Whether you’re a student, teacher, or parent, you’re probably aware of the major sources of stress in college life—homework. From elementary to high school, students of all ages have to work on their homework, and 74% of undergraduates are stressed out from its demands, according to one study.
The concept of homework isn’t new. The roots of homework date back to ancient times, but it has always been a controversial issue: Some researchers are all in favor of homework while others are against assignments outside the class. Over the decades, most students and their parents have asked themselves a simple question: is homework beneficial?
While most students don’t like doing their homework, it’s essential to understand the advantages and disadvantages of this out-of-class activity before fighting against it.
Let’s dive into it!
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Doing Homework
The Advantages
Teachers all over the world assign homework to students, so this means that homework has its purpose that helps undergraduates understand the given material better, obtain knowledge, and improve skills. Doing homework is not about spending too much time on your out-of-class assignments; it’s about many advantages that help students become better.
Who else wants to know the benefits of homework? There are four advantages of doing your homework:
- Deepen Understanding of a Subject: Attending lectures isn’t enough to get a deep understanding of the subject. No matter how good your teacher is, listening to theory doesn’t help students obtain knowledge. It’s important to integrate theory and practice. Why? It’s believed that people retain 90% of what they do. When students work on home assignments, they turn theoretical skills into practice, and therefore they can understand the subject better.
- Increase Knowledge: Homework is not just about revising lecture notes; it’s also about reading additional sources of information. When students do their homework, they get a better understanding of a subject; they also take a look at the problem from a different angle which helps them increase knowledge.
- Improve Skills and Grades: Whether you’re an A+ student or not, it’s more likely you bother about your grades. Most students believe that having good grades is a proven way to obtain a degree and get a great job position in the future. Believe it or not, doing your homework is a great way to improve skills, and therefore get better grades. Any proof needed? 71% of students believe that homework helps to learn something new, deepen knowledge, and therefore improve test scores.
- Teach Vital Soft Skills: It’s no secret that homework takes much time and effort. To submit your assignments on time, it’s important to have a routine that works well for you. Thus, it goes without saying that students have to improve time management skills, develop relationships with peers, learn how to collaborate, and understand how to solve their problems. All in all, homework helps to improve soft skills that can come in handy for every person, no matter what your future career is.
The Disadvantages
If you have ever been a student, it’s more likely you know why young people hate doing homework. Since most students want to get better grades, they have to spend much time working on their assignments, so they have to sacrifice their personal life. Obviously, it doesn’t encourage students to be fond of their homework assignments,or it can even make students dislike education.
However, there are two main disadvantages (proved by science) that you should take into account:
- Take Much Time: While most teachers believe that doing homework helps to improve skills and get a better understanding of the subject, just a few of them think about the amount of homework students get weekly. Since every teacher assigns homework, it’s no wonder that one research has found that students spend up to 17.5 hours each week on homework. As a result, students spend too much time on their out-of-class assignments that negatively affects their work-life-study balance.
- Cause Stress and Anxiety: Working on the material in-class is easy: you can always ask your teacher or classmates to help you understand the subject better. When it comes to homework, working on the assignments can be daunting as you may have a lack of knowledge to understand the task well and solve the problem fast without sacrificing the quality. In fact, for 56% of students, homework is a primary source of stress. Thus, it’s no wonder that most students try to avoid doing their homework assignments as they don’t want to deal with stressful tasks.
As you can see, there are many advantages of doing homework even though there are some serious disadvantages, too. All in all, it goes without saying that homework is beneficial for young people when they don’t get too many assignments.
The Sum Up
The advantages and disadvantages of homework have been debated for years by students, teachers, and parents. Although most students support the ‘no-homework’ movement, it’s clear that there are more advantages than disadvantages of doing homework. In other words, this means that homework is beneficial for students who want to obtain knowledge, improve skills, and get ready for the career growth.
What is more, if you know how to make homework fun, you can make the most out of out-of-class activities without stressing out. Once you have a reliable mentor who can help you understand your tasks better, you can spend less time on your homework, which means more opportunities to enjoy your college life for full.
So, is homework beneficial for you?