Why homework? A research question

I hated homework as a kid.
Most people did.  But it's just one of those things you have to do.
Or is it?

The difference between a researcher and a normal person is that the researcher delves deeper into the question.
Why are kids given homework? 

It may have been because my teachers wanted to make our lives hard, but that doesn't really lead us anywhere.  So let's assume they had better reasons.  That could be a good question: survey teachers and interview them to find out why they gave us homework.

Maybe they thought that practice would help us and more practice would help more.  Well, you could do an experiment to find out simply by comparing two groups where one gets homework and the other doesn't and see how they do on tests.

But maybe the question goes deeper.  Maybe the question should be about what kind of homework helps kids learn.  This could be an interesting action research project.

Or maybe we could ask what kind of home environment helps kids learn.  This might be answered by a series of case studies where we visit kids homes to see exactly where, when, with whom and how they study at home.

Research isn't just about quoting sources correctly; it's about seeing a gap in our understanding, or a problem that needs solving and then finding the best way to being the search for answers.