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Title: The Impact of Homework Time on Academic Achievement

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2007

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Abstract: Several charter schools have shown great success in improving the academic performance of students from low-performing school districts. It has been argued,however, that their success may be due to student selection. This paper tests of two aspects of these charter schools reforms using nationally representative panel data onstudent behavior and academic performance. First, I examine a policy that increases the proportion of homework that students complete. Second, I examine the impact of increasing the amount of homework assigned. Previous studies have not been able to accurately estimate the impact of homework because of important omitted variables and measurement error, which strongly bias the estimated impact of homework time. Thispaper, however, uses an instrumental variables approach with student fixed effects to account for both time-varying and time-invariant unobserved characteristics and inputs.This approach produces estimates of the impact of homework time on academic achievement that are much higher than those of previous studies. Also, when compared to popular policy changes such as decreasing class size or increasing teachers wages, a policy of assigning more homework is found to be the most cost effective policy tool. Finally, these findings suggest that assigning additional homework primarily improvesthe achievement of low performing students and students in low performing schools. Thus, assigning more homework could help close the gap in achievement between high and low performing students.

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Authors: McMullen, Steven

Publisher: University of North Carolina

Data Collections: IPUMS CPS

Topics: Education

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