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Education scholar Denise Pope has found that too much homework has negative effects on student well-being and behavioral engagement. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

A Stanford researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.

“Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good,” wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .

The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students’ views on homework.

Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.

Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.

“The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students’ advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being,” Pope wrote.

Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.

Their study found that too much homework is associated with:

* Greater stress: 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.

* Reductions in health: In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.

* Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits: Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were “not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills,” according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.

A balancing act

The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.

Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as “pointless” or “mindless” in order to keep their grades up.

“This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points,” Pope said.

She said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.

“Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development,” wrote Pope.

High-performing paradox

In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. “Young people are spending more time alone,” they wrote, “which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities.”

Student perspectives

The researchers say that while their open-ended or “self-reporting” methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for “typical adolescent complaining” – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.

The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Media Contacts

Denise Pope, Stanford Graduate School of Education: (650) 725-7412, [email protected] Clifton B. Parker, Stanford News Service: (650) 725-0224, [email protected]

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More than two hours of homework may be counterproductive, research suggests.

A Stanford education researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter.   "Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good," wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education .   The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students' views on homework.   Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year.   Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night.   "The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students' advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being," Pope wrote.   Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school.   Their study found that too much homework is associated with:   • Greater stress : 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.   • Reductions in health : In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems.   • Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits : Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were "not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills," according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy.   A balancing act   The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills.   Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as "pointless" or "mindless" in order to keep their grades up.   "This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points," said Pope, who is also a co-founder of Challenge Success , a nonprofit organization affiliated with the GSE that conducts research and works with schools and parents to improve students' educational experiences..   Pope said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said.   "Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development," wrote Pope.   High-performing paradox   In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. "Young people are spending more time alone," they wrote, "which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities."   Student perspectives   The researchers say that while their open-ended or "self-reporting" methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for "typical adolescent complaining" – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe.   The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Clifton B. Parker is a writer at the Stanford News Service .

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August 16, 2021

Is it time to get rid of homework? Mental health experts weigh in

by Sara M Moniuszko

It's no secret that kids hate homework. And as students grapple with an ongoing pandemic that has had a wide-range of mental health impacts, is it time schools start listening to their pleas over workloads?

Some teachers are turning to social media to take a stand against homework .

Tiktok user @misguided.teacher says he doesn't assign it because the "whole premise of homework is flawed."

For starters, he says he can't grade work on "even playing fields" when students' home environments can be vastly different.

"Even students who go home to a peaceful house, do they really want to spend their time on busy work? Because typically that's what a lot of homework is, it's busy work," he says in the video that has garnered 1.6 million likes. "You only get one year to be 7, you only got one year to be 10, you only get one year to be 16, 18."

Mental health experts agree heavy work loads have the potential do more harm than good for students, especially when taking into account the impacts of the pandemic. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether.

Emmy Kang, mental health counselor at Humantold, says studies have shown heavy workloads can be "detrimental" for students and cause a "big impact on their mental, physical and emotional health."

"More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies," she says, adding that staying up late to finish assignments also leads to disrupted sleep and exhaustion.

Cynthia Catchings, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist at Talkspace, says heavy workloads can also cause serious mental health problems in the long run, like anxiety and depression.

And for all the distress homework causes, it's not as useful as many may think, says Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, a psychologist and CEO of Omega Recovery treatment center.

"The research shows that there's really limited benefit of homework for elementary age students, that really the school work should be contained in the classroom," he says.

For older students, Kang says homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night.

"Most students, especially at these high-achieving schools, they're doing a minimum of three hours, and it's taking away time from their friends from their families, their extracurricular activities. And these are all very important things for a person's mental and emotional health."

Catchings, who also taught third to 12th graders for 12 years, says she's seen the positive effects of a no homework policy while working with students abroad.

"Not having homework was something that I always admired from the French students (and) the French schools, because that was helping the students to really have the time off and really disconnect from school ," she says.

The answer may not be to eliminate homework completely, but to be more mindful of the type of work students go home with, suggests Kang, who was a high-school teacher for 10 years.

"I don't think (we) should scrap homework, I think we should scrap meaningless, purposeless busy work-type homework. That's something that needs to be scrapped entirely," she says, encouraging teachers to be thoughtful and consider the amount of time it would take for students to complete assignments.

The pandemic made the conversation around homework more crucial

Mindfulness surrounding homework is especially important in the context of the last two years. Many students will be struggling with mental health issues that were brought on or worsened by the pandemic, making heavy workloads even harder to balance.

"COVID was just a disaster in terms of the lack of structure. Everything just deteriorated," Kardaras says, pointing to an increase in cognitive issues and decrease in attention spans among students. "School acts as an anchor for a lot of children, as a stabilizing force, and that disappeared."

But even if students transition back to the structure of in-person classes, Kardaras suspects students may still struggle after two school years of shifted schedules and disrupted sleeping habits.

"We've seen adults struggling to go back to in-person work environments from remote work environments. That effect is amplified with children because children have less resources to be able to cope with those transitions than adults do," he explains.

'Get organized' ahead of back-to-school

In order to make the transition back to in-person school easier, Kang encourages students to "get good sleep, exercise regularly (and) eat a healthy diet."

To help manage workloads, she suggests students "get organized."

"There's so much mental clutter up there when you're disorganized... sitting down and planning out their study schedules can really help manage their time," she says.

Breaking assignments up can also make things easier to tackle.

"I know that heavy workloads can be stressful, but if you sit down and you break down that studying into smaller chunks, they're much more manageable."

If workloads are still too much, Kang encourages students to advocate for themselves.

"They should tell their teachers when a homework assignment just took too much time or if it was too difficult for them to do on their own," she says. "It's good to speak up and ask those questions. Respectfully, of course, because these are your teachers. But still, I think sometimes teachers themselves need this feedback from their students."

©2021 USA Today Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Is it time to get rid of homework? Mental health experts weigh in.

It's no secret that kids hate homework. And as students grapple with an ongoing pandemic that has had a wide range of mental health impacts, is it time schools start listening to their pleas about workloads?

Some teachers are turning to social media to take a stand against homework. 

Tiktok user @misguided.teacher says he doesn't assign it because the "whole premise of homework is flawed."

For starters, he says, he can't grade work on "even playing fields" when students' home environments can be vastly different.

"Even students who go home to a peaceful house, do they really want to spend their time on busy work? Because typically that's what a lot of homework is, it's busy work," he says in the video that has garnered 1.6 million likes. "You only get one year to be 7, you only got one year to be 10, you only get one year to be 16, 18."

Mental health experts agree heavy workloads have the potential do more harm than good for students, especially when taking into account the impacts of the pandemic. But they also say the answer may not be to eliminate homework altogether.

Emmy Kang, mental health counselor at Humantold , says studies have shown heavy workloads can be "detrimental" for students and cause a "big impact on their mental, physical and emotional health."

"More than half of students say that homework is their primary source of stress, and we know what stress can do on our bodies," she says, adding that staying up late to finish assignments also leads to disrupted sleep and exhaustion.

Cynthia Catchings, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist at Talkspace , says heavy workloads can also cause serious mental health problems in the long run, like anxiety and depression. 

And for all the distress homework  can cause, it's not as useful as many may think, says Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, a psychologist and CEO of Omega Recovery treatment center.

"The research shows that there's really limited benefit of homework for elementary age students, that really the school work should be contained in the classroom," he says.

For older students, Kang says, homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night. 

"Most students, especially at these high achieving schools, they're doing a minimum of three hours, and it's taking away time from their friends, from their families, their extracurricular activities. And these are all very important things for a person's mental and emotional health."

Catchings, who also taught third to 12th graders for 12 years, says she's seen the positive effects of a no-homework policy while working with students abroad.

"Not having homework was something that I always admired from the French students (and) the French schools, because that was helping the students to really have the time off and really disconnect from school," she says.

The answer may not be to eliminate homework completely but to be more mindful of the type of work students take home, suggests Kang, who was a high school teacher for 10 years.

"I don't think (we) should scrap homework; I think we should scrap meaningless, purposeless busy work-type homework. That's something that needs to be scrapped entirely," she says, encouraging teachers to be thoughtful and consider the amount of time it would take for students to complete assignments.

The pandemic made the conversation around homework more crucial 

Mindfulness surrounding homework is especially important in the context of the past two years. Many students will be struggling with mental health issues that were brought on or worsened by the pandemic , making heavy workloads even harder to balance.

"COVID was just a disaster in terms of the lack of structure. Everything just deteriorated," Kardaras says, pointing to an increase in cognitive issues and decrease in attention spans among students. "School acts as an anchor for a lot of children, as a stabilizing force, and that disappeared."

But even if students transition back to the structure of in-person classes, Kardaras suspects students may still struggle after two school years of shifted schedules and disrupted sleeping habits.

"We've seen adults struggling to go back to in-person work environments from remote work environments. That effect is amplified with children because children have less resources to be able to cope with those transitions than adults do," he explains.

'Get organized' ahead of back-to-school

In order to make the transition back to in-person school easier, Kang encourages students to "get good sleep, exercise regularly (and) eat a healthy diet."

To help manage workloads, she suggests students "get organized."

"There's so much mental clutter up there when you're disorganized. ... Sitting down and planning out their study schedules can really help manage their time," she says.

Breaking up assignments can also make things easier to tackle.

"I know that heavy workloads can be stressful, but if you sit down and you break down that studying into smaller chunks, they're much more manageable."

If workloads are still too much, Kang encourages students to advocate for themselves.

"They should tell their teachers when a homework assignment just took too much time or if it was too difficult for them to do on their own," she says. "It's good to speak up and ask those questions. Respectfully, of course, because these are your teachers. But still, I think sometimes teachers themselves need this feedback from their students."

More: Some teachers let their students sleep in class. Here's what mental health experts say.

More: Some parents are slipping young kids in for the COVID-19 vaccine, but doctors discourage the move as 'risky'

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Health Hazards of Homework

March 18, 2014 | Julie Greicius Pediatrics .

A new study by the Stanford Graduate School of Education and colleagues found that students in high-performing schools who did excessive hours of homework “experienced greater behavioral engagement in school but also more academic stress, physical health problems, and lack of balance in their lives.”

Those health problems ranged from stress, headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems, to psycho-social effects like dropping activities, not seeing friends or family, and not pursuing hobbies they enjoy.

In the Stanford Report story about the research, Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of the  study published in the  Journal of Experimental Education , says, “Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good.”

The study was based on survey data from a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in California communities in which median household income exceeded $90,000. Of the students surveyed, homework volume averaged about 3.1 hours each night.

“It is time to re-evaluate how the school environment is preparing our high school student for today’s workplace,” says Neville Golden, MD , chief of adolescent medicine at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health and a professor at the School of Medicine. “This landmark study shows that excessive homework is counterproductive, leading to sleep deprivation, school stress and other health problems. Parents can best support their children in these demanding academic environments by advocating for them through direct communication with teachers and school administrators about homework load.”

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Credit: August de Richelieu

Does homework still have value? A Johns Hopkins education expert weighs in

Joyce epstein, co-director of the center on school, family, and community partnerships, discusses why homework is essential, how to maximize its benefit to learners, and what the 'no-homework' approach gets wrong.

By Vicky Hallett

The necessity of homework has been a subject of debate since at least as far back as the 1890s, according to Joyce L. Epstein , co-director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University. "It's always been the case that parents, kids—and sometimes teachers, too—wonder if this is just busy work," Epstein says.

But after decades of researching how to improve schools, the professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Education remains certain that homework is essential—as long as the teachers have done their homework, too. The National Network of Partnership Schools , which she founded in 1995 to advise schools and districts on ways to improve comprehensive programs of family engagement, has developed hundreds of improved homework ideas through its Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program. For an English class, a student might interview a parent on popular hairstyles from their youth and write about the differences between then and now. Or for science class, a family could identify forms of matter over the dinner table, labeling foods as liquids or solids. These innovative and interactive assignments not only reinforce concepts from the classroom but also foster creativity, spark discussions, and boost student motivation.

"We're not trying to eliminate homework procedures, but expand and enrich them," says Epstein, who is packing this research into a forthcoming book on the purposes and designs of homework. In the meantime, the Hub couldn't wait to ask her some questions:

What kind of homework training do teachers typically get?

Future teachers and administrators really have little formal training on how to design homework before they assign it. This means that most just repeat what their teachers did, or they follow textbook suggestions at the end of units. For example, future teachers are well prepared to teach reading and literacy skills at each grade level, and they continue to learn to improve their teaching of reading in ongoing in-service education. By contrast, most receive little or no training on the purposes and designs of homework in reading or other subjects. It is really important for future teachers to receive systematic training to understand that they have the power, opportunity, and obligation to design homework with a purpose.

Why do students need more interactive homework?

If homework assignments are always the same—10 math problems, six sentences with spelling words—homework can get boring and some kids just stop doing their assignments, especially in the middle and high school years. When we've asked teachers what's the best homework you've ever had or designed, invariably we hear examples of talking with a parent or grandparent or peer to share ideas. To be clear, parents should never be asked to "teach" seventh grade science or any other subject. Rather, teachers set up the homework assignments so that the student is in charge. It's always the student's homework. But a good activity can engage parents in a fun, collaborative way. Our data show that with "good" assignments, more kids finish their work, more kids interact with a family partner, and more parents say, "I learned what's happening in the curriculum." It all works around what the youngsters are learning.

Is family engagement really that important?

At Hopkins, I am part of the Center for Social Organization of Schools , a research center that studies how to improve many aspects of education to help all students do their best in school. One thing my colleagues and I realized was that we needed to look deeply into family and community engagement. There were so few references to this topic when we started that we had to build the field of study. When children go to school, their families "attend" with them whether a teacher can "see" the parents or not. So, family engagement is ever-present in the life of a school.

My daughter's elementary school doesn't assign homework until third grade. What's your take on "no homework" policies?

There are some parents, writers, and commentators who have argued against homework, especially for very young children. They suggest that children should have time to play after school. This, of course is true, but many kindergarten kids are excited to have homework like their older siblings. If they give homework, most teachers of young children make assignments very short—often following an informal rule of 10 minutes per grade level. "No homework" does not guarantee that all students will spend their free time in productive and imaginative play.

Some researchers and critics have consistently misinterpreted research findings. They have argued that homework should be assigned only at the high school level where data point to a strong connection of doing assignments with higher student achievement . However, as we discussed, some students stop doing homework. This leads, statistically, to results showing that doing homework or spending more minutes on homework is linked to higher student achievement. If slow or struggling students are not doing their assignments, they contribute to—or cause—this "result."

Teachers need to design homework that even struggling students want to do because it is interesting. Just about all students at any age level react positively to good assignments and will tell you so.

Did COVID change how schools and parents view homework?

Within 24 hours of the day school doors closed in March 2020, just about every school and district in the country figured out that teachers had to talk to and work with students' parents. This was not the same as homeschooling—teachers were still working hard to provide daily lessons. But if a child was learning at home in the living room, parents were more aware of what they were doing in school. One of the silver linings of COVID was that teachers reported that they gained a better understanding of their students' families. We collected wonderfully creative examples of activities from members of the National Network of Partnership Schools. I'm thinking of one art activity where every child talked with a parent about something that made their family unique. Then they drew their finding on a snowflake and returned it to share in class. In math, students talked with a parent about something the family liked so much that they could represent it 100 times. Conversations about schoolwork at home was the point.

How did you create so many homework activities via the Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork program?

We had several projects with educators to help them design interactive assignments, not just "do the next three examples on page 38." Teachers worked in teams to create TIPS activities, and then we turned their work into a standard TIPS format in math, reading/language arts, and science for grades K-8. Any teacher can use or adapt our prototypes to match their curricula.

Overall, we know that if future teachers and practicing educators were prepared to design homework assignments to meet specific purposes—including but not limited to interactive activities—more students would benefit from the important experience of doing their homework. And more parents would, indeed, be partners in education.

Posted in Voices+Opinion

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Homework: An Hour a Day Is All the Experts Say

Too much homework can be counterproductive..

Posted April 20, 2015

How much time does your teen spend doing busy school work each night? According to a recent study, if it's more than one hour… then it's too much. A study from Spain published in the Journal of Educational Psychology by the American Psychological Association found that spending more than one hour on math and science homework can be counterproductive. Students seem to gain the most benefit when a small amount of homework is consistently assigned, rather than large portions assigned at once.

The study examined the performance of 7,725 public and private school students (mean age 13.78 years). Students answered questions about the frequency of homework assigned and how long it took them to complete assignments. Researchers looked at standardized tests to examine academic performance in math and science. They found that students in Spain spent approximately one to two hours per day doing homework. Compare that to studies that indicate American students spent more than three hours a day doing homework!

Researchers found that teachers who assigned 90-100 minutes of homework per day had students who performed poorer on standardized tests than those with less homework. However when teachers consistently assigned small amounts of homework students scored nearly 50 points higher on standardized test than those who had daunting amounts of homework. Another interesting finding from this study was students who were assigned about 70 minutes of homework, of which they needed help from someone else to complete, scored in the 50th percentile on standardized tests. Whereas those who were assigned the same amount of homework, but could do it independently, scored in the 70th percentile. So clearly, not only is the amount of homework assigned of importance, but so is the ability to master it independently.

There are several possible explanations for these findings. First, teachers may be using homework as a means to cover what was not completed in class. So rather than practicing concepts taught in class, students are left to self-teach material not covered in class. Homework should supplement learning, and not be used as a tool to keep up with a curriculum pacing guide. Another explanation for testing gains is those who work to master material independently experience more academic success.

The study out of Spain supports findings from another study published a year ago published in the Journal of Experimental Education which found that too much homework can have a negative impact on teens’ lives outside of the academic setting. In this study, researchers surveyed 4,317 American high school students’ perceptions about homework, in relation to their well-being and behavioral engagement in school work. On average, these students reported spending approximately 3.1 hours of homework each night—a far reach from the hour per night recommendation by the first study.

This second study found that too much homework can be counterproductive and diminish the effectiveness of learning. The negative effects of lots of homework can far outweigh the positive ones. Researchers found that a lot of homework can result in:

Students reported high levels of stress associated with school work. Below is the breakdown of student responses.

56% of students in this study reported that homework was a primary source of stress 43% of students in this study reported that tests were another source of stress 33% of students in this study reported that pressure to get good grades was a source of stress

• Physical Problems:

Students reported that homework led to:

poor sleep frequent headaches gastro intestinal problems weight loss/gain.

• Social life problems.

How can students expect to spend time with others when they are too busy completing homework? Students reported that having too much school work keeps them from spending time with friends and family.

Plus too much school work keep them from participating in extra-curricular activities and engaging in activities they enjoy doing. Interestingly, many students reported that homework was a “pointless” or “mindless” way to keep their grades up. In other words… it was "busy" work.

When is homework beneficial? If homework is used as a tool to facilitate learning and reinforce concepts taught in the classroom then it enriches students academic experience. While homework does serve a purpose, so does having a life outside of school. Sometimes social development can be just as important as academic development. So the answer may be helping youth find a balance between school and social life.

Journal Reference:

Rubén Fernández-Alonso, Javier Suárez-Álvarez, José Muñiz. Adolescents’ Homework Performance in Mathematics and Science: Personal Factors and Teaching Practices. Journal of Educational Psychology, 2015; DOI:10.1037/edu0000032

Raychelle Cassada Lohman n , M.S., LPC, is the author of The Anger Workbook for Teens .

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Is Homework Necessary? Education Inequity and Its Impact on Students

The Problem with Homework: It Highlights Inequalities

How much homework is too much homework, when does homework actually help, negative effects of homework for students, how teachers can help.

Schools are getting rid of homework from Essex, Mass., to Los Angeles, Calif. Although the no-homework trend may sound alarming, especially to parents dreaming of their child’s acceptance to Harvard, Stanford or Yale, there is mounting evidence that eliminating homework in grade school may actually have great benefits , especially with regard to educational equity.

In fact, while the push to eliminate homework may come as a surprise to many adults, the debate is not new . Parents and educators have been talking about this subject for the last century, so that the educational pendulum continues to swing back and forth between the need for homework and the need to eliminate homework.

One of the most pressing talking points around homework is how it disproportionately affects students from less affluent families. The American Psychological Association (APA) explained:

“Kids from wealthier homes are more likely to have resources such as computers, internet connections, dedicated areas to do schoolwork and parents who tend to be more educated and more available to help them with tricky assignments. Kids from disadvantaged homes are more likely to work at afterschool jobs, or to be home without supervision in the evenings while their parents work multiple jobs.”

[RELATED] How to Advance Your Career: A Guide for Educators >> 

While students growing up in more affluent areas are likely playing sports, participating in other recreational activities after school, or receiving additional tutoring, children in disadvantaged areas are more likely headed to work after school, taking care of siblings while their parents work or dealing with an unstable home life. Adding homework into the mix is one more thing to deal with — and if the student is struggling, the task of completing homework can be too much to consider at the end of an already long school day.

While all students may groan at the mention of homework, it may be more than just a nuisance for poor and disadvantaged children, instead becoming another burden to carry and contend with.

Beyond the logistical issues, homework can negatively impact physical health and stress — and once again this may be a more significant problem among economically disadvantaged youth who typically already have a higher stress level than peers from more financially stable families .

Yet, today, it is not just the disadvantaged who suffer from the stressors that homework inflicts. A 2014 CNN article, “Is Homework Making Your Child Sick?” , covered the issue of extreme pressure placed on children of the affluent. The article looked at the results of a study surveying more than 4,300 students from 10 high-performing public and private high schools in upper-middle-class California communities.

“Their findings were troubling: Research showed that excessive homework is associated with high stress levels, physical health problems and lack of balance in children’s lives; 56% of the students in the study cited homework as a primary stressor in their lives,” according to the CNN story. “That children growing up in poverty are at-risk for a number of ailments is both intuitive and well-supported by research. More difficult to believe is the growing consensus that children on the other end of the spectrum, children raised in affluence, may also be at risk.”

When it comes to health and stress it is clear that excessive homework, for children at both ends of the spectrum, can be damaging. Which begs the question, how much homework is too much?

The National Education Association and the National Parent Teacher Association recommend that students spend 10 minutes per grade level per night on homework . That means that first graders should spend 10 minutes on homework, second graders 20 minutes and so on. But a study published by The American Journal of Family Therapy found that students are getting much more than that.

While 10 minutes per day doesn’t sound like much, that quickly adds up to an hour per night by sixth grade. The National Center for Education Statistics found that high school students get an average of 6.8 hours of homework per week, a figure that is much too high according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It is also to be noted that this figure does not take into consideration the needs of underprivileged student populations.

In a study conducted by the OECD it was found that “after around four hours of homework per week, the additional time invested in homework has a negligible impact on performance .” That means that by asking our children to put in an hour or more per day of dedicated homework time, we are not only not helping them, but — according to the aforementioned studies — we are hurting them, both physically and emotionally.

What’s more is that homework is, as the name implies, to be completed at home, after a full day of learning that is typically six to seven hours long with breaks and lunch included. However, a study by the APA on how people develop expertise found that elite musicians, scientists and athletes do their most productive work for about only four hours per day. Similarly, companies like Tower Paddle Boards are experimenting with a five-hour workday, under the assumption that people are not able to be truly productive for much longer than that. CEO Stephan Aarstol told CNBC that he believes most Americans only get about two to three hours of work done in an eight-hour day.

In the scope of world history, homework is a fairly new construct in the U.S. Students of all ages have been receiving work to complete at home for centuries, but it was educational reformer Horace Mann who first brought the concept to America from Prussia. 

Since then, homework’s popularity has ebbed and flowed in the court of public opinion. In the 1930s, it was considered child labor (as, ironically, it compromised children’s ability to do chores at home). Then, in the 1950s, implementing mandatory homework was hailed as a way to ensure America’s youth were always one step ahead of Soviet children during the Cold War. Homework was formally mandated as a tool for boosting educational quality in 1986 by the U.S. Department of Education, and has remained in common practice ever since.  

School work assigned and completed outside of school hours is not without its benefits. Numerous studies have shown that regular homework has a hand in improving student performance and connecting students to their learning. When reviewing these studies, take them with a grain of salt; there are strong arguments for both sides, and only you will know which solution is best for your students or school. 

Homework improves student achievement.

• Source: The High School Journal, “ When is Homework Worth the Time?: Evaluating the Association between Homework and Achievement in High School Science and Math ,” 2012. 
• Source: IZA.org, “ Does High School Homework Increase Academic Achievement? ,” 2014. **Note: Study sample comprised only high school boys. 

Homework helps reinforce classroom learning.

• Source: “ Debunk This: People Remember 10 Percent of What They Read ,” 2015.

Homework helps students develop good study habits and life skills.

• Sources: The Repository @ St. Cloud State, “ Types of Homework and Their Effect on Student Achievement ,” 2017; Journal of Advanced Academics, “ Developing Self-Regulation Skills: The Important Role of Homework ,” 2011.
• Source: Journal of Advanced Academics, “ Developing Self-Regulation Skills: The Important Role of Homework ,” 2011.

Homework allows parents to be involved with their children’s learning.

• Parents can see what their children are learning and working on in school every day. 
• Parents can participate in their children’s learning by guiding them through homework assignments and reinforcing positive study and research habits.
• Homework observation and participation can help parents understand their children’s academic strengths and weaknesses, and even identify possible learning difficulties.
• Source: Phys.org, “ Sociologist Upends Notions about Parental Help with Homework ,” 2018.

While some amount of homework may help students connect to their learning and enhance their in-class performance, too much homework can have damaging effects. 

Students with too much homework have elevated stress levels. 

• Source: USA Today, “ Is It Time to Get Rid of Homework? Mental Health Experts Weigh In ,” 2021.
• Source: Stanford University, “ Stanford Research Shows Pitfalls of Homework ,” 2014.

Students with too much homework may be tempted to cheat. 

• Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education, “ High-Tech Cheating Abounds, and Professors Bear Some Blame ,” 2010.
• Source: The American Journal of Family Therapy, “ Homework and Family Stress: With Consideration of Parents’ Self Confidence, Educational Level, and Cultural Background ,” 2015.

Homework highlights digital inequity. 

• Sources: NEAToday.org, “ The Homework Gap: The ‘Cruelest Part of the Digital Divide’ ,” 2016; CNET.com, “ The Digital Divide Has Left Millions of School Kids Behind ,” 2021.
• Source: Investopedia, “ Digital Divide ,” 2022; International Journal of Education and Social Science, “ Getting the Homework Done: Social Class and Parents’ Relationship to Homework ,” 2015.
• Source: World Economic Forum, “ COVID-19 exposed the digital divide. Here’s how we can close it ,” 2021.

Homework does not help younger students.

• Source: Review of Educational Research, “ Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement? A Synthesis of Researcher, 1987-2003 ,” 2006.

To help students find the right balance and succeed, teachers and educators must start the homework conversation, both internally at their school and with parents. But in order to successfully advocate on behalf of students, teachers must be well educated on the subject, fully understanding the research and the outcomes that can be achieved by eliminating or reducing the homework burden. There is a plethora of research and writing on the subject for those interested in self-study.

For teachers looking for a more in-depth approach or for educators with a keen interest in educational equity, formal education may be the best route. If this latter option sounds appealing, there are now many reputable schools offering online master of education degree programs to help educators balance the demands of work and family life while furthering their education in the quest to help others.

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Homework could have an impact on kids’ health. Should schools ban it?

Professor of Education, Penn State

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Gerald K. LeTendre has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the Spencer Foundation.

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Reformers in the Progressive Era (from the 1890s to 1920s) depicted homework as a “sin” that deprived children of their playtime . Many critics voice similar concerns today.

Yet there are many parents who feel that from early on, children need to do homework if they are to succeed in an increasingly competitive academic culture. School administrators and policy makers have also weighed in, proposing various policies on homework .

So, does homework help or hinder kids?

For the last 10 years, my colleagues and I have been investigating international patterns in homework using databases like the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) . If we step back from the heated debates about homework and look at how homework is used around the world, we find the highest homework loads are associated with countries that have lower incomes and higher social inequality.

Does homework result in academic success?

Let’s first look at the global trends on homework.

Undoubtedly, homework is a global phenomenon ; students from all 59 countries that participated in the 2007 Trends in Math and Science Study (TIMSS) reported getting homework. Worldwide, only less than 7% of fourth graders said they did no homework.

TIMSS is one of the few data sets that allow us to compare many nations on how much homework is given (and done). And the data show extreme variation.

For example, in some nations, like Algeria, Kuwait and Morocco, more than one in five fourth graders reported high levels of homework. In Japan, less than 3% of students indicated they did more than four hours of homework on a normal school night.

TIMSS data can also help to dispel some common stereotypes. For instance, in East Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan – countries that had the top rankings on TIMSS average math achievement – reported rates of heavy homework that were below the international mean.

In the Netherlands, nearly one out of five fourth graders reported doing no homework on an average school night, even though Dutch fourth graders put their country in the top 10 in terms of average math scores in 2007.

Going by TIMSS data, the US is neither “ A Nation at Rest” as some have claimed, nor a nation straining under excessive homework load . Fourth and eighth grade US students fall in the middle of the 59 countries in the TIMSS data set, although only 12% of US fourth graders reported high math homework loads compared to an international average of 21%.

So, is homework related to high academic success?

At a national level, the answer is clearly no. Worldwide, homework is not associated with high national levels of academic achievement .

But, the TIMSS can’t be used to determine if homework is actually helping or hurting academic performance overall , it can help us see how much homework students are doing, and what conditions are associated with higher national levels of homework.

We have typically found that the highest homework loads are associated with countries that have lower incomes and higher levels of social inequality – not hallmarks that most countries would want to emulate.

Impact of homework on kids

TIMSS data also show us how even elementary school kids are being burdened with large amounts of homework.

Almost 10% of fourth graders worldwide (one in 10 children) reported spending multiple hours on homework each night. Globally, one in five fourth graders report 30 minutes or more of homework in math three to four times a week.

These reports of large homework loads should worry parents, teachers and policymakers alike.

Empirical studies have linked excessive homework to sleep disruption , indicating a negative relationship between the amount of homework, perceived stress and physical health.

What constitutes excessive amounts of homework varies by age, and may also be affected by cultural or family expectations. Young adolescents in middle school, or teenagers in high school, can study for longer duration than elementary school children.

But for elementary school students, even 30 minutes of homework a night, if combined with other sources of academic stress, can have a negative impact . Researchers in China have linked homework of two or more hours per night with sleep disruption .

Even though some cultures may normalize long periods of studying for elementary age children, there is no evidence to support that this level of homework has clear academic benefits . Also, when parents and children conflict over homework, and strong negative emotions are created, homework can actually have a negative association with academic achievement.

Should there be “no homework” policies?

Administrators and policymakers have not been reluctant to wade into the debates on homework and to formulate policies . France’s president, Francois Hollande, even proposed that homework be banned because it may have inegaliatarian effects.

However, “zero-tolerance” homework policies for schools, or nations, are likely to create as many problems as they solve because of the wide variation of homework effects. Contrary to what Hollande said, research suggests that homework is not a likely source of social class differences in academic achievement .

Homework, in fact, is an important component of education for students in the middle and upper grades of schooling.

Policymakers and researchers should look more closely at the connection between poverty, inequality and higher levels of homework. Rather than seeing homework as a “solution,” policymakers should question what facets of their educational system might impel students, teachers and parents to increase homework loads.

At the classroom level, in setting homework, teachers need to communicate with their peers and with parents to assure that the homework assigned overall for a grade is not burdensome, and that it is indeed having a positive effect.

Perhaps, teachers can opt for a more individualized approach to homework. If teachers are careful in selecting their assignments – weighing the student’s age, family situation and need for skill development – then homework can be tailored in ways that improve the chance of maximum positive impact for any given student.

I strongly suspect that when teachers face conditions such as pressure to meet arbitrary achievement goals, lack of planning time or little autonomy over curriculum, homework becomes an easy option to make up what could not be covered in class.

Whatever the reason, the fact is a significant percentage of elementary school children around the world are struggling with large homework loads. That alone could have long-term negative consequences for their academic success.

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• The Highlight

Nobody knows what the point of homework is

The homework wars are back.

by Jacob Sweet

As the Covid-19 pandemic began and students logged into their remote classrooms, all work, in effect, became homework. But whether or not students could complete it at home varied. For some, schoolwork became public-library work or McDonald’s-parking-lot work. 

Luis Torres, the principal of PS 55, a predominantly low-income community elementary school in the south Bronx, told me that his school secured Chromebooks for students early in the pandemic only to learn that some lived in shelters that blocked wifi for security reasons. Others, who lived in housing projects with poor internet reception, did their schoolwork in laundromats. 

According to a 2021 Pew survey , 25 percent of lower-income parents said their children, at some point, were unable to complete their schoolwork because they couldn’t access a computer at home; that number for upper-income parents was 2 percent.

The issues with remote learning in March 2020 were new. But they highlighted a divide that had been there all along in another form: homework. And even long after schools have resumed in-person classes, the pandemic’s effects on homework have lingered.

Over the past three years, in response to concerns about equity, schools across the country, including in Sacramento, Los Angeles , San Diego , and Clark County, Nevada , made permanent changes to their homework policies that restricted how much homework could be given and how it could be graded after in-person learning resumed. 

Three years into the pandemic, as districts and teachers reckon with Covid-era overhauls of teaching and learning, schools are still reconsidering the purpose and place of homework. Whether relaxing homework expectations helps level the playing field between students or harms them by decreasing rigor is a divisive issue without conclusive evidence on either side, echoing other debates in education like the elimination of standardized test scores from some colleges’ admissions processes.

I first began to wonder if the homework abolition movement made sense after speaking with teachers in some Massachusetts public schools, who argued that rather than help disadvantaged kids, stringent homework restrictions communicated an attitude of low expectations. One, an English teacher, said she felt the school had “just given up” on trying to get the students to do work; another argued that restrictions that prohibit teachers from assigning take-home work that doesn’t begin in class made it difficult to get through the foreign-language curriculum. Teachers in other districts have raised formal concerns about homework abolition’s ability to close gaps among students rather than widening them.

Many education experts share this view. Harris Cooper, a professor emeritus of psychology at Duke who has studied homework efficacy, likened homework abolition to “playing to the lowest common denominator.” 

But as I learned after talking to a variety of stakeholders — from homework researchers to policymakers to parents of schoolchildren — whether to abolish homework probably isn’t the right question. More important is what kind of work students are sent home with and where they can complete it. Chances are, if schools think more deeply about giving constructive work, time spent on homework will come down regardless.

There’s no consensus on whether homework works 

The rise of the no-homework movement during the Covid-19 pandemic tapped into long-running disagreements over homework’s impact on students. The purpose and effectiveness of homework have been disputed for well over a century. In 1901, for instance, California banned homework for students up to age 15, and limited it for older students, over concerns that it endangered children’s mental and physical health. The newest iteration of the anti-homework argument contends that the current practice punishes students who lack support and rewards those with more resources, reinforcing the “myth of meritocracy.”

But there is still no research consensus on homework’s effectiveness; no one can seem to agree on what the right metrics are. Much of the debate relies on anecdotes, intuition, or speculation. 

Researchers disagree even on how much research exists on the value of homework. Kathleen Budge, the co-author of Turning High-Poverty Schools Into High-Performing Schools and a professor at Boise State, told me that homework “has been greatly researched.” Denise Pope, a Stanford lecturer and leader of the education nonprofit Challenge Success, said, “It’s not a highly researched area because of some of the methodological problems.” 

Experts who are more sympathetic to take-home assignments generally support the “10-minute rule,” a framework that estimates the ideal amount of homework on any given night by multiplying the student’s grade by 10 minutes. (A ninth grader, for example, would have about 90 minutes of work a night.) Homework proponents argue that while it is difficult to design randomized control studies to test homework’s effectiveness, the vast majority of existing studies show a strong positive correlation between homework and high academic achievement for middle and high school students. Prominent critics of homework argue that these correlational studies are unreliable and point to studies that suggest a neutral or negative effect on student performance. Both agree there is little to no evidence for homework’s effectiveness at an elementary school level, though proponents often argue that it builds constructive habits for the future.

For anyone who remembers homework assignments from both good and bad teachers, this fundamental disagreement might not be surprising. Some homework is pointless and frustrating to complete. Every week during my senior year of high school, I had to analyze a poem for English and decorate it with images found on Google; my most distinct memory from that class is receiving a demoralizing 25-point deduction because I failed to present my analysis on a poster board. Other assignments really do help students learn: After making an adapted version of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book for a ninth grade history project, I was inspired to check out from the library and read a biography of the Chinese ruler. 

For homework opponents, the first example is more likely to resonate. “We’re all familiar with the negative effects of homework: stress, exhaustion, family conflict, less time for other activities, diminished interest in learning,” Alfie Kohn, author of The Homework Myth, which challenges common justifications for homework, told me in an email. “And these effects may be most pronounced among low-income students.” Kohn believes that schools should make permanent any moratoria implemented during the pandemic, arguing that there are no positives at all to outweigh homework’s downsides. Recent studies , he argues , show the benefits may not even materialize during high school. 

In the Marlborough Public Schools, a suburban district 45 minutes west of Boston, school policy committee chair Katherine Hennessy described getting kids to complete their homework during remote education as “a challenge, to say the least.” Teachers found that students who spent all day on their computers didn’t want to spend more time online when the day was over. So, for a few months, the school relaxed the usual practice and teachers slashed the quantity of nightly homework.

Online learning made the preexisting divides between students more apparent, she said. Many students, even during normal circumstances, lacked resources to keep them on track and focused on completing take-home assignments. Though Marlborough Schools is more affluent than PS 55, Hennessy said many students had parents whose work schedules left them unable to provide homework help in the evenings. The experience tracked with a common divide in the country between children of different socioeconomic backgrounds.

So in October 2021, months after the homework reduction began, the Marlborough committee made a change to the district’s policy. While teachers could still give homework, the assignments had to begin as classwork. And though teachers could acknowledge homework completion in a student’s participation grade, they couldn’t count homework as its own grading category. “Rigorous learning in the classroom does not mean that that classwork must be assigned every night,” the policy stated . “Extensions of class work is not to be used to teach new content or as a form of punishment.” 

Canceling homework might not do anything for the achievement gap

The critiques of homework are valid as far as they go, but at a certain point, arguments against homework can defy the commonsense idea that to retain what they’re learning, students need to practice it.  

“Doesn’t a kid become a better reader if he reads more? Doesn’t a kid learn his math facts better if he practices them?” said Cathy Vatterott, an education researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. After decades of research, she said it’s still hard to isolate the value of homework, but that doesn’t mean it should be abandoned.

Blanket vilification of homework can also conflate the unique challenges facing disadvantaged students as compared to affluent ones, which could have different solutions. “The kids in the low-income schools are being hurt because they’re being graded, unfairly, on time they just don’t have to do this stuff,” Pope told me. “And they’re still being held accountable for turning in assignments, whether they’re meaningful or not.” On the other side, “Palo Alto kids” — students in Silicon Valley’s stereotypically pressure-cooker public schools — “are just bombarded and overloaded and trying to stay above water.” 

Merely getting rid of homework doesn’t solve either problem. The United States already has the second-highest disparity among OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations between time spent on homework by students of high and low socioeconomic status — a difference of more than three hours, said Janine Bempechat, clinical professor at Boston University and author of No More Mindless Homework . 

When she interviewed teachers in Boston-area schools that had cut homework before the pandemic, Bempechat told me, “What they saw immediately was parents who could afford it immediately enrolled their children in the Russian School of Mathematics,” a math-enrichment program whose tuition ranges from $140 to about $400 a month. Getting rid of homework “does nothing for equity; it increases the opportunity gap between wealthier and less wealthy families,” she said. “That solution troubles me because it’s no solution at all.”

A group of teachers at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia, made the same point after the school district proposed an overhaul of its homework policies, including removing penalties for missing homework deadlines, allowing unlimited retakes, and prohibiting grading of homework. 

“Given the emphasis on equity in today’s education systems,” they wrote in a letter to the school board, “we believe that some of the proposed changes will actually have a detrimental impact towards achieving this goal. Families that have means could still provide challenging and engaging academic experiences for their children and will continue to do so, especially if their children are not experiencing expected rigor in the classroom.” At a school where more than a third of students are low-income, the teachers argued, the policies would prompt students “to expect the least of themselves in terms of effort, results, and responsibility.”

Not all homework is created equal 

Despite their opposing sides in the homework wars, most of the researchers I spoke to made a lot of the same points. Both Bempechat and Pope were quick to bring up how parents and schools confuse rigor with workload, treating the volume of assignments as a proxy for quality of learning. Bempechat, who is known for defending homework, has written extensively about how plenty of it lacks clear purpose, requires the purchasing of unnecessary supplies, and takes longer than it needs to. Likewise, when Pope instructs graduate-level classes on curriculum, she asks her students to think about the larger purpose they’re trying to achieve with homework: If they can get the job done in the classroom, there’s no point in sending home more work.

At its best, pandemic-era teaching facilitated that last approach. Honolulu-based teacher Christina Torres Cawdery told me that, early in the pandemic, she often had a cohort of kids in her classroom for four hours straight, as her school tried to avoid too much commingling. She couldn’t lecture for four hours, so she gave the students plenty of time to complete independent and project-based work. At the end of most school days, she didn’t feel the need to send them home with more to do. 

A similar limited-homework philosophy worked at a public middle school in Chelsea, Massachusetts. A couple of teachers there turned as much class as possible into an opportunity for small-group practice, allowing kids to work on problems that traditionally would be assigned for homework, Jessica Flick, a math coach who leads department meetings at the school, told me. It was inspired by a philosophy pioneered by Simon Fraser University professor Peter Liljedahl, whose influential book Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics reframes homework as “check-your-understanding questions” rather than as compulsory work. Last year, Flick found that the two eighth grade classes whose teachers adopted this strategy performed the best on state tests, and this year, she has encouraged other teachers to implement it. 

Teachers know that plenty of homework is tedious and unproductive. Jeannemarie Dawson De Quiroz, who has taught for more than 20 years in low-income Boston and Los Angeles pilot and charter schools, says that in her first years on the job she frequently assigned “drill and kill” tasks and questions that she now feels unfairly stumped students. She said designing good homework wasn’t part of her teaching programs, nor was it meaningfully discussed in professional development. With more experience, she turned as much class time as she could into practice time and limited what she sent home.

“The thing about homework that’s sticky is that not all homework is created equal,” says Jill Harrison Berg, a former teacher and the author of Uprooting Instructional Inequity . “Some homework is a genuine waste of time and requires lots of resources for no good reason. And other homework is really useful.”

Cutting homework has to be part of a larger strategy

The takeaways are clear: Schools can make cuts to homework, but those cuts should be part of a strategy to improve the quality of education for all students. If the point of homework was to provide more practice, districts should think about how students can make it up during class — or offer time during or after school for students to seek help from teachers. If it was to move the curriculum along, it’s worth considering whether strategies like Liljedahl’s can get more done in less time. 

Some of the best thinking around effective assignments comes from those most critical of the current practice. Denise Pope proposes that, before assigning homework, teachers should consider whether students understand the purpose of the work and whether they can do it without help. If teachers think it’s something that can’t be done in class, they should be mindful of how much time it should take and the feedback they should provide. It’s questions like these that De Quiroz considered before reducing the volume of work she sent home.

More than a year after the new homework policy began in Marlborough, Hennessy still hears from parents who incorrectly “think homework isn’t happening” despite repeated assurances that kids still can receive work. She thinks part of the reason is that education has changed over the years. “I think what we’re trying to do is establish that homework may be an element of educating students,” she told me. “But it may not be what parents think of as what they grew up with. ... It’s going to need to adapt, per the teaching and the curriculum, and how it’s being delivered in each classroom.” 

For the policy to work, faculty, parents, and students will all have to buy into a shared vision of what school ought to look like. The district is working on it — in November, it hosted and uploaded to YouTube a round-table discussion on homework between district administrators — but considering the sustained confusion, the path ahead seems difficult.

When I asked Luis Torres about whether he thought homework serves a useful part in PS 55’s curriculum, he said yes, of course it was — despite the effort and money it takes to keep the school open after hours to help them do it. “The children need the opportunity to practice,” he said. “If you don’t give them opportunities to practice what they learn, they’re going to forget.” But Torres doesn’t care if the work is done at home. The school stays open until around 6 pm on weekdays, even during breaks. Tutors through New York City’s Department of Youth and Community Development programs help kids with work after school so they don’t need to take it with them.

As schools weigh the purpose of homework in an unequal world, it’s tempting to dispose of a practice that presents real, practical problems to students across the country. But getting rid of homework is unlikely to do much good on its own. Before cutting it, it’s worth thinking about what good assignments are meant to do in the first place. It’s crucial that students from all socioeconomic backgrounds tackle complex quantitative problems and hone their reading and writing skills. It’s less important that the work comes home with them.

Jacob Sweet is a freelance writer in Somerville, Massachusetts. He is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker, among other publications. 

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The Pros and Cons of Homework

Updated: December 7, 2023

Published: January 23, 2020

Homework is a word that most students dread hearing. After hours upon hours of sitting in class , the last thing we want is more schoolwork over our precious weekends. While it’s known to be a staple of traditional schooling, homework has also become a rather divise topic. Some feel as though homework is a necessary part of school, while others believe that the time could be better invested. Should students have homework? Have a closer look into the arguments on both sides to decide for yourself.

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Why should students have homework, 1. homework encourages practice.

Many people believe that one of the positive effects of homework is that it encourages the discipline of practice. While it may be time consuming and boring compared to other activities, repetition is needed to get better at skills. Homework helps make concepts more clear, and gives students more opportunities when starting their career .

2. Homework Gets Parents Involved

Homework can be something that gets parents involved in their children’s lives if the environment is a healthy one. A parent helping their child with homework makes them take part in their academic success, and allows for the parent to keep up with what the child is doing in school. It can also be a chance to connect together.

3. Homework Teaches Time Management

Homework is much more than just completing the assigned tasks. Homework can develop time management skills , forcing students to plan their time and make sure that all of their homework assignments are done on time. By learning to manage their time, students also practice their problem-solving skills and independent thinking. One of the positive effects of homework is that it forces decision making and compromises to be made.

4. Homework Opens A Bridge Of Communication

Homework creates a connection between the student, the teacher, the school, and the parents. It allows everyone to get to know each other better, and parents can see where their children are struggling. In the same sense, parents can also see where their children are excelling. Homework in turn can allow for a better, more targeted educational plan for the student.

5. Homework Allows For More Learning Time

Homework allows for more time to complete the learning process. School hours are not always enough time for students to really understand core concepts, and homework can counter the effects of time shortages, benefiting students in the long run, even if they can’t see it in the moment.

6. Homework Reduces Screen Time

Many students in North America spend far too many hours watching TV. If they weren’t in school, these numbers would likely increase even more. Although homework is usually undesired, it encourages better study habits and discourages spending time in front of the TV. Homework can be seen as another extracurricular activity, and many families already invest a lot of time and money in different clubs and lessons to fill up their children’s extra time. Just like extracurricular activities, homework can be fit into one’s schedule.

The Other Side: Why Homework Is Bad

1. homework encourages a sedentary lifestyle.

Should students have homework? Well, that depends on where you stand. There are arguments both for the advantages and the disadvantages of homework.

While classroom time is important, playground time is just as important. If children are given too much homework, they won’t have enough playtime, which can impact their social development and learning. Studies have found that those who get more play get better grades in school , as it can help them pay closer attention in the classroom.

Children are already sitting long hours in the classroom, and homework assignments only add to these hours. Sedentary lifestyles can be dangerous and can cause health problems such as obesity. Homework takes away from time that could be spent investing in physical activity.

2. Homework Isn’t Healthy In Every Home

While many people that think homes are a beneficial environment for children to learn, not all homes provide a healthy environment, and there may be very little investment from parents. Some parents do not provide any kind of support or homework help, and even if they would like to, due to personal barriers, they sometimes cannot. Homework can create friction between children and their parents, which is one of the reasons why homework is bad .

3. Homework Adds To An Already Full-Time Job

School is already a full-time job for students, as they generally spend over 6 hours each day in class. Students also often have extracurricular activities such as sports, music, or art that are just as important as their traditional courses. Adding on extra hours to all of these demands is a lot for children to manage, and prevents students from having extra time to themselves for a variety of creative endeavors. Homework prevents self discovery and having the time to learn new skills outside of the school system. This is one of the main disadvantages of homework.

4. Homework Has Not Been Proven To Provide Results

Endless surveys have found that homework creates a negative attitude towards school, and homework has not been found to be linked to a higher level of academic success.

The positive effects of homework have not been backed up enough. While homework may help some students improve in specific subjects, if they have outside help there is no real proof that homework makes for improvements.

It can be a challenge to really enforce the completion of homework, and students can still get decent grades without doing their homework. Extra school time does not necessarily mean better grades — quality must always come before quantity.

Accurate practice when it comes to homework simply isn’t reliable. Homework could even cause opposite effects if misunderstood, especially since the reliance is placed on the student and their parents — one of the major reasons as to why homework is bad. Many students would rather cheat in class to avoid doing their homework at home, and children often just copy off of each other or from what they read on the internet.

5. Homework Assignments Are Overdone

The general agreement is that students should not be given more than 10 minutes a day per grade level. What this means is that a first grader should be given a maximum of 10 minutes of homework, while a second grader receives 20 minutes, etc. Many students are given a lot more homework than the recommended amount, however.

On average, college students spend as much as 3 hours per night on homework . By giving too much homework, it can increase stress levels and lead to burn out. This in turn provides an opposite effect when it comes to academic success.

The pros and cons of homework are both valid, and it seems as though the question of ‘‘should students have homework?’ is not a simple, straightforward one. Parents and teachers often are found to be clashing heads, while the student is left in the middle without much say.

It’s important to understand all the advantages and disadvantages of homework, taking both perspectives into conversation to find a common ground. At the end of the day, everyone’s goal is the success of the student.

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Homework, Sleep, and the Student Brain

At some point, every parent wishes their high school aged student would go to bed earlier as well as find time to pursue their own passions -- or maybe even choose to relax. This thought reemerged as I reread Anna Quindlen's commencement speech, A Short Guide to a Happy Life. The central message of this address, never actually stated, was: "Get a life."

But what prevents students from "getting a life," especially between September and June? One answer is homework.

Favorable Working Conditions

As a history teacher at St. Andrew's Episcopal School and director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning , I want to be clear that I both give and support the idea of homework. But homework, whether good or bad, takes time and often cuts into each student's sleep, family dinner, or freedom to follow passions outside of school. For too many students, homework is too often about compliance and "not losing points" rather than about learning.

Most schools have a philosophy about homework that is challenged by each parent's experience doing homework "back in the day." Parents' common misconception is that the teachers and schools giving more homework are more challenging and therefore better teachers and schools. This is a false assumption. The amount of homework your son or daughter does each night should not be a source of pride for the quality of a school. In fact, I would suggest a different metric when evaluating your child's homework. Are you able to stay up with your son or daughter until he or she finishes those assignments? If the answer is no, then too much homework is being assigned, and you both need more of the sleep that, according to Daniel T. Willingham , is crucial to memory consolidation.

I have often joked with my students, while teaching the Progressive Movement and rise of unions between the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, that they should consider striking because of how schools violate child labor laws. If school is each student's "job," then students are working hours usually assigned to Washington, DC lawyers (combing the hours of the school day, school-sponsored activities, and homework). This would certainly be a risky strategy for changing how schools and teachers think about homework, but it certainly would gain attention. (If any of my students are reading this, don't try it!)

So how can we change things?

The Scientific Approach

In the study "What Great Homework Looks Like" from the journal Think Differently and Deeply , which connects research in how the brain learns to the instructional practice of teachers, we see moderate advantages of no more than two hours of homework for high school students. For younger students, the correlation is even smaller. Homework does teach other important, non-cognitive skills such as time management, sustained attention, and rule following, but let us not mask that as learning the content and skills that most assignments are supposed to teach.

Homework can be a powerful learning tool -- if designed and assigned correctly. I say "learning," because good homework should be an independent moment for each student or groups of students through virtual collaboration. It should be challenging and engaging enough to allow for deliberate practice of essential content and skills, but not so hard that parents are asked to recall what they learned in high school. All that usually leads to is family stress.

But even when good homework is assigned, it is the student's approach that is critical. A scientific approach to tackling their homework can actually lead to deepened learning in less time. The biggest contributor to the length of a student's homework is task switching. Too often, students jump between their work on an assignment and the lure of social media. But I have found it hard to convince students of the cost associated with such task switching. Imagine a student writing an essay for AP English class or completing math proofs for their honors geometry class. In the middle of the work, their phone announces a new text message. This is a moment of truth for the student. Should they address that text before or after they finish their assignment?

Delayed Gratification

When a student chooses to check their text, respond and then possibly take an extended dive into social media, they lose a percentage of the learning that has already happened. As a result, when they return to the AP essay or honors geometry proof, they need to retrace their learning in order to catch up to where they were. This jump, between homework and social media, is actually extending the time a student spends on an assignment. My colleagues and I coach our students to see social media as a reward for finishing an assignment. Delaying gratification is an important non-cognitive skill and one that research has shown enhances life outcomes (see the Stanford Marshmallow Test ).

At my school, the goal is to reduce the barriers for each student to meet his or her peak potential without lowering the bar. Good, purposeful homework should be part of any student's learning journey. But it takes teachers to design better homework (which can include no homework at all on some nights), parents to not see hours of homework as a measure of school quality, and students to reflect on their current homework strategies while applying new, research-backed ones. Together, we can all get more sleep -- and that, research shows, is very good for all of our brains and for each student's learning.

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• Volume 20 (2018-2019) Issue 2
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Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo [Japan] Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [Japan]

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2019 Volume 20 Issue 2 Pages 27-39

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Homework can have both positive and negative effects on student learning. To overcome the negative effects and facilitate the positive ones, it is important for teachers to understand the underlying mechanisms of homework and how it relates to learning so that they can use the most effective methods of instruction and guidance. To provide a useful guide, this paper reviewed previous research studies and considered the roles of homework and effective instructional strategies from three psychological perspectives: behavioral, information-processing, and social constructivism. From a behavioral perspective, homework can be viewed as increasing opportunities for the repeated practice of knowledge and skills, whereas the information processing perspective places greater importance on the capacity of homework to promote deeper understanding and metacognition. Viewed from a social constructivist perspective, homework can promote the establishment of connections in the learning that occurs in school, at home, and in the wider community. Studies have shown that each of these roles of homework can contribute to the facilitation of meaningful learning and the support of students toward becoming self-initiated learners. However, there are some crucial challenges that remain in applying this knowledge to the actual school setting. This paper’s conclusion discusses possible directions for much-needed future research and suggests potential solutions.

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• Open access
• Published: 16 May 2024

Procrastination, depression and anxiety symptoms in university students: a three-wave longitudinal study on the mediating role of perceived stress

• Anna Jochmann 1 ,
• Burkhard Gusy 1 ,
• Tino Lesener 1 &
• Christine Wolter 1  

BMC Psychology volume  12 , Article number:  276 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

It is generally assumed that procrastination leads to negative consequences. However, evidence for negative consequences of procrastination is still limited and it is also unclear by which mechanisms they are mediated. Therefore, the aim of our study was to examine the harmful consequences of procrastination on students’ stress and mental health. We selected the procrastination-health model as our theoretical foundation and tried to evaluate the model’s assumption that trait procrastination leads to (chronic) disease via (chronic) stress in a temporal perspective. We chose depression and anxiety symptoms as indicators for (chronic) disease and hypothesized that procrastination leads to perceived stress over time, that perceived stress leads to depression and anxiety symptoms over time, and that procrastination leads to depression and anxiety symptoms over time, mediated by perceived stress.

To examine these relationships properly, we collected longitudinal data from 392 university students at three occasions over a one-year period and analyzed the data using autoregressive time-lagged panel models.

Procrastination did lead to depression and anxiety symptoms over time. However, perceived stress was not a mediator of this effect. Procrastination did not lead to perceived stress over time, nor did perceived stress lead to depression and anxiety symptoms over time.

Conclusions

We could not confirm that trait procrastination leads to (chronic) disease via (chronic) stress, as assumed in the procrastination-health model. Nonetheless, our study demonstrated that procrastination can have a detrimental effect on mental health. Further health outcomes and possible mediators should be explored in future studies.

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Introduction

“Due tomorrow? Do tomorrow.”, might be said by someone who has a tendency to postpone tasks until the last minute. But can we enjoy today knowing about the unfinished task and tomorrow’s deadline? Or do we feel guilty for postponing a task yet again? Do we get stressed out because we have little time left to complete it? Almost everyone has procrastinated at some point when it came to completing unpleasant tasks, such as mowing the lawn, doing the taxes, or preparing for exams. Some tend to procrastinate more frequently and in all areas of life, while others are less inclined to do so. Procrastination is common across a wide range of nationalities, as well as socioeconomic and educational backgrounds [ 1 ]. Over the last fifteen years, there has been a massive increase in research on procrastination [ 2 ]. Oftentimes, research focuses on better understanding the phenomenon of procrastination and finding out why someone procrastinates in order to be able to intervene. Similarly, the internet is filled with self-help guides that promise a way to overcome procrastination. But why do people seek help for their procrastination? Until now, not much research has been conducted on the negative consequences procrastination could have on health and well-being. Therefore, in the following article we examine the effect of procrastination on mental health over time and stress as a possible facilitator of this relationship on the basis of the procrastination-health model by Sirois et al. [ 3 ].

Procrastination and its negative consequences

Procrastination can be defined as the tendency to voluntarily and irrationally delay intended activities despite expecting negative consequences as a result of the delay [ 4 , 5 ]. It has been observed in a variety of groups across the lifespan, such as students, teachers, and workers [ 1 ]. For example, some students tend to regularly delay preparing for exams and writing essays until the last minute, even if this results in time pressure or lower grades. Procrastination must be distinguished from strategic delay [ 4 , 6 ]. Delaying a task is considered strategic when other tasks are more important or when more resources are needed before the task can be completed. While strategic delay is viewed as functional and adaptive, procrastination is classified as dysfunctional. Procrastination is predominantly viewed as the result of a self-regulatory failure [ 7 ]. It can be understood as a trait, that is, as a cross-situational and time-stable behavioral disposition [ 8 ]. Thus, it is assumed that procrastinators chronically delay tasks that they experience as unpleasant or difficult [ 9 ]. Approximately 20 to 30% of adults have been found to procrastinate chronically [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. Prevalence estimates for students are similar [ 13 ]. It is believed that students do not procrastinate more often than other groups. However, it is easy to examine procrastination in students because working on study tasks requires a high degree of self-organization and time management [ 14 ].

It is generally assumed that procrastination leads to negative consequences [ 4 ]. Negative consequences are even part of the definition of procrastination. Research indicates that procrastination is linked to lower academic performance [ 15 ], health impairment (e.g., stress [ 16 ], physical symptoms [ 17 ], depression and anxiety symptoms [ 18 ]), and poor health-related behavior (e.g., heavier alcohol consumption [ 19 ]). However, most studies targeting consequences of procrastination are cross-sectional [ 4 ]. For that reason, it often remains unclear whether an examined outcome is a consequence or an antecedent of procrastination, or whether a reciprocal relationship between procrastination and the examined outcome can be assumed. Additionally, regarding negative consequences of procrastination on health, it is still largely unknown by which mechanisms they are mediated. Uncovering such mediators would be helpful in developing interventions that can prevent negative health consequences of procrastination.

The procrastination-health model

The first and only model that exclusively focuses on the effect of procrastination on health and the mediators of this effect is the procrastination-health model [ 3 , 9 , 17 ]. Sirois [ 9 ] postulates three pathways: An immediate effect of trait procrastination on (chronic) disease and two mediated pathways (see Fig.  1 ).

Adopted from the procrastination-health model by Sirois [ 9 ]

The immediate effect is not further explained. Research suggests that procrastination creates negative feelings, such as shame, guilt, regret, and anger [ 20 , 21 , 22 ]. The described feelings could have a detrimental effect on mental health [ 23 , 24 , 25 ].

The first mediated pathway leads from trait procrastination to (chronic) disease via (chronic) stress. Sirois [ 9 ] assumes that procrastination creates stress because procrastinators are constantly aware of the fact that they still have many tasks to complete. Stress activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system, increases autonomic nervous system arousal, and weakens the immune system, which in turn contributes to the development of diseases. Sirois [ 9 ] distinguishes between short-term and long-term effects of procrastination on health mediated by stress. She believes that, in the short term, single incidents of procrastination cause acute stress, which leads to acute health problems, such as infections or headaches. In the long term, chronic procrastination, as you would expect with trait procrastination, causes chronic stress, which leads to chronic diseases over time. There is some evidence in support of the stress-related pathway, particularly regarding short-term effects [ 3 , 17 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. However, as we mentioned above, most of these studies are cross-sectional. Therefore, the causal direction of these effects remains unclear. To our knowledge, long-term effects of trait procrastination on (chronic) disease mediated by (chronic) stress have not yet been investigated.

The second mediated pathway leads from trait procrastination to (chronic) disease via poor health-related behavior. According to Sirois [ 9 ], procrastinators form lower intentions to carry out health-promoting behavior or to refrain from health-damaging behavior because they have a low self-efficacy of being able to care for their own health. In addition, they lack the far-sighted view that the effects of health-related behavior only become apparent in the long term. For the same reason, Sirois [ 9 ] believes that there are no short-term, but only long-term effects of procrastination on health mediated by poor health-related behavior. For example, an unhealthy diet leads to diabetes over time. The findings of studies examining the behavioral pathway are inconclusive [ 3 , 17 , 26 , 28 ]. Furthermore, since most of these studies are cross-sectional, they are not suitable for uncovering long-term effects of trait procrastination on (chronic) disease mediated by poor health-related behavior.

In summary, previous research on the two mediated pathways of the procrastination-health model mainly found support for the role of (chronic) stress in the relationship between trait procrastination and (chronic) disease. However, only short-term effects have been investigated so far. Moreover, longitudinal studies are needed to be able to assess the causal direction of the relationship between trait procrastination, (chronic) stress, and (chronic) disease. Consequently, our study is the first to examine long-term effects of trait procrastination on (chronic) disease mediated by (chronic) stress, using a longitudinal design. (Chronic) disease could be measured by a variety of different indicators (e.g., physical symptoms, diabetes, or coronary heart disease). We choose depression and anxiety symptoms as indicators for (chronic) disease because they signal mental health complaints before they manifest as (chronic) diseases. Additionally, depression and anxiety symptoms are two of the most common mental health complaints among students [ 29 , 30 ] and procrastination has been shown to be a significant predictor of depression and anxiety symptoms [ 18 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. Until now, the stress-related pathway of the procrastination-health model with depression and anxiety symptoms as the health outcome has only been analyzed in one cross-sectional study that confirmed the predictions of the model [ 35 ].

The aim of our study is to evaluate some of the key assumptions of the procrastination-health model, particularly the relationships between trait procrastination, (chronic) stress, and (chronic) disease over time, surveyed in the following analysis using depression and anxiety symptoms.

In line with the key assumptions of the procrastination-health model, we postulate (see Fig.  2 ):

Procrastination leads to perceived stress over time.

Perceived stress leads to depression and anxiety symptoms over time.

Procrastination leads to depression and anxiety symptoms over time, mediated by perceived stress.

The section of the procrastination-health model we examined

Materials and methods

Our study was part of a health monitoring at a large German university Footnote 1 . Ethical approval for our study was granted by the Ethics Committee of the university’s Department of Education and Psychology. We collected the initial data in 2019. Two occasions followed, each at an interval of six months. In January 2019, we sent out 33,267 invitations to student e-mail addresses. Before beginning the survey, students provided their written informed consent to participate in our study. 3,420 students took part at the first occasion (T1; 10% response rate). Of these, 862 participated at the second (T2) and 392 at the third occasion (T3). In order to test whether dropout was selective, we compared sociodemographic and study specific characteristics (age, gender, academic semester, number of assessments/exams) as well as behavior and health-related variables (procrastination, perceived stress, depression and anxiety symptoms) between the participants of the first wave ( n  = 3,420) and those who participated three times ( n  = 392). Results from independent-samples t-tests and chi-square analysis showed no significant differences regarding sociodemographic and study specific characteristics (see Additional file 1: Table S1 and S2 ). Regarding behavior and health-related variables, independent-samples t-tests revealed a significant difference in procrastination between the two groups ( t (3,409) = 2.08, p  < .05). The mean score of procrastination was lower in the group that participated in all three waves.

The mean age of the longitudinal respondents was 24.1 years ( SD  = 5.5 years), the youngest participants were 17 years old, the oldest one was 59 years old. The majority of participants was female (74.0%), 7 participants identified neither as male nor as female (1.8%). The respondents were on average enrolled in the third year of studying ( M  = 3.9; SD  = 2.3). On average, the students worked about 31.2 h ( SD  = 14.1) per week for their studies, and an additional 8.5 h ( SD  = 8.5) for their (part-time) jobs. The average income was €851 ( SD  = 406), and 4.9% of the students had at least one child. The students were mostly enrolled in philosophy and humanities (16.5%), education and psychology (15.8%), biology, chemistry, and pharmacy (12.5%), political and social sciences (10.6%), veterinary medicine (8.9%), and mathematics and computer science (7.7%).

We only used established and well evaluated instruments for our analyses.

• Procrastination

We adopted the short form of the Procrastination Questionnaire for Students (PFS-4) [ 36 ] to measure procrastination. The PFS-4 assesses procrastination at university as a largely stable behavioral disposition across situations, that is, as a trait. The questionnaire consists of four items (e.g., I put off starting tasks until the last moment.). Each item was rated on a 5-point scale ((almost) never = 1 to (almost) always = 5) for the last two weeks. All items were averaged, with higher scores indicating a greater tendency to procrastinate. The PFS-4 has been proven to be reliable and valid, showing very high correlations with other established trait procrastination scales, for example, with the German short form of the General Procrastination Scale [ 37 , 38 ]. We also proved the scale to be one-dimensional in a factor analysis, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.90.

Perceived stress

The Heidelberger Stress Index (HEI-STRESS) [ 39 ] is a three-item measure of current perceived stress due to studying as well as in life in general. For the first item, respondents enter a number between 0 (not stressed at all) and 100 (completely stressed) to indicate how stressed their studies have made them feel over the last four weeks. For the second and third item, respondents rate on a 5-point scale how often they feel “stressed and tense” and as how stressful they would describe their life at the moment. We transformed the second and third item to match the range of the first item before we averaged all items into a single score with higher values indicating greater perceived stress. We proved the scale to be one-dimensional and Cronbach’s alpha for our study was 0.86.

Depression and anxiety symptoms

We used the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4) [ 40 ], a short form of the Patient Health Questionnaire [ 41 ] with four items, to measure depression and anxiety symptoms. The PHQ-4 contains two items from the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) [ 42 ] and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-2 (GAD-2) [ 43 ], respectively. It is a well-established screening scale designed to assess the core criteria of major depressive disorder (PHQ-2) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD-2) according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). However, it was shown that the GAD-2 is also appropriate for screening other anxiety disorders. According to Kroenke et al. [ 40 ], the PHQ-4 can be used to assess a person’s symptom burden and impairment. We asked the participants to rate how often they have been bothered over the last two weeks by problems, such as “Little interest or pleasure in doing things”. Response options were 0 = not at all, 1 = several days, 2 = more than half the days, and 3 = nearly every day. Calculated as the sum of the four items, the total scores range from 0 to 12 with higher scores indicating more frequent depression and anxiety symptoms. The total scores can be categorized as none-to-minimal (0–2), mild (3–5), moderate (6–8), and severe (9–12) depression and anxiety symptoms. The PHQ-4 was shown to be reliable and valid [ 40 , 44 , 45 ]. We also proved the scale to be one-dimensional in a factor analysis, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.86.

Data analysis

To test our hypotheses, we performed structural equation modelling (SEM) using R (Version 4.1.1) with the package lavaan. All items were standardized ( M  = 0, SD  = 1). Due to the non-normality of some study variables and a sufficiently large sample size of N near to 400 [ 46 ], we used robust maximum likelihood estimation (MLR) for all model estimations. As recommended by Hu and Bentler [ 47 ], we assessed the models’ goodness of fit by chi-square test statistic, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), standardized root mean square residual (SRMR), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), and comparative fit index (CFI). A non-significant chi-square indicates good model fit. Since chi-square is sensitive to sample size, we also evaluated fit indices less sensitive to the number of observations. RMSEA and SRMR values of 0.05 or lower as well as TLI and CFI values of 0.97 or higher indicate good model fit. RMSEA values of 0.08 or lower, SRMR values of 0.10 or lower, as well as TLI and CFI values of 0.95 or higher indicate acceptable model fit [ 48 , 49 ]. First, we conducted confirmatory factor analysis for the first occasion, defining three factors that correspond to the measures of procrastination, perceived stress, and depression and anxiety symptoms. Next, we tested for measurements invariance over time and specified the measurement model, before testing our hypotheses.

Measurement invariance over time

To test for measurement invariance over time, we defined one latent variable for each of the three occasions, corresponding to the measures of procrastination, perceived stress, and depression and anxiety symptoms, respectively. As recommended by Geiser and colleagues [ 50 ], the links between indicators and factors (i.e., factor loadings and intercepts) should be equal over measurement occasions; therefore, we added indicator specific factors. A first and least stringent step of testing measurement invariance is configural invariance (M CI ). It was examined whether the included constructs (procrastination, perceived stress, depression and anxiety symptoms) have the same pattern of free and fixed loadings over time. This means that the assignment of the indicators to the three latent factors over time is supported by the underlying data. If configural invariance was supported, restrictions for the next step of testing measurement invariance (metric or weak invariance; M MI ) were added. This means that each item contributes to the latent construct to a similar degree over time. Metric invariance was tested by constraining the factor loadings of the constructs over time. The next step of testing measurement invariance (scalar or strong invariance; M SI ) consisted of checking whether mean differences in the latent construct capture all mean differences in the shared variance of the items. Scalar invariance was tested by constraining the item intercepts over time. The constraints applied in the metric invariance model were retained [ 51 ]. For the last step of testing measurement invariance (residual or strict invariance; M RI ), the residual variables were also set equal over time. If residual invariance is supported, differences in the observed variables can exclusively be attributed to differences in the variances of the latent variables.

We used the Satorra-Bentler chi-square difference test to evaluate the superiority of a more stringent model [ 52 ]. We assumed the model with the largest number of invariance restrictions – which still has an acceptable fit and no substantial deterioration of the chi-square value – to be the final model [ 53 ]. Following previous recommendations, we considered a decrease in CFI of 0.01 and an increase in RMSEA of 0.015 as unacceptable to establish measurement invariance [ 54 ]. If a more stringent model had a significant worse chi-square value, but the model fit was still acceptable and the deterioration in model fit fell within the change criteria recommended for CFI and RMSEA values, we still considered the more stringent model to be superior.

Hypotheses testing

As recommended by Dormann et al. [ 55 ], we applied autoregressive time-lagged panel models to test our hypotheses. In the first step, we specified a model (M 0 ) that only included the stabilities of the three variables (procrastination, perceived stress, depression and anxiety symptoms) over time. In the next step (M 1 ), we added the time-lagged effects from procrastination (T1) to perceived stress (T2) and from procrastination (T2) to perceived stress (T3) as well as from perceived stress (T1) to depression and anxiety symptoms (T2) and from perceived stress (T2) to depression and anxiety symptoms (T3). Additionally, we included a direct path from procrastination (T1) to depression and anxiety symptoms (T3). If this path becomes significant, we can assume a partial mediation [ 55 ]. Otherwise, we can assume a full mediation. We compared these nested models using the Satorra-Bentler chi-square difference test and the Akaike information criterion (AIC). The chi-square difference value should either be non-significant, indicating that the proposed model including our hypotheses (M 1 ) does not have a significant worse model fit than the model including only stabilities (M 0 ), or, if significant, it should be in the direction that M 1 fits the data better than M 0 . Regarding the AIC, M 1 should have a lower value than M 0 .

Table  1 displays the means, standard deviations, internal consistencies (Cronbach’s alpha), and stabilities (correlations) of all study variables. The alpha values of procrastination, perceived stress, and depression and anxiety symptoms are classified as good (> 0.80) [ 56 ]. The correlation matrix of the manifest variables used for the analyses can be found in the Additional file 1: Table  S3 .

We observed the highest test-retest reliabilities for procrastination ( r  ≥ .74). The test-retest reliabilities for depression and anxiety symptoms ( r  ≥ .64) and for perceived stress ( r  ≥ .54) were a bit lower (see Table  1 ). The pattern of correlations shows a medium to large but positive relationship between procrastination and depression and anxiety symptoms [ 57 , 58 ]. The association between procrastination and perceived stress was small, the one between perceived stress and depression and anxiety symptoms very large (see Table  1 ).

Confirmatory factor analysis showed an acceptable to good fit (x 2 (41) = 118.618, p  < .001; SRMR = 0.042; RMSEA = 0.071; TLI = 0.95; CFI = 0.97). When testing for measurement invariance over time for each construct, the residual invariance models with indicator specific factors provided good fit to the data (M RI ; see Table  2 ), suggesting that differences in the observed variables can exclusively be attributed to differences of the latent variables. We then specified and tested the measurement model of the latent constructs prior to model testing based on the items of procrastination, perceived stress, and depression and anxiety symptoms. The measurement model fitted the data well (M M ; see Table  3 ). All items loaded solidly on their respective factors (0.791 ≤ β ≤ 0.987; p  < .001).

To test our hypotheses, we analyzed the two models described in the methods section.

The fit of the stability model (M 0 ) was acceptable (see Table  3 ). Procrastination was stable over time, with stabilities above 0.82. The stabilities of perceived stress as well as depression and anxiety symptoms were somewhat lower, ranging from 0.559 (T1 -> T2) to 0.696 (T2 -> T3) for perceived stress and from 0.713 (T2 -> T3) to 0.770 (T1 -> T2) for depression and anxiety symptoms, respectively.

The autoregressive mediation model (M 1 ) fitted the data significantly better than M 0 . The direct path from procrastination (T1) to depression and anxiety symptoms (T3) was significant (β = 0.16; p  < .001), however, none of the mediated paths (from procrastination (T1) to perceived stress (T2) and from perceived stress (T2) to depression and anxiety symptoms (T3)) proved to be substantial. Also, the time-lagged paths from perceived stress (T1) to depression and anxiety symptoms (T2) and from procrastination (T2) to perceived stress (T3) were not substantial either (see Fig.  3 ).

To examine whether the hypothesized effects would occur over a one-year period rather than a six-months period, we specified an additional model with paths from procrastination (T1) to perceived stress (T3) and from perceived stress (T1) to depression and anxiety symptoms (T3), also including the stabilities of the three constructs as in the stability model M 0 . The model showed an acceptable fit (χ 2 (486) = 831.281, p  < .001; RMSEA = 0.048; SRMR = 0.091; TLI = 0.95; CFI = 0.95), but neither of the two paths were significant.

Therefore, our hypotheses, that procrastination leads to perceived stress over time (H1) and that perceived stress leads to depression and anxiety symptoms over time (H2) must be rejected. We could only partially confirm our third hypothesis, that procrastination leads to depression and anxiety over time, mediated by perceived stress (H3), since procrastination did lead to depression and anxiety symptoms over time. However, this effect was not mediated by perceived stress.

Results of the estimated model including all hypotheses (M 1 ). Note Non-significant paths are dotted. T1 = time 1; T2 = time 2; T3 = time 3. *** p  < .001

To sum up, we tried to examine the harmful consequences of procrastination on students’ stress and mental health. Hence, we selected the procrastination-health model by Sirois [ 9 ] as a theoretical foundation and tried to evaluate some of its key assumptions in a temporal perspective. The author assumes that trait procrastination leads to (chronic) disease via (chronic) stress. We chose depression and anxiety symptoms as indicators for (chronic) disease and postulated, in line with the key assumptions of the procrastination-health model, that procrastination leads to perceived stress over time (H1), that perceived stress leads to depression and anxiety symptoms over time (H2), and that procrastination leads to depression and anxiety symptoms over time, mediated by perceived stress (H3). To examine these relationships properly, we collected longitudinal data from students at three occasions over a one-year period and analyzed the data using autoregressive time-lagged panel models. Our first and second hypotheses had to be rejected: Procrastination did not lead to perceived stress over time, and perceived stress did not lead to depression and anxiety symptoms over time. However, procrastination did lead to depression and anxiety symptoms over time – which is in line with our third hypothesis – but perceived stress was not a mediator of this effect. Therefore, we could only partially confirm our third hypothesis.

Our results contradict previous studies on the stress-related pathway of the procrastination-health model, which consistently found support for the role of (chronic) stress in the relationship between trait procrastination and (chronic) disease. Since most of these studies were cross-sectional, though, the causal direction of these effects remained uncertain. There are two longitudinal studies that confirm the stress-related pathway of the procrastination-health model [ 27 , 28 ], but both studies examined short-term effects (≤ 3 months), whereas we focused on more long-term effects. Therefore, the divergent findings may indicate that there are short-term, but no long-term effects of trait procrastination on (chronic) disease mediated by (chronic) stress.

Our results especially raise the question whether trait procrastination leads to (chronic) stress in the long term. Looking at previous longitudinal studies on the effect of procrastination on stress, the following stands out: At shorter study periods of two weeks [ 27 ] and four weeks [ 28 ], the effect of procrastination on stress appears to be present. At longer study periods of seven weeks [ 59 ], three months [ 28 ], six months, and twelve months, as in our study, the effect of procrastination on stress does not appear to be present. There is one longitudinal study in which procrastination was a significant predictor of stress symptoms nine months later [ 34 ]. The results of this study should be interpreted with caution, though, because the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic fell within the study period, which could have contributed to increased stress symptoms [ 60 ]. Unfortunately, Johansson et al. [ 34 ] did not report whether average stress symptoms increased during their study. In one of the two studies conducted by Fincham and May [ 59 ], the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak also fell within their seven-week study period. However, they reported that in their study, average stress symptoms did not increase from baseline to follow-up. Taken together, the findings suggest that procrastination can cause acute stress in the short term, for example during times when many tasks need to be completed, such as at the end of a semester, but that procrastination does not lead to chronic stress over time. It seems possible that students are able to recover during the semester from the stress their procrastination caused at the end of the previous semester. Because of their procrastination, they may also have more time to engage in relaxing activities, which could further mitigate the effect of procrastination on stress. Our conclusions are supported by an early and well-known longitudinal study by Tice and Baumeister [ 61 ], which compared procrastinating and non-procrastinating students with regard to their health. They found that procrastinators experienced less stress than their non-procrastinating peers at the beginning of the semester, but more at the end of the semester. Additionally, our conclusions are in line with an interview study in which university students were asked about the consequences of their procrastination [ 62 ]. The students reported that, due to their procrastination, they experience high levels of stress during periods with heavy workloads (e.g., before deadlines or exams). However, the stress does not last, instead, it is relieved immediately after these periods.

Even though research indicates, in line with the assumptions of the procrastination-health model, that stress is a risk factor for physical and mental disorders [ 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 ], perceived stress did not have a significant effect on depression and anxiety symptoms in our study. The relationship between stress and mental health is complex, as people respond to stress in many different ways. While some develop stress-related mental disorders, others experience mild psychological symptoms or no symptoms at all [ 67 ]. This can be explained with the help of vulnerability-stress models. According to vulnerability-stress models, mental illnesses emerge from an interaction of vulnerabilities (e.g., genetic factors, difficult family backgrounds, or weak coping abilities) and stress (e.g., minor or major life events or daily hassles) [ 68 , 69 ]. The stress perceived by the students in our sample may not be sufficient enough on its own, without the presence of other risk factors, to cause depression and anxiety symptoms. However, since we did not assess individual vulnerability and stress factors in our study, these considerations are mere speculation.

In our study, procrastination led to depression and anxiety symptoms over time, which is consistent with the procrastination-health model as well as previous cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence [ 18 , 21 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. However, it is still unclear by which mechanisms this effect is mediated, as perceived stress did not prove to be a substantial mediator in our study. One possible mechanism would be that procrastination impairs affective well-being [ 70 ] and creates negative feelings, such as shame, guilt, regret, and anger [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 62 , 71 ], which in turn could lead to depression and anxiety symptoms [ 23 , 24 , 25 ]. Other potential mediators of the relationship between procrastination and depression and anxiety symptoms emerge from the behavioral pathway of the procrastination-health model, suggesting that poor health-related behaviors mediate the effect of trait procrastination on (chronic) disease. Although evidence for this is still scarce, the results of one cross-sectional study, for example, indicate that poor sleep quality might mediate the effect of procrastination on depression and anxiety symptoms [ 35 ].

In summary, we found that procrastination leads to depression and anxiety symptoms over time and that perceived stress is not a mediator of this effect. We could not show that procrastination leads to perceived stress over time, nor that perceived stress leads to depression and anxiety symptoms over time. For the most part, the relationships between procrastination, perceived stress, and depression and anxiety symptoms did not match the relationships between trait procrastination, (chronic) stress, and (chronic) disease as assumed in the procrastination-health model. Explanations for this could be that procrastination might only lead to perceived stress in the short term, for example, during preparations for end-of-semester exams, and that perceived stress may not be sufficient enough on its own, without the presence of other risk factors, to cause depression and anxiety symptoms. In conclusion, we could not confirm long-term effects of trait procrastination on (chronic) disease mediated by (chronic) stress, as assumed for the stress-related pathway of the procrastination-health model.

Limitations and suggestions for future research

In our study, we tried to draw causal conclusions about the harmful consequences of procrastination on students’ stress and mental health. However, since procrastination is a trait that cannot be manipulated experimentally, we have conducted an observational rather than an experimental study, which makes causal inferences more difficult. Nonetheless, a major strength of our study is that we used a longitudinal design with three waves. This made it possible to draw conclusions about the causal direction of the effects, as in hardly any other study targeting consequences of procrastination on health before [ 4 , 28 , 55 ]. Therefore, we strongly recommend using a similar longitudinal design in future studies on the procrastination-health model or on consequences of procrastination on health in general.

We chose a time lag of six months between each of the three measurement occasions to examine long-term effects of procrastination on depression and anxiety symptoms mediated by perceived stress. However, more than six months may be necessary for the hypothesized effects to occur [ 72 ]. The fact that the temporal stabilities of the examined constructs were moderate or high (0.559 ≤ β ≤ 0.854) [ 73 , 74 ] also suggests that the time lags may have been too short. The larger the time lag, the lower the temporal stabilities, as shown for depression and anxiety symptoms, for example [ 75 ]. High temporal stabilities make it more difficult to detect an effect that actually exists [ 76 ]. Nonetheless, Dormann and Griffin [ 77 ] recommend using shorter time lags of less than one year, even with high stabilities, because of other influential factors, such as unmeasured third variables. Therefore, our time lags of six months seem appropriate.

It should be discussed, though, whether it is possible to detect long-term effects of the stress-related pathway of the procrastination-health model within a total study period of one year. Sirois [ 9 ] distinguishes between short-term and long-term effects of procrastination on health mediated by stress, but does not address how long it might take for long-term effects to occur or when effects can be considered long-term instead of short-term. The fact that an effect of procrastination on stress is evident at shorter study periods of four weeks or less but in most cases not at longer study periods of seven weeks or more, as we mentioned earlier, could indicate that short-term effects occur within the time frame of one to three months, considering the entire stress-related pathway. Hence, it seems appropriate to assume that we have examined rather long-term effects, given our study period of six and twelve months. Nevertheless, it would be beneficial to use varying study periods in future studies, in order to be able to determine when effects can be considered long-term.

Concerning long-term effects of the stress-related pathway, Sirois [ 9 ] assumes that chronic procrastination causes chronic stress, which leads to chronic diseases over time. The term “chronic stress” refers to prolonged stress episodes associated with permanent tension. The instrument we used captures perceived stress over the last four weeks. Even though the perceived stress of the students in our sample was relatively stable (0.559 ≤ β ≤ 0.696), we do not know how much fluctuation occurred between each of the three occasions. However, there is some evidence suggesting that perceived stress is strongly associated with chronic stress [ 78 ]. Thus, it seems acceptable that we used perceived stress as an indicator for chronic stress in our study. For future studies, we still suggest the use of an instrument that can more accurately reflect chronic stress, for example, the Trier Inventory for Chronic Stress (TICS) [ 79 ].

It is also possible that the occasions were inconveniently chosen, as they all took place in a critical academic period near the end of the semester, just before the examination period began. We chose a similar period in the semester for each occasion for the sake of comparability. However, it is possible that, during this preparation periods, stress levels peaked and procrastinators procrastinated less because they had to catch up after delaying their work. This could have introduced bias to the data. Therefore, in future studies, investigation periods should be chosen that are closer to the beginning or in the middle of a semester.

Furthermore, Sirois [ 9 ] did not really explain her understanding of “chronic disease”. However, it seems clear that physical illnesses, such as diabetes or cardiovascular diseases, are meant. Depression and anxiety symptoms, which we chose as indicators for chronic disease, represent mental health complaints that do not have to be at the level of a major depressive disorder or an anxiety disorder, in terms of their quantity, intensity, or duration [ 40 ]. But they can be viewed as precursors to a major depressive disorder or an anxiety disorder. Therefore, given our study period of one year, it seems appropriate to use depression and anxiety symptoms as indicators for chronic disease. At longer study periods, we would expect these mental health complaints to manifest as mental disorders. Moreover, the procrastination-health model was originally designed to be applied to physical diseases [ 3 ]. Perhaps, the model assumptions are more applicable to physical diseases than to mental disorders. By applying parts of the model to mental health complaints, we have taken an important step towards finding out whether the model is applicable to mental disorders as well. Future studies should examine additional long-term health outcomes, both physical and psychological. This would help to determine whether trait procrastination has varying effects on different diseases over time. Furthermore, we suggest including individual vulnerability and stress factors in future studies in order to be able to analyze the effect of (chronic) stress on (chronic) diseases in a more differentiated way.

Regarding our sample, 3,420 students took part at the first occasion, but only 392 participated three times, which results in a dropout rate of 88.5%. At the second and third occasion, invitation e-mails were only sent to participants who had indicated at the previous occasion that they would be willing to participate in a repeat survey and provided their e-mail address. This is probably one of the main reasons for our high dropout rate. Other reasons could be that the students did not receive any incentives for participating in our study and that some may have graduated between the occasions. Selective dropout analysis revealed that the mean score of procrastination was lower in the group that participated in all three waves ( n  = 392) compared to the group that participated in the first wave ( n  = 3,420). One reason for this could be that those who have a higher tendency to procrastinate were more likely to procrastinate on filling out our survey at the second and third occasion. The findings of our dropout analysis should be kept in mind when interpreting our results, as lower levels of procrastination may have eliminated an effect on perceived stress or on depression and anxiety symptoms. Additionally, across all age groups in population-representative samples, the student age group reports having the best subjective health [ 80 ]. Therefore, it is possible that they are more resilient to stress and experience less impairment of well-being than other age groups. Hence, we recommend that future studies focus on other age groups as well.

It is generally assumed that procrastination leads to lower academic performance, health impairment, and poor health-related behavior. However, evidence for negative consequences of procrastination is still limited and it is also unclear by which mechanisms they are mediated. In consequence, the aim of our study was to examine the effect of procrastination on mental health over time and stress as a possible facilitator of this relationship. We selected the procrastination-health model as a theoretical foundation and used the stress-related pathway of the model, assuming that trait procrastination leads to (chronic) disease via (chronic) stress. We chose depression and anxiety symptoms as indicators for (chronic) disease and collected longitudinal data from students at three occasions over a one-year period. This allowed us to draw conclusions about the causal direction of the effects, as in hardly any other study examining consequences of procrastination on (mental) health before. Our results indicate that procrastination leads to depression and anxiety symptoms over time and that perceived stress is not a mediator of this effect. We could not show that procrastination leads to perceived stress over time, nor that perceived stress leads to depression and anxiety symptoms over time. Explanations for this could be that procrastination might only lead to perceived stress in the short term, for example, during preparations for end-of-semester exams, and that perceived stress may not be sufficient on its own, that is, without the presence of other risk factors, to cause depression and anxiety symptoms. Overall, we could not confirm long-term effects of trait procrastination on (chronic) disease mediated by (chronic) stress, as assumed for the stress-related pathway of the procrastination-health model. Our study emphasizes the importance of identifying the consequences procrastination can have on health and well-being and determining by which mechanisms they are mediated. Only then will it be possible to develop interventions that can prevent negative health consequences of procrastination. Further health outcomes and possible mediators should be explored in future studies, using a similar longitudinal design.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

University Health Report at Freie Universität Berlin.

Abbreviations

Comparative fit index

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition

Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-2

Heidelberger Stress Index

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical

Robust maximum likelihood estimation

Short form of the Procrastination Questionnaire for Students

Patient Health Questionnaire-2

Patient Health Questionnaire-4

Root mean square error of approximation

Structural equation modeling

Standardized root mean square residual

Tucker-Lewis index

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Conceptualization: A.J., B.G., T.L.; methodology: B.G., A.J.; validation: B.G.; formal analysis: A.J., B.G.; investigation: C.W., T.L., B.G.; data curation: C.W., T.L., B.G.; writing–original draft preparation: A.J., B.G.; writing–review and editing: A.J., T.L., B.G., C.W.; visualization: A.J., B.G.; supervision: B.G., T.L.; project administration: C.W., T.L., B.G.; All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

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Selective dropout analysis and correlation matrix of the manifest variables

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Jochmann, A., Gusy, B., Lesener, T. et al. Procrastination, depression and anxiety symptoms in university students: a three-wave longitudinal study on the mediating role of perceived stress. BMC Psychol 12 , 276 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-024-01761-2

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Received : 25 May 2023

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-024-01761-2

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