The authors of the study examined survey and transcript data of more than 18,000 10th-grade students to uncover explanations for academic performance, IU officials said.

The data focused on individual classes for students. It looked at transcripts for students from two nationwide samples collected in 1990 and 2002 by the National Center for Education Statistics.

What they found contradicted some of the published research on the subject.

They analyzed the time spent on homework and the final class grades and found no substantial difference in grades between students who complete homework and those who do not, university officials said.

But the analysis found a positive association between student performance on standardized tests and the time they spent on homework.

“Our results hint that maybe homework is not being used as well as it could be,” Maltese said.

He said the results indicate the types of homework assignments typically given might work better toward standardized test preparation than for retaining knowledge of class material.

Maltese said maybe teachers should be thinking about quality over quantity.

“So in math, rather than doing the same types of problems over and over again, maybe it should involve having students analyze new types of problems or data,” Maltese said. “In science, maybe the students should write concept summaries instead of just reading a chapter and answering the questions at the end.”

Taylor High School is already heading in that direction.

Students in Jessica Breedlove’s math classes play corn hole to learn about the quadratic equation. They have to adjust their toss and equation to hit their target from a set distance.

One class was tasked with re-creating a crime scene to learn about trigonometry and geometry concepts. One student said her group had to build a bank vault.

“What we’re trying to do is eliminate the busy work,” Hartman said.

They’re trying to move away from assignments that require students to memorize or regurgitate information, Hartman said.

They want to test a student’s problem-solving skills and challenge them to think critically, he said. The principal said it’s also important for them to understand a lesson’s real-world application.

“A lot of the reason they don’t do [their homework] is because they don’t understand the relevancy of it,” he said.

(Next page: How Taylor’s change in homework assignments has benefitted students)