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Stop complaining... homework is good for you!

   Good anytime this week

   On KELLY showlog as ECUHOM

INTRO – Next time your kids balk when you tell them to do their homework, you can back up your arguments with statistical evidence. George Olsen has more.

It was a limited study, but nevertheless an ECU Department of Economics professor says he has some statistical backing for the benefits of homework. Dr. Nick Rupp said he’d heard of anecdotal evidence of the benefits of homework but had never seen it studied scientifically. So he got students in his principles of microeconomics class to agree to be divided into two groups… one required to do homework worth 10 percent of their final grade and the other where homework was optional and tests were 100 percent of the grade. When all was said and done, students who did required homework performed half-a-letter-grade better… and their test averages were higher than their homework averages. Dr. Rupp hopes to do a similar study in a chemistry class to see if the results are replicated. I’m George Olsen.

George Olsen is a 1977 Havelock High School graduate. He received his B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of South Carolina in 1982 where he got his first taste of non-commercial radio working for their student station WUSC. After graduation he worked about five years in commercial radio before coming to work at Public Radio East where he has remained since outside of a nearly 3-year stint as jazz and operations coordinator at WUAL in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the early 1990s. On his return to eastern North Carolina he hosted classical music for Public Radio East before moving into the Morning Edition host position and now can be heard on All Things Considered. He also hosts and produces The Sound, five hours of Americana, Roots Rock and Contemporary Folk weekday evenings on PRE Public Radio East News & Ideas, and is a news and feature producer for Public Radio East.