Helping some and harming others: Homework frequency and tradeoffs in student performance

Abstract

The authors of this article examine the potential for increased student learning and retention through more frequent assignments. They conduct a field experiment that investigates whether student knowledge retention can be improved by increasing the frequency of homework assignments, motivating students to have more exposure to the material, and reducing the incentives for students to procrastinate. They find that the impact of the treatment on student performance varies based on the student’s past academic performance. Students on the lower end of the academic performance distribution benefit from the structure imposed by more frequent assignments and perform better. However, students with high prior academic performance are harmed by the intervention. The final exam scores of high-performing students are lower in courses with higher assignment frequency.