Is More Homework Good or Bad for Primary School Children?

Essay Question Title: Research Proposal (2000 words +/-10%)
Research Question: IS MORE HOMEWORK GOOD OR BAD FOR
PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN?
Word count: 2,153
1.

2. Background
At present, children in many places have been doing homework since the early
years of kindergarten, and the burden of homework will become heavier. When children
go to elementary school, homework will be considered as an important reference basis
for children's good study and serious attitude (Vatterott, 2018). However, many children
who have just transitioned from kindergarten to elementary school will not adapt to this
stage, which will cause children to be tired of learning. With the transition from the lower
grades to the higher grades, this kind of study-weariness may be exacerbated
(Ronning, 2011). Although quality education is been promoted and teaching team is
constantly improving levels. Too many homework assignments, thinking that students
can improve their performance only through a large number of exercises, is the
continuation of this backward model, which has caused unnecessary trouble and bad
influence on many children. Therefore, creating a proper balance in assigning
homework to students, help primary schools to improve its overall performance and also
enhance the motivation level of students to explore the knowledge in an amended
manner.
2.1. Rationale
In the context of the new curriculum reform, homework in primary school
teaching is the most basic form of activity for students to learn, and it is also the source
of teachers' scientific evaluation of students. And homework is not only a continuation of
classroom teaching, but also an important part of the entire teaching work (Holte, 2016).
Arranging an appropriate amount of effective homework can not only deepen the
understanding of the knowledge learned in the lesson and promote the learning in the
lesson, but also enable students to broaden their horizons, activate their thinking,
develop various hobbies, and develop the ability to explore and learn independently
(Matei and Ciasca, 2015).
Nevertheless, teachers are unable to truly understand the student’s learning situation at
home and cannot be timely and effective, also supervise and understand the
implementation of parental tutoring. In the long run, not only the quality of teaching

cannot be improved, but the lack of communication between teachers and parents, the
break of the home-school interaction chain, and the deepening of the conflict between
the school and family due to student education issues. Such a vicious circle has
unthinkable consequences (Cooper, 2015). To this end, the proposed research work will
make an attempt to explore if the more homework for the primary school students
deteriorate their academic performance or not. Additionally, the proposed research work
will also attempt to look into if more homework could have an impact on parent-children
relationship, the social and physical lifestyle of the children and their interest in the
classroom.
2.2. Aims and Objectives
Considering the background discussion and the rationale stated above, the aim of the
proposed research work will be to analyze the impact that more homework could have
on primary school children. Therefore, the objective of the proposed study could be
derived as:
 To understand the impact that more homework could have on primary
school children’s academic performance
 To understand the impact that more homework could have on primary
school children’s relationship with their parents and teachers
 To understand the impact that more homework could have on primary
school children’s physical activities and social lifestyle
2.3. Research Questions
Considering the aims and objectives stated in the previous section, the proposed
research work will aim to answer the following research questions:
 What is the impact that more homework could have on primary school
children’s academic performance?
 What is the impact that more homework could have on primary school
children’s relationship with their parents and teachers?
 What is the impact that more homework could have on primary school
children’s physical activities and social lifestyle?

3. Literature Review
From the past few decades, the aspect of homework is undoubtedly one of the
major topics that parents and children care about most. The amount and quality of
homework is not only related to the child's performance and sleep, but also to the time
and happiness of the whole family. However, in a school environment, the activity of
homework is considered as an initial thing as the core purpose behind this is that it
assist students to maintain their academic track in an improved way. However, excess
of assignments or homework sometime may influence pupil negatively especially for
primary school children. This is because, it give rise to various issues among students
like increase in absenteeism, lack of motivation, fear of exploring knowledge, anxiety,
frustration, and many more. Therefore, understanding the potentiality and interest of
students enable teachers to generate positive or healthy environment as well as lead
them to build long lasting relationship with students in an impressive style. Moreover,
there are some example which states the attitude of parents towards giving more
homework to students i. e. Spanish parents are protesting against too much of
homework, and British parents are being rethought because their children study longer
and their academic performance is not as good as Finnish children. However, it has
been identified that a student success is not the matter of quantity of homework rather
it is the ability of pupil to grab the academic concepts more clearly and effectively.
According to the National Education Research Foundation, for middle school and
high school students, academic performance is positively related to homework time, that
is, the more time they spend on homework, the better their performance will be. But, in
case of elementary school students, overload of work or assignments may impose huge
pressure that may impact their physical and mental state in a negative way (Carr, 2013).
However, excess of homework not only effect junior student but also impact negatively
on senior students in terms of their performance and initiation in extracurricular
activities. In addition to this, assignments have an effect on grades and are discussed
based on the type of assignment. The impact of different types of homework on
students varies greatly. In the classroom, the teacher can grasp the learning situation of
each child, and provide effective help and guidance according to the characteristics of