The Negative Impact Of Homework On Students

For many students, homework is a chore--mandatory, useless, painful. In addition to already-long school days, many more hours are spent by students at home, working on numerous, often unimportant, assignments. Students, already overworked, are given further stress; stress that leads to severe physical and mental consequences. Due to its length, inaccurate representation of student knowledge, insignificant impact on academics, elimination of free time, and damage on the physical and mental health of students, homework does not benefit students.

Although common knowledge states that homework has a significant impact on academics, this impact has rarely been proven. Alfie Kohn states in the article, “The Value of Homework Needs Further Research,”

In a separate article, “The Truth About Homework,” Kohn asserts homework “isn’t even correlated with higher scores,” and “the only effect that does show up [due to increased homework] is more negative attitudes on the part of students who get more assignments.” Instead of helping students excel in school, homework is destroying their motivation and will to succeed. Also when discussing and analyzing the impact of homework on academic success, the demographics of those completing the homework also need to be considered. Often, serious students will complete their homework to earn

In addition to being extremely damaging to physical and mental health, homework also completely eliminates free time and fights for time with extracurricular activities. Part-time jobs, babysitting siblings, or extracurricular activities such as soccer, basketball, or football, may consume copious amounts of time, resulting in students who are unmotivated to complete their homework (Rhodes, Wilson). The often-repetitious worksheets and handouts that appear to be a waste of time, also destroy a student’s motivation to complete homework (Rhodes, Wilson). After all, why would a student want to spend hours pouring over a sheets of paper when he/she could be outside having fun? In addition to eliminating free time, the hours that a student will spend daily on homework also have negative impacts on physical and mental health. In the study, “Lack of Sleep Hurts Student Health,” performed by Anne-Sophie Kim, upwards of 80% of the students surveyed felt that homework alone damaged their mental and physical health. As it turns out, these students are correct. In the field of college students surveyed in the study, a majority of the students said that they slept six hours or less on the typical weekday (Kim). Later, Kim states that a major healthcare organization, WebMD, has linked the lack of sleep with serious illnesses in addition to a decrease in cognitive function, among them heart disease,