1. Stressor. The overload of homework has become one of the leading stressors for students. In agreement, a study done on a little over four thousand students showed that, “more than 70 percent of students said they were “often or always stressed over school work.” This should come as no surprise as current students are assigned an exaggerated amount of homework. Not only can all this stress alone have a negative affect on their health, but it can lead to actions like drug usage, which could further the negative toll on their health.

2. Additional bad effects to health. As explained previously, homework can cause so much stress, but not only that. All this homework can also cause: headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss, and stomach problems. The same study previously mentioned, also affirmed that “More than 80 percent of students reported having at least one stress-related symptom in the past month, and 44 percent said they had experienced three or more symptoms.” These symptoms are evidently very common for students nowadays. From personal experience, I can agree that homework really does cause these things as I now get headaches pretty consistently and always feel exhausted.  

3. Loss of interest in learning. Too much homework quickly makes students unmotivated and uninterested. To prove my point, Oxford Learning explains that, “40% of high school students are chronically disengaged from school.” These students become so burned out, leaving no room for any type of enthusiasm to learn. Homework then is no longer about practicing and mastering concepts, rather it just becomes something you want to cross off of a long to do list. On top of that, they lose interest at a faster pace when it consumes a lot of time, leaving them very little for hobbies they are passionate about.

4. Takes away too much time. Time is very precious and homework is taking too much of it. For further detail, a study conducted by  New York University, described how, “ students said they received at least three hours of homework per night.” Students need time to do things they enjoy doing and helps them relieve stress. They go to school for hours to learn, so it’s only fair that the time they do get outside of school is dedicated to outside of school activities.

5. Ineffective. Students are given so much homework to the point where it is no longer helpful. Data has shown that the most helpfulness of homework comes from one hour of it and after that, the actual learning decreases. Additionally, Richard Walker, an educational psychologist at Sydney University, explains, “data shows that in countries where more time is spent on homework, students score lower on a standardized test.” This shows how all the overload of homework students in this country receive, is probably the reason why we score average on a global scale. If the homework assigned to students was greatly decrease to an effective amount, the results of standardized tests and any other tests, could increase.

Works Cited
Levy, S. (2019). Why Homework is Bad: Stress and Consequences. [online] Healthline. Available at: healthline.com/health-news/children-more-homework-means-more-stress-031114#5 [Accessed 21 May 2019].

Oxford Learning. (2019). Infographic: How Does Homework Actually Affect Students? | Oxford Learning. [online] Available at: oxfordlearning.com/how-does-homework-affect-students/ [Accessed 21 May 2019].

Wolchover, N. (2019). HuffPost is now a part of Oath. [online] Huffpost.com. Available at: huffpost.com/entry/too-much-homework-test-scores_n_1391134 [Accessed 21 May 2019].