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\nFor students, as for all of us, life is a matter of balance, trade-offs and compromise. Studying for hours on end is unlikely to lead to best academic results. And it could have negative impacts on young people\u2019s physical, mental and social well-being.<\/p>\n
Our\u00a0recent study<\/a>\u00a0found the best way for young people to spend their time was different for mental health than for physical health, and even more different for school-related outcomes. Students needed to spend more time sitting for best cognitive and academic performance, but physical activity trumped sitting time for best physical health. For best mental health, longer sleep time was most important.<\/p>\n It\u2019s like a game of rock, paper, scissors with time use. So, what is the sweet spot, or as Goldilocks put it, the \u201cjust right\u201d amount of study?<\/p>\n Using our study data for Australian children aged 11 and 12, we are developing a time-optimisation tool that allows the user to define their own mental, physical and cognitive health priorities. Once the priorities are set, the tool provides real-time updates on what the user\u2019s estimated \u201cGoldilocks day\u201d looks like. Because of the need to juggle conflicting demands on their time, individuals must fine-tune the daily balance of activities to match their priorities and needs. Shutterstock<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n Over\u00a030 years of research<\/a>\u00a0shows that students doing more homework get better grades. However, extra study doesn\u2019t make as much difference as people think. An\u00a0American study<\/a>\u00a0found the average grades of high school boys increased by only about 1.5 percentage points for every extra hour of homework per school night.<\/p>\n What these sorts of studies don\u2019t consider is that the relationship between time spent doing homework and academic achievement is unlikely to be linear. A high school boy doing an extra ten hours of homework per school night is unlikely to improve his grades by 15 percentage points.<\/p>\n There is a simple explanation for this: doing an extra ten hours of homework after school would mean students couldn\u2019t go to bed until the early hours of the morning. Even if they could manage this for one day, it would be unsustainable over a week, let alone a month. In any case, adequate sleep is probably critical for\u00a0memory consolidation<\/a>.<\/p>\n As we all know, there are only 24 hours in a day. Students can\u2019t devote more time to study without taking this time from other parts of their day. Excessive studying may become detrimental to learning ability when too much sleep time is lost.<\/p>\n Another US study<\/a>\u00a0found that, regardless of how long a student normally spent studying, sacrificing sleep to fit in more study led to learning problems on the following day. Among year 12s, cramming in an extra three hours of study almost doubled their academic problems. For example, students reported they \u201cdid not understand something taught in class\u201d or \u201cdid poorly on a test, quiz or homework\u201d. Me showing up for the exam after cramming 2 months of material into 4 hours pic.twitter.com\/dD89RF2QZg<\/a><\/p>\n — College Student (@ColIegeStudent) November 9, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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More study improves grades, but not as much as you think<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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