--- title: Here's How Much Homework Teens Need to Be Better at Math and Science description: A group of researchers in Spain has arrived at an optimum time that teens should spend on math and science homework each day canonical: https://time.com/3755573/homework-teens-how-much-math-science/ author: Rishi Iyengar article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-24T05:26:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:56:52.020Z og:title: Here's How Long Teens Should Do Their Homework For og:description: There's an optimum time limit for math and science homework. og:url: https://time.com/3755573/homework-teens-how-much-math-science/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's How Long Teens Should Do Their Homework For twitter:description: There's an optimum time limit for math and science homework. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Is How Long Your Teen Needs to Spend on Homework to Be Better at Math and Science > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. by [Rishi Iyengar](https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/) ## Rishi Iyengar Mar 24, 2015 5:26 AM UTC by [Rishi Iyengar](https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/) ## Rishi Iyengar Mar 24, 2015 5:26 AM UTC How much time to spend on homework has always been a major sticking point between teenagers and their teachers and parents. And many teenagers will agree that spending time on math and science is the worst. But a group of researchers in Spain has arrived at an optimum time that should be spent on that kind of homework — [an hour a day](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150323105249.htm). The researchers, from the University of Oviedo, analyzed the academic performance of 7,725 students for their paper, which was published in the American Psychological Association’s _Journal of Educational Psychology_. The students answered questions on how often they did homework and what the distribution of subjects within that time was, following which they were given a standardized test for math and science performance. “The data suggests that spending 60 minutes a day doing homework is a reasonable and effective time,” said the study’s author Javier Suárez-Álvarez. Suárez-Álvarez and his co-lead author Rubén Fernández-Alonso found that the average amount of homework assigned is about 70 minutes a day, while some teachers raised that duration to 90 to 100 minutes. However, the researchers found that students’ math and science scores decline with a greater amount of homework. “Assigning more than 70 minutes of homework a day does not seem very efficient,” Suárez-Álvarez added. So teens can take heart from the fact that they don’t have to spend more than an hour on math and science homework. As for parents, well, even getting them to spend that much time will be a win. \[[_Science Daily_](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150323105249.htm)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3755573/homework-teens-how-much-math-science/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3755573/homework-teens-how-much-math-science/"},"headline":"This Is How Long Your Teen Needs to Spend on Homework to Be Better at Math and Science","datePublished":"2015-03-24T05:26:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:56:52.020Z","description":"It's not that long, but long enough","url":"https://time.com/3755573/homework-teens-how-much-math-science/","keywords":["Living","Education","study","Science topic","Homework","Math","human behavior"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Rishi Iyengar","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3755573/homework-teens-how-much-math-science/","name":"This Is How Long Your Teen Needs to Spend on Homework to Be Better at Math and Science"}}]}] ```