it is not about the Benjamins. The real problem is that in our PC society no one has the gazuntas to explore this issue as it may reveal that all people are not created equal after all. Or is it just environmental cultural differences??????

I get you have a concern about the issue but that is not even what the point of this article is about. If you have an issue please take this to the site we have and only post your opinion about the actual topic

This is not at all what the article is talking about.

This literally has nothing to do with the article brought up. You should really take your opinions somewhere else before you speak about something that doesn’t make sense.

we have the same name

so they have the same name what of it?

lol you tell her

totally agree

What does that have to do with homework, that is not what the article talks about AT ALL.

Yes, I think homework plays an important role in the development of student life. Through homework, students have to face challenges on a daily basis and they try to solve them quickly.I am an intense online tutor at 24x7homeworkhelp and I give homework to my students at that level in which they handle it easily.

More than two-thirds of students said they used alcohol and drugs, primarily marijuana, to cope with stress.

You know what’s funny? I got this assignment to write an argument for homework about homework and this article was really helpful and understandable, and I also agree with this article’s point of view.

I also got the same task as you! I was looking for some good resources and I found this! I really found this article useful and easy to understand, just like you! ^^

i think that homework is the best thing that a child can have on the school because it help them with their thinking and memory.

I am a child myself and i think homework is a terrific pass time because i can’t play video games during the week. It also helps me set goals.

Homework is not harmful ,but it will if there is too much

I feel like, from a minors point of view that we shouldn’t get homework. Not only is the homework stressful, but it takes us away from relaxing and being social. For example, me and my friends was supposed to hang at the mall last week but we had to postpone it since we all had some sort of work to do. Our minds shouldn’t be focused on finishing an assignment that in realty, doesn’t matter. I completely understand that we should have homework. I have to write a paper on the unimportance of homework so thanks.

homework isn’t that bad

Are you a student? if not then i don’t really think you know how much and how severe todays homework really is

i am a student and i do not enjoy homework because i practice my sport 4 out of the five days we have school for 4 hours and that’s not even counting the commute time or the fact i still have to shower and eat dinner when i get home. its draining!

i totally agree with you. these people are such boomers

why just why

they do make a really good point, i think that there should be a limit though. hours and hours of homework can be really stressful, and the extra work isn’t making a difference to our learning, but i do believe homework should be optional and extra credit. that would make it for students to not have the leaning stress of a assignment and if you have a low grade you you can catch up.

Studies show that homework improves student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicates that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” On both standardized tests and grades, students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school.

So how are your measuring student achievement? That’s the real question. The argument that doing homework is simply a tool for teaching responsibility isn’t enough for me. We can teach responsibility in a number of ways. Also the poor argument that parents don’t need to help with homework, and that students can do it on their own, is wishful thinking at best. It completely ignores neurodiverse students. Students in poverty aren’t magically going to find a space to do homework, a friend’s or siblings to help them do it, and snacks to eat. I feel like the author of this piece has never set foot in a classroom of students.

THIS. This article is pathetic coming from a university. So intellectually dishonest, refusing to address the havoc of capitalism and poverty plays on academic success in life. How can they in one sentence use poor kids in an argument and never once address that poor children have access to damn near 0 of the resources affluent kids have? Draw me a picture and let’s talk about feelings lmao what a joke is that gonna put food in their belly so they can have the calories to burn in order to use their brain to study? What about quiet their 7 other siblings that they share a single bedroom with for hours? Is it gonna force the single mom to magically be at home and at work at the same time to cook food while you study and be there to throw an encouraging word?

Also the “parents don’t need to be a parent and be able to guide their kid at all academically they just need to exist in the next room” is wild. Its one thing if a parent straight up is not equipped but to say kids can just figured it out is…. wow coming from an educator What’s next the teacher doesn’t need to teach cause the kid can just follow the packet and figure it out?

Well then get a tutor right? Oh wait you are poor only affluent kids can afford a tutor for their hours of homework a day were they on average have none of the worries a poor child does. Does this address that poor children are more likely to also suffer abuse and mental illness? Like mentioned what about kids that can’t learn or comprehend the forced standardized way? Just let em fail? These children regularly are not in “special education”(some of those are a joke in their own and full of neglect and abuse) programs cause most aren’t even acknowledged as having disabilities or disorders.

But yes all and all those pesky poor kids just aren’t being worked hard enough lol pretty sure poor children’s existence just in childhood is more work, stress, and responsibility alone than an affluent child’s entire life cycle. Love they never once talked about the quality of education in the classroom being so bad between the poor and affluent it can qualify as segregation, just basically blamed poor people for being lazy, good job capitalism for failing us once again!

why the hell?

you should feel bad for saying this, this article can be helpful for people who has to write a essay about it

This is more of a political rant than it is about homework

I know a teacher who has told his students their homework is to find something they are interested in, pursue it and then come share what they learn. The student responses are quite compelling. One girl taught herself German so she could talk to her grandfather. One boy did a research project on Nelson Mandela because the teacher had mentioned him in class. Another boy, a both on the autism spectrum, fixed his family’s computer. The list goes on. This is fourth grade. I think students are highly motivated to learn, when we step aside and encourage them.

The whole point of homework is to give the students a chance to use the material that they have been presented with in class. If they never have the opportunity to use that information, and discover that it is actually useful, it will be in one ear and out the other. As a science teacher, it is critical that the students are challenged to use the material they have been presented with, which gives them the opportunity to actually think about it rather than regurgitate “facts”. Well designed homework forces the student to think conceptually, as opposed to regurgitation, which is never a pretty sight

Wonderful discussion. and yes, homework helps in learning and building skills in students.

not true it just causes kids to stress

Homework can be both beneficial and unuseful, if you will. There are students who are gifted in all subjects in school and ones with disabilities. Why should the students who are gifted get the lucky break, whereas the people who have disabilities suffer? The people who were born with this “gift” go through school with ease whereas people with disabilities struggle with the work given to them. I speak from experience because I am one of those students: the ones with disabilities. Homework doesn’t benefit “us”, it only tears us down and put us in an abyss of confusion and stress and hopelessness because we can’t learn as fast as others. Or we can’t handle the amount of work given whereas the gifted students go through it with ease. It just brings us down and makes us feel lost; because no mater what, it feels like we are destined to fail. It feels like we weren’t “cut out” for success.

homework does help

here is the thing though, if a child is shoved in the face with a whole ton of homework that isn’t really even considered homework it is assignments, it’s not helpful. the teacher should make homework more of a fun learning experience rather than something that is dreaded

This article was wonderful, I am going to ask my teachers about extra, or at all giving homework.

I agree. Especially when you have homework before an exam. Which is distasteful as you’ll need that time to study. It doesn’t make any sense, nor does us doing homework really matters as It’s just facts thrown at us.

Homework is too severe and is just too much for students, schools need to decrease the amount of homework. When teachers assign homework they forget that the students have other classes that give them the same amount of homework each day. Students need to work on social skills and life skills.

I disagree.

Beyond achievement, proponents of homework argue that it can have many other beneficial effects. They claim it can help students develop good study habits so they are ready to grow as their cognitive capacities mature. It can help students recognize that learning can occur at home as well as at school. Homework can foster independent learning and responsible character traits. And it can give parents an opportunity to see what’s going on at school and let them express positive attitudes toward achievement.

Homework is helpful because homework helps us by teaching us how to learn a specific topic.

As a student myself, I can say that I have almost never gotten the full 9 hours of recommended sleep time, because of homework. (Now I’m writing an essay on it in the middle of the night D=)

I am a 10 year old kid doing a report about “Is homework good or bad” for homework before i was going to do homework is bad but the sources from this site changed my mind!

Homeowkr is god for stusenrs

I agree with hunter because homework can be so stressful especially with this whole covid thing no one has time for homework and every one just wants to get back to there normal lives it is especially stressful when you go on a 2 week vaca 3 weeks into the new school year and and then less then a week after you come back from the vaca you are out for over a month because of covid and you have no way to get the assignment done and turned in

As great as homework is said to be in the is article, I feel like the viewpoint of the students was left out. Every where I go on the internet researching about this topic it almost always has interviews from teachers, professors, and the like. However isn’t that a little biased? Of course teachers are going to be for homework, they’re not the ones that have to stay up past midnight completing the homework from not just one class, but all of them. I just feel like this site is one-sided and you should include what the students of today think of spending four hours every night completing 6-8 classes worth of work.

Are we talking about homework or practice? Those are two very different things and can result in different outcomes.

Homework is a graded assignment. I do not know of research showing the benefits of graded assignments going home.

Practice; however, can be extremely beneficial, especially if there is some sort of feedback (not a grade but feedback). That feedback can come from the teacher, another student or even an automated grading program.

As a former band director, I assigned daily practice. I never once thought it would be appropriate for me to require the students to turn in a recording of their practice for me to grade. Instead, I had in-class assignments/assessments that were graded and directly related to the practice assigned.

I would really like to read articles on “homework” that truly distinguish between the two.

oof i feel bad good luck!

thank you guys for the artical because I have to finish an assingment. yes i did cite it but just thanks

thx for the article guys.

Homework is good

I think homework is helpful AND harmful. Sometimes u can’t get sleep bc of homework but it helps u practice for school too so idk.

I agree with this Article. And does anyone know when this was published. I would like to know.

It was published FEb 19, 2019.

Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college.

i think homework can help kids but at the same time not help kids

This article is so out of touch with majority of homes it would be laughable if it wasn’t so incredibly sad.

There is no value to homework all it does is add stress to already stressed homes. Parents or adults magically having the time or energy to shepherd kids through homework is dome sort of 1950’s fantasy.

What lala land do these teachers live in?

Homework gives noting to the kid

Homework is Bad

homework is bad.

why do kids even have homework?

Comments are closed.

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The 5 Best Homework Help Websites (Free and Paid!)

Other High School , General Education

Listen: we know homework isn’t fun, but it is a good way to reinforce the ideas and concepts you’ve learned in class. But what if you’re really struggling with your homework assignments?

If you’ve looked online for a little extra help with your take-home assignments, you’ve probably stumbled across websites claiming to provide the homework help and answers students need to succeed . But can homework help sites really make a difference? And if so, which are the best homework help websites you can use? 

Below, we answer these questions and more about homework help websites–free and paid. We’ll go over: 

• The basics of homework help websites
• The cost of homework help websites 
• The five best homework websites out there 
• The pros and cons of using these websites for homework help 
• The line between “learning” and “cheating” when using online homework help 
• Tips for getting the most out of a homework help website

So let’s get started! 

The Basics About Homework Help Websites–Free and Paid

Homework help websites are designed to help you complete your homework assignments, plain and simple. 

What Makes a Homework Help Site Worth Using

Most of the best sites allow users to ask questions and then provide an answer (or multiple possible answers) and explanation in seconds. In some instances, you can even send a photo of a particular assignment or problem instead of typing the whole thing out! 

Homework help sites also offer more than just help answering homework questions. Common services provided are Q&A with experts, educational videos, lectures, practice tests and quizzes, learning modules, math solving tools, and proofreading help. Homework help sites can also provide textbook solutions (i.e. answers to problems in tons of different textbooks your school might be using), one-on-one tutoring, and peer-to-peer platforms that allow you to discuss subjects you’re learning about with your fellow students. 

And best of all, nearly all of them offer their services 24/7, including tutoring! 

What You Should Should Look Out For

When it comes to homework help, there are lots–and we mean lots –of scam sites out there willing to prey on desperate students. Before you sign up for any service, make sure you read reviews to ensure you’re working with a legitimate company. 

A word to the wise: the more a company advertises help that veers into the territory of cheating, the more likely it is to be a scam. The best homework help websites are going to help you learn the concepts you’ll need to successfully complete your homework on your own. (We’ll go over the difference between “homework help” and “cheating” a little later!) 

You don't need a golden piggy bank to use homework help websites. Some provide low or no cost help for students like you!

How Expensive Are the Best Homework Help Websites?

First of all, just because a homework help site costs money doesn’t mean it’s a good service. Likewise, just because a homework help website is free doesn’t mean the help isn’t high quality. To find the best websites, you have to take a close look at the quality and types of information they provide! 

When it comes to paid homework help services, the prices vary pretty widely depending on the amount of services you want to subscribe to. Subscriptions can cost anywhere from $2 to $150 dollars per month, with the most expensive services offering several hours of one-on-one tutoring with a subject expert per month.

The 5 Best Homework Help Websites 

So, what is the best homework help website you can use? The answer is that it depends on what you need help with. 

The best homework help websites are the ones that are reliable and help you learn the material. They don’t just provide answers to homework questions–they actually help you learn the material. 

That’s why we’ve broken down our favorite websites into categories based on who they’re best for . For instance, the best website for people struggling with math might not work for someone who needs a little extra help with science, and vice versa. 

Keep reading to find the best homework help website for you! 

Best Free Homework Help Site: Khan Academy

• Price: Free!
• Best for: Practicing tough material 

Not only is Khan Academy free, but it’s full of information and can be personalized to suit your needs. When you set up your account , you choose which courses you need to study, and Khan Academy sets up a personal dashboard of instructional videos, practice exercises, and quizzes –with both correct and incorrect answer explanations–so you can learn at your own pace. 

As an added bonus, it covers more course topics than many other homework help sites, including several AP classes.

Runner Up: Brainly.com offers a free service that allows you to type in questions and get answers and explanations from experts. The downside is that you’re limited to two answers per question and have to watch ads. 

Best Paid Homework Help Site: Chegg

• Price: $14.95 to $19.95 per month
• Best for: 24/7 homework assistance  

This service has three main parts . The first is Chegg Study, which includes textbook solutions, Q&A with subject experts, flashcards, video explanations, a math solver, and writing help. The resources are thorough, and reviewers state that Chegg answers homework questions quickly and accurately no matter when you submit them.  

Chegg also offers textbook rentals for students who need access to textbooks outside of their classroom. Finally, Chegg offers Internship and Career Advice for students who are preparing to graduate and may need a little extra help with the transition out of high school. 

Another great feature Chegg provides is a selection of free articles geared towards helping with general life skills, like coping with stress and saving money. Chegg’s learning modules are comprehensive, and they feature solutions to the problems in tons of different textbooks in a wide variety of subjects. 

Runner Up: Bartleby offers basically the same services as Chegg for $14.99 per month. The reason it didn’t rank as the best is based on customer reviews that say user questions aren’t answered quite as quickly on this site as on Chegg. Otherwise, this is also a solid choice!

Best Site for Math Homework Help: Photomath

• Price: Free (or $59.99 per year for premium services) 
• Best for: Explaining solutions to math problems

This site allows you to t ake a picture of a math problem, and instantly pulls up a step-by-step solution, as well as a detailed explanation of the concept. Photomath also includes animated videos that break down mathematical concepts to help you better understand and remember them. 

The basic service is free, but for an additional fee you can get extra study tools and learn additional strategies for solving common math problems.

Runner Up: KhanAcademy offers in-depth tutorials that cover complex math topics for free, but you won’t get the same tailored help (and answers!) that Photomath offers. 

Best Site for English Homework Help: Princeton Review Academic Tutoring

• Price: $40 to $153 per month, depending on how many hours of tutoring you want 
• Best for: Comprehensive and personalized reading and writing help 

While sites like Grammarly and Sparknotes help you by either proofreading what you write via an algorithm or providing book summaries, Princeton Review’s tutors provide in-depth help with vocabulary, literature, essay writing and development, proofreading, and reading comprehension. And unlike other services, you’ll have the chance to work with a real person to get help. 

The best part is that you can get on-demand English (and ESL) tutoring from experts 24/7. That means you can get help whenever you need it, even if you’re pulling an all-nighter! 

This is by far the most expensive homework site on this list, so you’ll need to really think about what you need out of a homework help website before you commit. One added benefit is that the subscription covers over 80 other subjects, including AP classes, which can make it a good value if you need lots of help!  

Best Site for STEM Homework Help: Studypool

• Best for: Science homework help
• Price: Varies; you’ll pay for each question you submit

When it comes to science homework help, there aren’t a ton of great resources out there. The best of the bunch is Studypool, and while it has great reviews, there are some downsides as well. 

Let’s start with the good stuff. Studypool offers an interesting twist on the homework help formula. After you create a free account, you can submit your homework help questions, and tutors will submit bids to answer your questions. You’ll be able to select the tutor–and price point–that works for you, then you’ll pay to have your homework question answered. You can also pay a small fee to access notes, lectures, and other documents that top tutors have uploaded. 

The downside to Studypool is that the pricing is not transparent . There’s no way to plan for how much your homework help will cost, especially if you have lots of questions! Additionally, it’s not clear how tutors are selected, so you’ll need to be cautious when you choose who you’d like to answer your homework questions.  

What Are the Pros and Cons of Using Homework Help Sites?

Homework help websites can be a great resource if you’re struggling in a subject, or even if you just want to make sure that you’re really learning and understanding topics and ideas that you’re interested in. But, there are some possible drawbacks if you don’t use these sites responsibly. 

We’ll go over the good–and the not-so-good–aspects of getting online homework help below. 

3 Pros of Using Homework Help Websites 

First, let’s take a look at the benefits. 

#1: Better Grades Beyond Homework

This is a big one! Getting outside help with your studies can improve your understanding of concepts that you’re learning, which translates into better grades when you take tests or write essays. 

Remember: homework is designed to help reinforce the concepts you learned in class. If you just get easy answers without learning the material behind the problems, you may not have the tools you need to be successful on your class exams…or even standardized tests you’ll need to take for college. 

#2: Convenience

One of the main reasons that online homework help is appealing is because it’s flexible and convenient. You don’t have to go to a specific tutoring center while they’re open or stay after school to speak with your teacher. Instead, you can access helpful resources wherever you can access the internet, whenever you need them.

This is especially true if you tend to study at off hours because of your extracurriculars, work schedule, or family obligations. Sites that offer 24/7 tutoring can give you the extra help you need if you can’t access the free resources that are available at your school. 

#3: Variety

Not everyone learns the same way. Maybe you’re more of a visual learner, but your teacher mostly does lectures. Or maybe you learn best by listening and taking notes, but you’re expected to learn something just from reading the textbook . 

One of the best things about online homework help is that it comes in a variety of forms. The best homework help sites offer resources for all types of learners, including videos, practice activities, and even one-on-one discussions with real-life experts. 

This variety can also be a good thing if you just don’t really resonate with the way a concept is being explained (looking at you, math textbooks!).

Not so fast. There are cons to homework help websites, too. Get to know them below!

3 Cons of Using Homework Help Websites 

Now, let’s take a look at the drawbacks of online homework help. 

#1: Unreliable Info

This can be a real problem. In addition to all the really good homework help sites, there are a whole lot of disreputable or unreliable sites out there. The fact of the matter is that some homework help sites don’t necessarily hire people who are experts in the subjects they’re talking about. In those cases, you may not be getting the accurate, up-to-date, and thorough information you need.

Additionally, even the great sites may not be able to answer all of your homework questions. This is especially true if the site uses an algorithm or chatbot to help students…or if you’re enrolled in an advanced or college-level course. In these cases, working with your teacher or school-provided tutors are probably your best option. 

#2: No Clarification

This depends on the service you use, of course. But the majority of them provide free or low-cost help through pre-recorded videos. Watching videos or reading info online can definitely help you with your homework… but you can’t ask questions or get immediate feedback if you need it .

#3: Potential For Scamming 

Like we mentioned earlier, there are a lot of homework help websites out there, and lots of them are scams. The review comments we read covered everything from outdated or wrong information, to misleading claims about the help provided, to not allowing people to cancel their service after signing up. 

No matter which site you choose to use, make sure you research and read reviews before you sign up–especially if it’s a paid service! 

When Does “Help” Become “Cheating”?

Admittedly, whether using homework help websites constitutes cheating is a bit of a grey area. For instance, is it “help” when a friend reads your essay for history class and corrects your grammar, or is it “cheating”? The truth is, not everyone agrees on when “help” crosses the line into “cheating .” When in doubt, it can be a good idea to check with your teacher to see what they think about a particular type of help you want to get. 

That said, a general rule of thumb to keep in mind is to make sure that the assignment you turn in for credit is authentically yours . It needs to demonstrate your own thoughts and your own current abilities. Remember: the point of every homework assignment is to 1) help you learn something, and 2) show what you’ve learned. 

So if a service answers questions or writes essays for you, there’s a good chance using it constitutes cheating. 

Here’s an example that might help clarify the difference for you. Brainstorming essay ideas with others or looking online for inspiration is “help” as long as you write the essay yourself. Having someone read it and give you feedback about what you need to change is also help, provided you’re the one that makes the changes later. 

But copying all or part of an essay you find online or having someone write (or rewrite) the whole thing for you would be “cheating.” The same is true for other subjects. Ultimately, if you’re not generating your own work or your own answers, it’s probably cheating.

5 Tips for Finding the Best Homework Help Websites for You

Now that you know some of our favorite homework help websites, free and paid, you can start doing some additional research on your own to decide which services might work best for you! Here are some top tips for choosing a homework help website. 

Tip 1: Decide How You Learn Best 

Before you decide which site or sites you’re going to use for homework help, y ou should figure out what kind of learning style works for you the most. Are you a visual learner? Then choose a site that uses lots of videos to help explain concepts. If you know you learn best by actually doing tasks, choose a site that provides lots of practice exercises.

Tip 2: Determine Which Subjects You Need Help With

Just because a homework help site is good overall doesn’t mean that it’s equally good for every subject. If you only need help in math, choose a site that specializes in that area. But if history is where you’re struggling, a site that specializes in math won’t be much help. So make sure to choose a site that you know provides high-quality help in the areas you need it most. 

Tip 3: Decide How Much One-On-One Help You Need 

This is really about cost-effectiveness. If you learn well on your own by reading and watching videos, a free site like Khan Academy is a good choice. But if you need actual tutoring, or to be able to ask questions and get personalized answers from experts, a paid site that provides that kind of service may be a better option.

Tip 4: Set a Budget

If you decide you want to go with a paid homework help website, set a budget first . The prices for sites vary wildly, and the cost to use them can add up quick. 

Tip 5: Read the Reviews

Finally, it’s always a good idea to read actual reviews written by the people using these homework sites. You’ll learn the good, the bad, and the ugly of what the users’ experiences have been. This is especially true if you intend to subscribe to a paid service. You’ll want to make sure that users think it’s worth the price overall!

What’s Next?

If you want to get good grades on your homework, it’s a good idea to learn how to tackle it strategically. Our expert tips will help you get the most out of each assignment…and boost your grades in the process.

Doing well on homework assignments is just one part of getting good grades. We’ll teach you everything you need to know about getting great grades in high school in this article.

Of course, test grades can make or break your GPA, too. Here are 17 expert tips that’ll help you get the most out of your study prep before you take an exam.

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Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

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Distracted by Technology: Focusing Attention on Homework

By Michael Howard

Does your child stay up all night doing homework ? Is he or she often texting or online while doing homework or studying? Is it possible for students to study and do their homework effectively while being distracted by technology? Is focusing attention on homework really all that important? It’s just homework, right? 

Welcome to the 21st century. A world filled with distractions every where you turn. How is it even possible to get homework done at all, let alone focus on doing homework without being distracted by a wide variety of electronic gadgets. Back in the not so distant past, you might have heard a kid saying "It doesn't matter if I have the TV on while I do my homework. It's not like I'm studying for a test." Today, it's a bit more complicated as students and their smart phones are inseparable. What might at first glance seem harmelss, doing homework or studying while watching TV, texting or checking social media can actually impair learning the material as well as lower test scores. Research has shown that it's one of the worst study habits a student can develop.

Is There an App For That ?

With nearly everyone over the age of 10 having a cell phone and access to the internet these days, it's quite common to find students dividing their attention between texting, checking social media websites and surfing the internet while doing homework and studying for exams. Given that text messaging is the way many students communicate with each other, it's not easy for parents to explain to them that when it's time to do homework or study for an exam it's necessary to turn their phone off.

In all likelihood, they will argue about this as s tudents of all ages seem to have a misconception that they can pay attention to more than one thing at a time and that multitasking is an effective way to do homework or study for a test. How are you, their parent, going to respond? With research. In this blog post, w e reviewed the most up to date research that we could find on the subject of multitasking to give parents a better understanding of what it takes to be a successful student.

What Does Research Show About Studying While Distracted by Technology?

In a study conducted by Dr. Larry Rosen, a psychology professor at California State University - Dominguez Hills, students were observed studying for a 15 minute period where they were told to "study something important.” He found was that students generally started to lose focus after about three minutes. On average "students only spent about 65 percent of the observation period actually studying." That’s not exactly what you might consider “quality” studying time.

Dr. Rosen did another study where he surveyed high school students and asked them how often they switch from studying to doing something related to technology such as checking email, Facebook, texting or watching TV. Across all grade levels, 80% of students reported that they switch between studying and technology somewhat often to very often. Rosen calls this “Continuous Partial Attention,” meaning that most of the time, students are not focused on studying but rather are moving their attention back and forth between studying and various forms of technology. As you might expect, students who were the most distracted generally had the most windows open on their computers. Students who were less distracted had higher GPAs than students who switched back and forth fairly often and those who regularly check Facebook or text messages. Students who had strategies for studying also had higher GPAs according to Rosen’s findings.

Rosen explains, “Young people’s technology use is really about quelling anxiety...they don’t want to miss out or to be the last person to hear some news (or like or comment about a post online).” One of the major problems with texting and posting on Facebook and other social media sites while in class and/or studying, is that "they draw on the same mental resources—using language, parsing meaning—demanded by schoolwork." Ultimately, he concludes, if we want students to learn and perform at their best, smart phones and other online distractions must be managed.

Can Doing Homework While Distracted by Technology Affect Test Scores?

In another study of 8-18 year old students done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly one third of the students surveyed confessed that when they were doing homework, they were also watching TV, texting, or listening to music. Victoria Rideout, the lead author of the study, warns parents about the dangers of media multitasking. This concern is distinct from worrying about how much kids are online or how much kids are media multitasking overall. “It’s multitasking while learning that has the biggest potential downside,”she says.

If a student is focused when doing their homework, they actually retain more of the information when it comes time to take a test on the same subject matter. It's like studying for the test little by little and absorbing the information in small chunks. The strategy of ‘chunking’ bits of information has been shown to be the most effective way to learn larger amounts of information and is a useful test prep strategy. If a student does her homework while multitasking, that will result in less information being retained and therefore  more time will be required for test preparation in order to achieve the same result. Compounding matters, if homework is done while multitasking in an introductory class, it will be more difficult to build on that “shaky foundation of knowledge” in the more advanced class the next semester.

Dr. David Meyer, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan observed that “under most conditions, the brain simply cannot do two complex tasks at the same time. Listening to a lecture while texting, or doing homework and being on Facebook—each of these tasks is very demanding, and each of them uses the same area of the brain, the prefrontal cortex." Most students incorrectly believe that they can perform two challenging tasks at the same time, according to Meyer. They may like to do it, they may even be addicted to it, but there’s no getting around the fact that it’s far better to focus on one task from start to finish.”

Quick Test for Students to Determine if Multitasking Impacts Performance

Here’s a fun, 3 minute test that you can do along with your kids to demonstrate if multitasking impacts performance (and the time it takes to complete homework).  Taking this simple test will allow students to see for themselves if multitasking could potentially be affecting their studying.

http://davecrenshaw.com/multitasking-example/

Top 3 Negative Outcomes of Studying While Being Distracted by Technology

According to an article by Annie Murphy Paul , research has shown that there are various negative outcomes that result from students multitasking while doing homework. Paul describes the top 3 negative outcomes. "First, the assignment takes longer to complete, because of the time spent on distracting activities and because, upon returning to the assignment, the student has to re-familiarize himself with the material.” Second, the mental fatigue caused by repeatedly dropping and picking up a mental thread leads to more mistakes. “Third, students’ subsequent memory of what they’re working on will be impaired if their attention is divided.” Paul explains, “The moment of encoding information is what matters most for retention, and dozens of laboratory studies have demonstrated that when our attention is divided during encoding, we remember that piece of information less well—or not at all."

Paul goes on to write, "Finally, researchers have found that media multitasking while learning is correlated with lower grades. In Rosen’s study (discussed above), students who used Facebook during the 15-minute observation period had lower grade-point averages than those who didn’t go on the site. In addition, two recent studies by Reynol Junco , a faculty associate at Harvard’s Berkan Center for Internet & Society , found that texting and using Facebook—in class and while doing homework—were negatively correlated with college students’ GPAs."

In conclusion, the evidence is overwhelming. Studying or doing homework while sitting in front of the TV, using social media or texting, makes it more difficult to learn and retain the information, increases the time it takes to complete homework, and may ultimately result in lower test scores.

Is your child attached to his smart phone or other electronic gadgets? If so, and grades are suffering, it might be time to take action. Are you ready to help your child  break the multitasking habit, learn to focus attention on homework and get on the path to academic success?

How Parents Can Help Children Manage Distractions While Studying

Teach your child to take technology breaks to separate doing homework from using technology. Here's the strategy: After your child has worked on his homework without interruption for 15 minutes, he is then allowed a technology break for 2-3 minutes to text and post to social media. When the break time is up, you instruct him to turn off his electronic devices for another 15 minutes of doing homework or studying. Students can extend their working time to 20, 30 or 45 minutes and perhaps extend their technology break time to 5-7 minutes. If your child complains that the technology break time is too short, you can let him know that when he is finished with his homework, he can use technology for as long as he wants (or whatever amount of time you say is ok).

Would you like to cut your child's homework time in half?

If so, click below to download our free guide to "Cutting Homework Time in Half."  You might also want to contact us to see if Executive Function coaching can help your child with focusing attention on homework .

Photo credit: Gitte Laasby

Attribution: A much more detailed discussion of some of these studies can be found in Slate Magazine (May 3, 2013) by Annie Murphy Paul , a fellow at the New America Foundation and author of the book Brilliant: The Science of How We Get Smarter.

Michael Howard is the Director of Marketing for Beyond BookSmart. He joined the company in 2012 and works remotely from Los Angeles. He is responsible for researching and developing marketing strategies, marketing materials, updating and optimizing the company website, social media, and search engine optimization. Michael earned his BA in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his MS in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Lamar University .

About the Author

Michael howard.

Michael Howard is the Lead Marketing Strategist for Beyond BookSmart. He joined the company in 2012 and works remotely from Los Angeles. He is responsible for researching and developing marketing strategies, marketing materials, updating and optimizing the company website, social media, and search engine optimization. Michael is also involved with researching and recruiting potential candidates for employment. Michael earned his BA in Psychology from the University of Illinois, Champaign and his MS in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Lamar University.

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Homework – Top 3 Pros and Cons

Pro/Con Arguments | Discussion Questions | Take Action | Sources | More Debates

From dioramas to book reports, from algebraic word problems to research projects, whether students should be given homework, as well as the type and amount of homework, has been debated for over a century. [ 1 ]

While we are unsure who invented homework, we do know that the word “homework” dates back to ancient Rome. Pliny the Younger asked his followers to practice their speeches at home. Memorization exercises as homework continued through the Middle Ages and Enlightenment by monks and other scholars. [ 45 ]

In the 19th century, German students of the Volksschulen or “People’s Schools” were given assignments to complete outside of the school day. This concept of homework quickly spread across Europe and was brought to the United States by Horace Mann , who encountered the idea in Prussia. [ 45 ]

In the early 1900s, progressive education theorists, championed by the magazine Ladies’ Home Journal , decried homework’s negative impact on children’s physical and mental health, leading California to ban homework for students under 15 from 1901 until 1917. In the 1930s, homework was portrayed as child labor, which was newly illegal, but the prevailing argument was that kids needed time to do household chores. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 45 ] [ 46 ]

Public opinion swayed again in favor of homework in the 1950s due to concerns about keeping up with the Soviet Union’s technological advances during the Cold War . And, in 1986, the US government included homework as an educational quality boosting tool. [ 3 ] [ 45 ]

A 2014 study found kindergarteners to fifth graders averaged 2.9 hours of homework per week, sixth to eighth graders 3.2 hours per teacher, and ninth to twelfth graders 3.5 hours per teacher. A 2014-2019 study found that teens spent about an hour a day on homework. [ 4 ] [ 44 ]

Beginning in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic complicated the very idea of homework as students were schooling remotely and many were doing all school work from home. Washington Post journalist Valerie Strauss asked, “Does homework work when kids are learning all day at home?” While students were mostly back in school buildings in fall 2021, the question remains of how effective homework is as an educational tool. [ 47 ]

Is Homework Beneficial?

Pro 1 Homework improves student achievement. Studies have shown that homework improved student achievement in terms of improved grades, test results, and the likelihood to attend college. Research published in the High School Journal indicated that students who spent between 31 and 90 minutes each day on homework “scored about 40 points higher on the SAT-Mathematics subtest than their peers, who reported spending no time on homework each day, on average.” [ 6 ] Students in classes that were assigned homework outperformed 69% of students who didn’t have homework on both standardized tests and grades. A majority of studies on homework’s impact – 64% in one meta-study and 72% in another – showed that take-home assignments were effective at improving academic achievement. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] Research by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) concluded that increased homework led to better GPAs and higher probability of college attendance for high school boys. In fact, boys who attended college did more than three hours of additional homework per week in high school. [ 10 ] Read More

Pro 2 Homework helps to reinforce classroom learning, while developing good study habits and life skills. Students typically retain only 50% of the information teachers provide in class, and they need to apply that information in order to truly learn it. Abby Freireich and Brian Platzer, co-founders of Teachers Who Tutor NYC, explained, “at-home assignments help students learn the material taught in class. Students require independent practice to internalize new concepts… [And] these assignments can provide valuable data for teachers about how well students understand the curriculum.” [ 11 ] [ 49 ] Elementary school students who were taught “strategies to organize and complete homework,” such as prioritizing homework activities, collecting study materials, note-taking, and following directions, showed increased grades and more positive comments on report cards. [ 17 ] Research by the City University of New York noted that “students who engage in self-regulatory processes while completing homework,” such as goal-setting, time management, and remaining focused, “are generally more motivated and are higher achievers than those who do not use these processes.” [ 18 ] Homework also helps students develop key skills that they’ll use throughout their lives: accountability, autonomy, discipline, time management, self-direction, critical thinking, and independent problem-solving. Freireich and Platzer noted that “homework helps students acquire the skills needed to plan, organize, and complete their work.” [ 12 ] [ 13 ] [ 14 ] [ 15 ] [ 49 ] Read More

Pro 3 Homework allows parents to be involved with children’s learning. Thanks to take-home assignments, parents are able to track what their children are learning at school as well as their academic strengths and weaknesses. [ 12 ] Data from a nationwide sample of elementary school students show that parental involvement in homework can improve class performance, especially among economically disadvantaged African-American and Hispanic students. [ 20 ] Research from Johns Hopkins University found that an interactive homework process known as TIPS (Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork) improves student achievement: “Students in the TIPS group earned significantly higher report card grades after 18 weeks (1 TIPS assignment per week) than did non-TIPS students.” [ 21 ] Homework can also help clue parents in to the existence of any learning disabilities their children may have, allowing them to get help and adjust learning strategies as needed. Duke University Professor Harris Cooper noted, “Two parents once told me they refused to believe their child had a learning disability until homework revealed it to them.” [ 12 ] Read More

Con 1 Too much homework can be harmful. A poll of California high school students found that 59% thought they had too much homework. 82% of respondents said that they were “often or always stressed by schoolwork.” High-achieving high school students said too much homework leads to sleep deprivation and other health problems such as headaches, exhaustion, weight loss, and stomach problems. [ 24 ] [ 28 ] [ 29 ] Alfie Kohn, an education and parenting expert, said, “Kids should have a chance to just be kids… it’s absurd to insist that children must be engaged in constructive activities right up until their heads hit the pillow.” [ 27 ] Emmy Kang, a mental health counselor, explained, “More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies.” [ 48 ] Excessive homework can also lead to cheating: 90% of middle school students and 67% of high school students admit to copying someone else’s homework, and 43% of college students engaged in “unauthorized collaboration” on out-of-class assignments. Even parents take shortcuts on homework: 43% of those surveyed admitted to having completed a child’s assignment for them. [ 30 ] [ 31 ] [ 32 ] Read More

Con 2 Homework exacerbates the digital divide or homework gap. Kiara Taylor, financial expert, defined the digital divide as “the gap between demographics and regions that have access to modern information and communications technology and those that don’t. Though the term now encompasses the technical and financial ability to utilize available technology—along with access (or a lack of access) to the Internet—the gap it refers to is constantly shifting with the development of technology.” For students, this is often called the homework gap. [ 50 ] [ 51 ] 30% (about 15 to 16 million) public school students either did not have an adequate internet connection or an appropriate device, or both, for distance learning. Completing homework for these students is more complicated (having to find a safe place with an internet connection, or borrowing a laptop, for example) or impossible. [ 51 ] A Hispanic Heritage Foundation study found that 96.5% of students across the country needed to use the internet for homework, and nearly half reported they were sometimes unable to complete their homework due to lack of access to the internet or a computer, which often resulted in lower grades. [ 37 ] [ 38 ] One study concluded that homework increases social inequality because it “potentially serves as a mechanism to further advantage those students who already experience some privilege in the school system while further disadvantaging those who may already be in a marginalized position.” [ 39 ] Read More

Con 3 Homework does not help younger students, and may not help high school students. We’ve known for a while that homework does not help elementary students. A 2006 study found that “homework had no association with achievement gains” when measured by standardized tests results or grades. [ 7 ] Fourth grade students who did no homework got roughly the same score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math exam as those who did 30 minutes of homework a night. Students who did 45 minutes or more of homework a night actually did worse. [ 41 ] Temple University professor Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek said that homework is not the most effective tool for young learners to apply new information: “They’re learning way more important skills when they’re not doing their homework.” [ 42 ] In fact, homework may not be helpful at the high school level either. Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth, stated, “I interviewed high school teachers who completely stopped giving homework and there was no downside, it was all upside.” He explains, “just because the same kids who get more homework do a little better on tests, doesn’t mean the homework made that happen.” [ 52 ] Read More

Discussion Questions

1. Is homework beneficial? Consider the study data, your personal experience, and other types of information. Explain your answer(s).

2. If homework were banned, what other educational strategies would help students learn classroom material? Explain your answer(s).

3. How has homework been helpful to you personally? How has homework been unhelpful to you personally? Make carefully considered lists for both sides.

Take Action

1. Examine an argument in favor of quality homework assignments from Janine Bempechat.

2. Explore Oxford Learning’s infographic on the effects of homework on students.

3. Consider Joseph Lathan’s argument that homework promotes inequality .

4. Consider how you felt about the issue before reading this article. After reading the pros and cons on this topic, has your thinking changed? If so, how? List two to three ways. If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the “other side of the issue” now helps you better argue your position.

5. Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives .

More School Debate Topics

Should K-12 Students Dissect Animals in Science Classrooms? – Proponents say dissecting real animals is a better learning experience. Opponents say the practice is bad for the environment.

Should Students Have to Wear School Uniforms? – Proponents say uniforms may increase student safety. Opponents say uniforms restrict expression.

Should Corporal Punishment Be Used in K-12 Schools? – Proponents say corporal punishment is an appropriate discipline. Opponents say it inflicts long-lasting physical and mental harm on students.

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U.S. Government Accountability Office

Get ON the Internet and Do Your Homework!

These days, internet access is crucial for students both in and out of the classroom. “Underconnected” students—those with limited or no internet access at home—may have difficulty completing homework assignments. This puts them at risk of falling behind better-connected students.

With back to school season on the horizon, today’s WatchBlog looks at our report on how school districts are attempting to address this “homework gap,” and the role the federal government is playing in those efforts.

Income and internet access

Not having fast, reliable, in-home internet can make it tough for students to complete homework. We found that school-age children from lower-income households are more likely to rely on mobile wireless service for their internet connection than their peers in higher-income households. Have you ever tried typing a 300-word essay on a smartphone?

Underconnected students may seek out ways to access wireless internet away from home to do their homework, which can bring other challenges.

Bridging the homework gap

Some school districts have addressed disparities in students' in-home internet access by finding ways to expand wireless access off school grounds. For example:

• The Green Bay Area Public School District in Wisconsin loans out mobile wireless hot-spot devices to students who do not have access at home.
• The Boulder Valley School District in Colorado allowed a local wireless provider to build antennas on some school buildings in exchange for providing free service to lower-income students.
• From 2014 to 2017, Coachella Valley Unified School District in California equipped its fleet of about 100 school buses with Wi-Fi, enabling students to do homework during long bus rides. District officials said they are seeking funding to restart the initiative.

The federal connection

None of the 6 school district projects we reviewed had used federal funds to help provide wireless internet access for students off school grounds, and we found that the federal role in these efforts was limited.

The Federal Communication Commission’s E-rate program provides discounts on telecommunications and internet access services to schools. But E-rate does not support off-premises internet access. School district officials told us this restriction may affect districts’ ability to expand wireless access off school grounds, and thus to address the homework gap.

We recommended that FCC take steps to assess and publish the potential benefits, costs, and challenges of making off-premises wireless internet access eligible for E-rate support.

• Comments on GAO’s WatchBlog? Contact [email protected] .

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