essay on my teachers during lockdown

Essay on Role of Teachers During Lockdown

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100 Words Essay on Role of Teachers During Lockdown

Introduction.

The Covid-19 pandemic led to worldwide lockdowns, affecting education. Teachers played a key role during this period.

Switching to Digital Education

Teachers quickly adapted to online teaching platforms, ensuring that students didn’t miss out on education. They learned new technologies to deliver lessons effectively.

Maintaining Student Engagement

Teachers used innovative methods to keep students engaged. They organized online quizzes, debates, and interactive sessions.

Providing Emotional Support

Many students faced anxiety due to the pandemic. Teachers provided emotional support, helping students cope with the situation.

The role of teachers during lockdown was pivotal, showing their commitment and adaptability.

250 Words Essay on Role of Teachers During Lockdown

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the education sector, prompting an unprecedented shift to online learning. Teachers have played a pivotal role in this transition, ensuring that learning continues despite the challenges.

Transition to Online Learning

Teachers have had to swiftly adapt to online platforms, creating digital content and conducting virtual classes. They have become not just educators, but also tech-savvy facilitators, troubleshooting technical issues and helping students navigate online learning tools.

Student Engagement and Support

The lockdown has increased the risk of student disengagement. Teachers have taken on the role of mentors, closely monitoring student participation and performance. They have also provided socio-emotional support, recognizing the heightened stress and isolation students may be experiencing.

Collaboration and Innovation

The lockdown has also seen teachers collaborating more than ever, sharing resources and best practices. They have had to innovate, finding creative ways to engage students and simulate classroom dynamics virtually.

The role of teachers during the lockdown has been crucial in ensuring learning continuity. Their adaptability, resilience, and commitment have underpinned the education sector’s response to this crisis. As we navigate this new normal, their role will continue to evolve, shaping the future of education in profound ways.

500 Words Essay on Role of Teachers During Lockdown

The global pandemic has necessitated a massive shift in the way educational institutions operate, with lockdowns forcing a transition to remote learning. This has significantly altered the role of teachers, as they have had to adapt to these unprecedented circumstances and continue to ensure the quality of education for their students.

The Shift to Remote Learning

The first and most obvious change in teachers’ roles during lockdown has been the shift to remote learning. As physical classrooms became inaccessible, teachers had to quickly become versed in various digital platforms to facilitate online learning. This ranged from learning to use video conferencing tools like Zoom or Google Meet, to creating and managing content on Learning Management Systems (LMS). The teachers’ role expanded to include that of a tech-support specialist, helping students and parents navigate the new digital learning landscape.

Adapting Pedagogical Approaches

The shift to online learning also required teachers to rethink their pedagogical approaches. Traditional teaching methods often do not translate well to a digital format, and teachers had to find innovative ways to engage students, maintain their motivation, and ensure they were learning effectively. This involved creating interactive lessons, incorporating multimedia elements, and using formative assessments to gauge student understanding in real-time.

Mental Health Advocacy

The lockdown has brought about a host of mental health challenges for students, including feelings of isolation, anxiety, and stress. As a result, the role of teachers has expanded to include that of a mental health advocate. They have had to ensure that students feel connected and supported, often taking steps to facilitate peer interaction, provide emotional support, and refer students to appropriate mental health resources when necessary.

Building Resilience and Adaptability

The pandemic has underscored the importance of resilience and adaptability, and teachers have played a crucial role in fostering these skills in students. They have led by example, showing students how to navigate uncertainty, adapt to new situations, and remain committed to their learning despite the challenges. Teachers have also had to encourage students to take ownership of their learning, promoting self-directed learning strategies that are crucial in an online learning environment.

In conclusion, the role of teachers during lockdown has been multifaceted and complex, requiring them to adapt to new technologies, pedagogical approaches, and student needs. They have risen to the challenge, ensuring the continuity of education and supporting students’ wellbeing in these trying times. This period has highlighted the significance of teachers not just as providers of education, but as pillars of support and guidance for their students, demonstrating their irreplaceable value in society.

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Why lockdown and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to increase the social class achievement gap

Sébastien Goudeau ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7293-0977 1 ,
Camille Sanrey ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3158-1306 1 ,
Arnaud Stanczak ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2596-1516 2 ,
Antony Manstead ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7540-2096 3 &
Céline Darnon ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2613-689X 2

Nature Human Behaviour volume 5 , pages 1273–1281 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced teachers and parents to quickly adapt to a new educational context: distance learning. Teachers developed online academic material while parents taught the exercises and lessons provided by teachers to their children at home. Considering that the use of digital tools in education has dramatically increased during this crisis, and it is set to continue, there is a pressing need to understand the impact of distance learning. Taking a multidisciplinary view, we argue that by making the learning process rely more than ever on families, rather than on teachers, and by getting students to work predominantly via digital resources, school closures exacerbate social class academic disparities. To address this burning issue, we propose an agenda for future research and outline recommendations to help parents, teachers and policymakers to limit the impact of the lockdown on social-class-based academic inequality.

Large socio-economic, geographic and demographic disparities exist in exposure to school closures

Zachary Parolin & Emma K. Lee

Elementary school teachers’ perspectives about learning during the COVID-19 pandemic

Aymee Alvarez-Rivero, Candice Odgers & Daniel Ansari

Uncovering Covid-19, distance learning, and educational inequality in rural areas of Pakistan and China: a situational analysis method

Samina Zamir & Zhencun Wang

The widespread effects of the COVID-19 pandemic that emerged in 2019–2020 have drastically increased health, social and economic inequalities 1 , 2 . For more than 900 million learners around the world, the pandemic led to the closure of schools and universities 3 . This exceptional situation forced teachers, parents and students to quickly adapt to a new educational context: distance learning. Teachers had to develop online academic materials that could be used at home to ensure educational continuity while ensuring the necessary physical distancing. Primary and secondary school students suddenly had to work with various kinds of support, which were usually provided online by their teachers. For college students, lockdown often entailed returning to their hometowns while staying connected with their teachers and classmates via video conferences, email and other digital tools. Despite the best efforts of educational institutions, parents and teachers to keep all children and students engaged in learning activities, ensuring educational continuity during school closure—something that is difficult for everyone—may pose unique material and psychological challenges for working-class families and students.

Not only did the pandemic lead to the closure of schools in many countries, often for several weeks, it also accelerated the digitalization of education and amplified the role of parental involvement in supporting the schoolwork of their children. Thus, beyond the specific circumstances of the COVID-19 lockdown, we believe that studying the effects of the pandemic on academic inequalities provides a way to more broadly examine the consequences of school closure and related effects (for example, digitalization of education) on social class inequalities. Indeed, bearing in mind that (1) the risk of further pandemics is higher than ever (that is, we are in a ‘pandemic era’ 4 , 5 ) and (2) beyond pandemics, the use of digital tools in education (and therefore the influence of parental involvement) has dramatically increased during this crisis, and is set to continue, there is a pressing need for an integrative and comprehensive model that examines the consequences of distance learning. Here, we propose such an integrative model that helps us to understand the extent to which the school closures associated with the pandemic amplify economic, digital and cultural divides that in turn affect the psychological functioning of parents, students and teachers in a way that amplifies academic inequalities. Bringing together research in social sciences, ranging from economics and sociology to social, cultural, cognitive and educational psychology, we argue that by getting students to work predominantly via digital resources rather than direct interactions with their teachers, and by making the learning process rely more than ever on families rather than teachers, school closures exacerbate social class academic disparities.

First, we review research showing that social class is associated with unequal access to digital tools, unequal familiarity with digital skills and unequal uses of such tools for learning purposes 6 , 7 . We then review research documenting how unequal familiarity with school culture, knowledge and skills can also contribute to the accentuation of academic inequalities 8 , 9 . Next, we present the results of surveys conducted during the 2020 lockdown showing that the quality and quantity of pedagogical support received from schools varied according to the social class of families (for examples, see refs. 10 , 11 , 12 ). We then argue that these digital, cultural and structural divides represent barriers to the ability of parents to provide appropriate support for children during distance learning (Fig. 1 ). These divides also alter the levels of self-efficacy of parents and children, thereby affecting their engagement in learning activities 13 , 14 . In the final section, we review preliminary evidence for the hypothesis that distance learning widens the social class achievement gap and we propose an agenda for future research. In addition, we outline recommendations that should help parents, teachers and policymakers to use social science research to limit the impact of school closure and distance learning on the social class achievement gap.

Economic, structural, digital and cultural divides influence the psychological functioning of parents and students in a way that amplify inequalities.

The digital divide

Unequal access to digital resources.

Although the use of digital technologies is almost ubiquitous in developed nations, there is a digital divide such that some people are more likely than others to be numerically excluded 15 (Fig. 1 ). Social class is a strong predictor of digital disparities, including the quality of hardware, software and Internet access 16 , 17 , 18 . For example, in 2019, in France, around 1 in 5 working-class families did not have personal access to the Internet compared with less than 1 in 20 of the most privileged families 19 . Similarly, in 2020, in the United Kingdom, 20% of children who were eligible for free school meals did not have access to a computer at home compared with 7% of other children 20 . In 2021, in the United States, 41% of working-class families do not own a laptop or desktop computer and 43% do not have broadband compared with 8% and 7%, respectively, of upper/middle-class Americans 21 . A similar digital gap is also evident between lower-income and higher-income countries 22 .

Second, simply having access to a computer and an Internet connection does not ensure effective distance learning. For example, many of the educational resources sent by teachers need to be printed, thereby requiring access to printers. Moreover, distance learning is more difficult in households with only one shared computer compared with those where each family member has their own 23 . Furthermore, upper/middle-class families are more likely to be able to guarantee a suitable workspace for each child than their working-class counterparts 24 .

In the context of school closures, such disparities are likely to have important consequences for educational continuity. In line with this idea, a survey of approximately 4,000 parents in the United Kingdom confirmed that during lockdown, more than half of primary school children from the poorest families did not have access to their own study space and were less well equipped for distance learning than higher-income families 10 . Similarly, a survey of around 1,300 parents in the Netherlands found that during lockdown, children from working-class families had fewer computers at home and less room to study than upper/middle-class children 11 .

Data from non-Western countries highlight a more general digital divide, showing that developing countries have poorer access to digital equipment. For example, in India in 2018, only 10.7% of households possessed a digital device 25 , while in Pakistan in 2020, 31% of higher-education teachers did not have Internet access and 68.4% did not have a laptop 26 . In general, developing countries lack access to digital technologies 27 , 28 , and these difficulties of access are even greater in rural areas (for example, see ref. 29 ). Consequently, school closures have huge repercussions for the continuity of learning in these countries. For example, in India in 2018, only 11% of the rural and 40% of the urban population above 14 years old could use a computer and access the Internet 25 . Time spent on education during school closure decreased by 80% in Bangladesh 30 . A similar trend was observed in other countries 31 , with only 22% of children engaging in remote learning in Kenya 32 and 50% in Burkina Faso 33 . In Ghana, 26–32% of children spent no time at all on learning during the pandemic 34 . Beyond the overall digital divide, social class disparities are also evident in developing countries, with lower access to digital resources among households in which parental educational levels were low (versus households in which parental educational levels were high; for example, see ref. 35 for Nigeria and ref. 31 for Ecuador).

Unequal digital skills

In addition to unequal access to digital tools, there are also systematic variations in digital skills 36 , 37 (Fig. 1 ). Upper/middle-class families are more familiar with digital tools and resources and are therefore more likely to have the digital skills needed for distance learning 38 , 39 , 40 . These digital skills are particularly useful during school closures, both for students and for parents, for organizing, retrieving and correctly using the resources provided by the teachers (for example, sending or receiving documents by email, printing documents or using word processors).

Social class disparities in digital skills can be explained in part by the fact that children from upper/middle-class families have the opportunity to develop digital skills earlier than working-class families 41 . In member countries of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), only 23% of working-class children had started using a computer at the age of 6 years or earlier compared with 43% of upper/middle-class children 42 . Moreover, because working-class people tend to persist less than upper/middle-class people when confronted with digital difficulties 23 , the use of digital tools and resources for distance learning may interfere with the ability of parents to help children with their schoolwork.

Unequal use of digital tools

A third level of digital divide concerns variations in digital tool use 18 , 43 (Fig. 1 ). Upper/middle-class families are more likely to use digital resources for work and education 6 , 41 , 44 , whereas working-class families are more likely to use these resources for entertainment, such as electronic games or social media 6 , 45 . This divide is also observed among students, whereby working-class students tend to use digital technologies for leisure activities, whereas their upper/middle-class peers are more likely to use them for academic activities 46 and to consider that computers and the Internet provide an opportunity for education and training 23 . Furthermore, working-class families appear to regulate the digital practices of their children less 47 and are more likely to allow screens in the bedrooms of children and teenagers without setting limits on times or practices 48 .

In sum, inequalities in terms of digital resources, skills and use have strong implications for distance learning. This is because they make working-class students and parents particularly vulnerable when learning relies on extensive use of digital devices rather than on face-to-face interaction with teachers.

The cultural divide

Even if all three levels of digital divide were closed, upper/middle-class families would still be better prepared than working-class families to ensure educational continuity for their children. Upper/middle-class families are more familiar with the academic knowledge and skills that are expected and valued in educational settings, as well as with the independent, autonomous way of learning that is valued in the school culture and becomes even more important during school closure (Fig. 1 ).

Unequal familiarity with academic knowledge and skills

According to classical social reproduction theory 8 , 49 , school is not a neutral place in which all forms of language and knowledge are equally valued. Academic contexts expect and value culture-specific and taken-for-granted forms of knowledge, skills and ways of being, thinking and speaking that are more in tune with those developed through upper/middle-class socialization (that is, ‘cultural capital’ 8 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ). For instance, academic contexts value interest in the arts, museums and literature 54 , 55 , a type of interest that is more likely to develop through socialization in upper/middle-class families than in working-class socialization 54 , 56 . Indeed, upper/middle-class parents are more likely than working-class parents to engage in activities that develop this cultural capital. For example, they possess more books and cultural objects at home, read more stories to their children and visit museums and libraries more often (for examples, see refs. 51 , 54 , 55 ). Upper/middle-class children are also more involved in extra-curricular activities (for example, playing a musical instrument) than working-class children 55 , 56 , 57 .

Beyond this implicit familiarization with the school curriculum, upper/middle-class parents more often organize educational activities that are explicitly designed to develop academic skills of their children 57 , 58 , 59 . For example, they are more likely to monitor and re-explain lessons or use games and textbooks to develop and reinforce academic skills (for example, labelling numbers, letters or colours 57 , 60 ). Upper/middle-class parents also provide higher levels of support and spend more time helping children with homework than working-class parents (for examples, see refs. 61 , 62 ). Thus, even if all parents are committed to the academic success of their children, working-class parents have fewer chances to provide the help that children need to complete homework 63 , and homework is more beneficial for children from upper-middle class families than for children from working-class families 64 , 65 .

School closures amplify the impact of cultural inequalities

The trends described above have been observed in ‘normal’ times when schools are open. School closures, by making learning rely more strongly on practices implemented at home (rather than at school), are likely to amplify the impact of these disparities. Consistent with this idea, research has shown that the social class achievement gap usually greatly widens during school breaks—a phenomenon described as ‘summer learning loss’ or ‘summer setback’ 66 , 67 , 68 . During holidays, the learning by children tends to decline, and this is particularly pronounced in children from working-class families. Consequently, the social class achievement gap grows more rapidly during the summer months than it does in the rest of the year. This phenomenon is partly explained by the fact that during the break from school, social class disparities in investment in activities that are beneficial for academic achievement (for example, reading, travelling to a foreign country or museum visits) are more pronounced.

Therefore, when they are out of school, children from upper/middle-class backgrounds may continue to develop academic skills unlike their working-class counterparts, who may stagnate or even regress. Research also indicates that learning loss during school breaks tends to be cumulative 66 . Thus, repeated episodes of school closure are likely to have profound consequences for the social class achievement gap. Consistent with the idea that school closures could lead to similar processes as those identified during summer breaks, a recent survey indicated that during the COVID-19 lockdown in the United Kingdom, children from upper/middle-class families spent more time on educational activities (5.8 h per day) than those from working-class families (4.5 h per day) 7 , 69 .

Unequal dispositions for autonomy and self-regulation

School closures have encouraged autonomous work among students. This ‘independent’ way of studying is compatible with the family socialization of upper/middle-class students, but does not match the interdependent norms more commonly associated with working-class contexts 9 . Upper/middle-class contexts tend to promote cultural norms of independence whereby individuals perceive themselves as autonomous actors, independent of other individuals and of the social context, able to pursue their own goals 70 . For example, upper/middle-class parents tend to invite children to express their interests, preferences and opinions during the various activities of everyday life 54 , 55 . Conversely, in working-class contexts characterized by low economic resources and where life is more uncertain, individuals tend to perceive themselves as interdependent, connected to others and members of social groups 53 , 70 , 71 . This interdependent self-construal fits less well with the independent culture of academic contexts. This cultural mismatch between interdependent self-construal common in working-class students and the independent norms of the educational institution has negative consequences for academic performance 9 .

Once again, the impact of these differences is likely to be amplified during school closures, when being able to work alone and autonomously is especially useful. The requirement to work alone is more likely to match the independent self-construal of upper/middle-class students than the interdependent self-construal of working-class students. In the case of working-class students, this mismatch is likely to increase their difficulties in working alone at home. Supporting our argument, recent research has shown that working-class students tend to underachieve in contexts where students work individually compared with contexts where students work with others 72 . Similarly, during school closures, high self-regulation skills (for example, setting goals, selecting appropriate learning strategies and maintaining motivation 73 ) are required to maintain study activities and are likely to be especially useful for using digital resources efficiently. Research has shown that students from working-class backgrounds typically develop their self-regulation skills to a lesser extent than those from upper/middle-class backgrounds 74 , 75 , 76 .

Interestingly, some authors have suggested that independent (versus interdependent) self-construal may also affect communication with teachers 77 . Indeed, in the context of distance learning, working-class families are less likely to respond to the communication of teachers because their ‘interdependent’ self leads them to respect hierarchies, and thus perceive teachers as an expert who ‘can be trusted to make the right decisions for learning’. Upper/middle class families, relying on ‘independent’ self-construal, are more inclined to seek individualized feedback, and therefore tend to participate to a greater extent in exchanges with teachers. Such cultural differences are important because they can also contribute to the difficulties encountered by working-class families.

The structural divide: unequal support from schools

The issues reviewed thus far all increase the vulnerability of children and students from underprivileged backgrounds when schools are closed. To offset these disadvantages, it might be expected that the school should increase its support by providing additional resources for working-class students. However, recent data suggest that differences in the material and human resources invested in providing educational support for children during periods of school closure were—paradoxically—in favour of upper/middle-class students (Fig. 1 ). In England, for example, upper/middle-class parents reported benefiting from online classes and video-conferencing with teachers more often than working-class parents 10 . Furthermore, active help from school (for example, online teaching, private tutoring or chats with teachers) occurred more frequently in the richest households (64% of the richest households declared having received help from school) than in the poorest households (47%). Another survey found that in the United Kingdom, upper/middle-class children were more likely to take online lessons every day (30%) than working-class students (16%) 12 . This substantial difference might be due, at least in part, to the fact that private schools are better equipped in terms of online platforms (60% of schools have at least one online platform) than state schools (37%, and 23% in the most deprived schools) and were more likely to organize daily online lessons. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, in schools with a high proportion of students eligible for free school meals, teachers were less inclined to broadcast an online lesson for their pupils 78 . Interestingly, 58% of teachers in the wealthiest areas reported having messaged their students or their students’ parents during lockdown compared with 47% in the most deprived schools. In addition, the probability of children receiving technical support from the school (for example, by providing pupils with laptops or other devices) is, surprisingly, higher in the most advantaged schools than in the most deprived 78 .

In addition to social class disparities, there has been less support from schools for African-American and Latinx students. During school closures in the United States, 40% of African-American students and 30% of Latinx students received no online teaching compared with 10% of white students 79 . Another source of inequality is that the probability of school closure was correlated with social class and race. In the United States, for example, school closures from September to December 2020 were more common in schools with a high proportion of racial/ethnic minority students, who experience homelessness and are eligible for free/discounted school meals 80 .

Similarly, access to educational resources and support was lower in poorer (compared with richer) countries 81 . In sub-Saharan Africa, during lockdown, 45% of children had no exposure at all to any type of remote learning. Of those who did, the medium was mostly radio, television or paper rather than digital. In African countries, at most 10% of children received some material through the Internet. In Latin America, 90% of children received some remote learning, but less than half of that was through the internet—the remainder being via radio and television 81 . In Ecuador, high-school students from the lowest wealth quartile had fewer remote-learning opportunities, such as Google class/Zoom, than students from the highest wealth quartile 31 .

Thus, the achievement gap and its accentuation during lockdown are due not only to the cultural and digital disadvantages of working-class families but also to unequal support from schools. This inequality in school support is not due to teachers being indifferent to or even supportive of social stratification. Rather, we believe that these effects are fundamentally structural. In many countries, schools located in upper/middle-class neighbourhoods have more money than those in the poorest neighbourhoods. Moreover, upper/middle-class parents invest more in the schools of their children than working-class parents (for example, see ref. 82 ), and schools have an interest in catering more for upper/middle-class families than for working-class families 83 . Additionally, the expectation of teachers may be lower for working-class children 84 . For example, they tend to estimate that working-class students invest less effort in learning than their upper/middle-class counterparts 85 . These differences in perception may have influenced the behaviour of teachers during school closure, such that teachers in privileged neighbourhoods provided more information to students because they expected more from them in term of effort and achievement. The fact that upper/middle-class parents are better able than working-class parents to comply with the expectations of teachers (for examples, see refs. 55 , 86 ) may have reinforced this phenomenon. These discrepancies echo data showing that working-class students tend to request less help in their schoolwork than upper/middle-class ones 87 , and they may even avoid asking for help because they believe that such requests could lead to reprimands 88 . During school closures, these students (and their families) may in consequence have been less likely to ask for help and resources. Jointly, these phenomena have resulted in upper/middle-class families receiving more support from schools during lockdown than their working-class counterparts.

Psychological effects of digital, cultural and structural divides

Despite being strongly influenced by social class, differences in academic achievement are often interpreted by parents, teachers and students as reflecting differences in ability 89 . As a result, upper/middle-class students are usually perceived—and perceive themselves—as smarter than working-class students, who are perceived—and perceive themselves—as less intelligent 90 , 91 , 92 or less able to succeed 93 . Working-class students also worry more about the fact that they might perform more poorly than upper/middle-class students 94 , 95 . These fears influence academic learning in important ways. In particular, they can consume cognitive resources when children and students work on academic tasks 96 , 97 . Self-efficacy also plays a key role in engaging in learning and perseverance in the face of difficulties 13 , 98 . In addition, working-class students are those for whom the fear of being outperformed by others is the most negatively related to academic performance 99 .

The fact that working-class children and students are less familiar with the tasks set by teachers, and less well equipped and supported, makes them more likely to experience feelings of incompetence (Fig. 1 ). Working-class parents are also more likely than their upper/middle-class counterparts to feel unable to help their children with schoolwork. Consistent with this, research has shown that both working-class students and parents have lower feelings of academic self-efficacy than their upper/middle-class counterparts 100 , 101 . These differences have been documented under ‘normal’ conditions but are likely to be exacerbated during distance learning. Recent surveys conducted during the school closures have confirmed that upper/middle-class families felt better able to support their children in distance learning than did working-class families 10 and that upper/middle-class parents helped their children more and felt more capable to do so 11 , 12 .

Pandemic disparity, future directions and recommendations

The research reviewed thus far suggests that children and their families are highly unequal with respect to digital access, skills and use. It also shows that upper/middle-class students are more likely to be supported in their homework (by their parents and teachers) than working-class students, and that upper/middle-class students and parents will probably feel better able than working-class ones to adapt to the context of distance learning. For all these reasons, we anticipate that as a result of school closures, the COVID-19 pandemic will substantially increase the social class achievement gap. Because school closures are a recent occurrence, it is too early to measure with precision their effects on the widening of the achievement gap. However, some recent data are consistent with this idea.

Evidence for a widening gap during the pandemic

Comparing academic achievement in 2020 with previous years provides an early indication of the effects of school closures during the pandemic. In France, for example, first and second graders take national evaluations at the beginning of the school year. Initial comparisons of the results for 2020 with those from previous years revealed that the gap between schools classified as ‘priority schools’ (those in low-income urban areas) and schools in higher-income neighbourhoods—a gap observed every year—was particularly pronounced in 2020 in both French and mathematics 102 .

Similarly, in the Netherlands, national assessments take place twice a year. In 2020, they took place both before and after school closures. A recent analysis compared progress during this period in 2020 in mathematics/arithmetic, spelling and reading comprehension for 7–11-year-old students within the same period in the three previous years 103 . Results indicated a general learning loss in 2020. More importantly, for the 8% of working-class children, the losses were 40% greater than they were for upper/middle-class children.

Similar results were observed in Belgium among students attending the final year of primary school. Compared with students from previous cohorts, students affected by school closures experienced a substantial decrease in their mathematics and language scores, with children from more disadvantaged backgrounds experiencing greater learning losses 104 . Likewise, oral reading assessments in more than 100 school districts in the United States showed that the development of this skill among children in second and third grade significantly slowed between Spring and Autumn 2020, but this slowdown was more pronounced in schools from lower-achieving districts 105 .

It is likely that school closures have also amplified racial disparities in learning and achievement. For example, in the United States, after the first lockdown, students of colour lost the equivalent of 3–5 months of learning, whereas white students were about 1–3 months behind. Moreover, in the Autumn, when some students started to return to classrooms, African-American and Latinx students were more likely to continue distance learning, despite being less likely to have access to the digital tools, Internet access and live contact with teachers 106 .

In some African countries (for example, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Tanzania and Uganda), the COVID-19 crisis has resulted in learning loss ranging from 6 months to more 1 year 107 , and this learning loss appears to be greater for working-class children (that is, those attending no-fee schools) than for upper/middle-class children 108 .

These findings show that school closures have exacerbated achievement gaps linked to social class and ethnicity. However, more research is needed to address the question of whether school closures differentially affect the learning of students from working- and upper/middle-class families.

Future directions

First, to assess the specific and unique impact of school closures on student learning, longitudinal research should compare student achievement at different times of the year, before, during and after school closures, as has been done to document the summer learning loss 66 , 109 . In the coming months, alternating periods of school closure and opening may occur, thereby presenting opportunities to do such research. This would also make it possible to examine whether the gap diminishes a few weeks after children return to in-school learning or whether, conversely, it increases with time because the foundations have not been sufficiently acquired to facilitate further learning 110 .

Second, the mechanisms underlying the increase in social class disparities during school closures should be examined. As discussed above, school closures result in situations for which students are unevenly prepared and supported. It would be appropriate to seek to quantify the contribution of each of the factors that might be responsible for accentuating the social class achievement gap. In particular, distinguishing between factors that are relatively ‘controllable’ (for example, resources made available to pupils) and those that are more difficult to control (for example, the self-efficacy of parents in supporting the schoolwork of their children) is essential to inform public policy and teaching practices.

Third, existing studies are based on general comparisons and very few provide insights into the actual practices that took place in families during school closure and how these practices affected the achievement gap. For example, research has documented that parents from working-class backgrounds are likely to find it more difficult to help their children to complete homework and to provide constructive feedback 63 , 111 , something that could in turn have a negative impact on the continuity of learning of their children. In addition, it seems reasonable to assume that during lockdown, parents from upper/middle-class backgrounds encouraged their children to engage in practices that, even if not explicitly requested by teachers, would be beneficial to learning (for example, creative activities or reading). Identifying the practices that best predict the maintenance or decline of educational achievement during school closures would help identify levers for intervention.

Finally, it would be interesting to investigate teaching practices during school closures. The lockdown in the spring of 2020 was sudden and unexpected. Within a few days, teachers had to find a way to compensate for the school closure, which led to highly variable practices. Some teachers posted schoolwork on platforms, others sent it by email, some set work on a weekly basis while others set it day by day. Some teachers also set up live sessions in large or small groups, providing remote meetings for questions and support. There have also been variations in the type of feedback given to students, notably through the monitoring and correcting of work. Future studies should examine in more detail what practices schools and teachers used to compensate for the school closures and their effects on widening, maintaining or even reducing the gap, as has been done for certain specific literacy programmes 112 as well as specific instruction topics (for example, ecology and evolution 113 ).

Practical recommendations

We are aware of the debate about whether social science research on COVID-19 is suitable for making policy decisions 114 , and we draw attention to the fact that some of our recommendations (Table 1 ) are based on evidence from experiments or interventions carried out pre-COVID while others are more speculative. In any case, we emphasize that these suggestions should be viewed with caution and be tested in future research. Some of our recommendations could be implemented in the event of new school closures, others only when schools re-open. We also acknowledge that while these recommendations are intended for parents and teachers, their implementation largely depends on the adoption of structural policies. Importantly, given all the issues discussed above, we emphasize the importance of prioritizing, wherever possible, in-person learning over remote learning 115 and where this is not possible, of implementing strong policies to support distance learning, especially for disadvantaged families.

Where face-to face teaching is not possible and teachers are responsible for implementing distance learning, it will be important to make them aware of the factors that can exacerbate inequalities during lockdown and to provide them with guidance about practices that would reduce these inequalities. Thus, there is an urgent need for interventions aimed at making teachers aware of the impact of the social class of children and families on the following factors: (1) access to, familiarity with and use of digital devices; (2) familiarity with academic knowledge and skills; and (3) preparedness to work autonomously. Increasing awareness of the material, cultural and psychological barriers that working-class children and families face during lockdown should increase the quality and quantity of the support provided by teachers and thereby positively affect the achievements of working-class students.

In addition to increasing the awareness of teachers of these barriers, teachers should be encouraged to adjust the way they communicate with working-class families due to differences in self-construal compared with upper/middle-class families 77 . For example, questions about family (rather than personal) well-being would be congruent with interdependent self-construals. This should contribute to better communication and help keep a better track of the progress of students during distance learning.

It is also necessary to help teachers to engage in practices that have a chance of reducing inequalities 53 , 116 . Particularly important is that teachers and schools ensure that homework can be done by all children, for example, by setting up organizations that would help children whose parents are not in a position to monitor or assist with the homework of their children. Options include homework help groups and tutoring by teachers after class. When schools are open, the growing tendency to set homework through digital media should be resisted as far as possible given the evidence we have reviewed above. Moreover, previous research has underscored the importance of homework feedback provided by teachers, which is positively related to the amount of homework completed and predictive of academic performance 117 . Where homework is web-based, it has also been shown that feedback on web-based homework enhances the learning of students 118 . It therefore seems reasonable to predict that the social class achievement gap will increase more slowly (or even remain constant or be reversed) in schools that establish individualized monitoring of students, by means of regular calls and feedback on homework, compared with schools where the support provided to pupils is more generic.

Given that learning during lockdown has increasingly taken place in family settings, we believe that interventions involving the family are also likely to be effective 119 , 120 , 121 . Simply providing families with suitable material equipment may be insufficient. Families should be given training in the efficient use of digital technology and pedagogical support. This would increase the self-efficacy of parents and students, with positive consequences for achievement. Ideally, such training would be delivered in person to avoid problems arising from the digital divide. Where this is not possible, individualized online tutoring should be provided. For example, studies conducted during the lockdown in Botswana and Italy have shown that individual online tutoring directly targeting either parents or students in middle school has a positive impact on the achievement of students, particularly for working-class students 122 , 123 .

Interventions targeting families should also address the psychological barriers faced by working-class families and children. Some interventions have already been designed and been shown to be effective in reducing the social class achievement gap, particularly in mathematics and language 124 , 125 , 126 . For example, research showed that an intervention designed to train low-income parents in how to support the mathematical development of their pre-kindergarten children (including classes and access to a library of kits to use at home) increased the quality of support provided by the parents, with a corresponding impact on the development of mathematical knowledge of their children. Such interventions should be particularly beneficial in the context of school closure.

Beyond its impact on academic performance and inequalities, the COVID-19 crisis has shaken the economies of countries around the world, casting millions of families around the world into poverty 127 , 128 , 129 . As noted earlier, there has been a marked increase in economic inequalities, bringing with it all the psychological and social problems that such inequalities create 130 , 131 , especially for people who live in scarcity 132 . The increase in educational inequalities is just one facet of the many difficulties that working-class families will encounter in the coming years, but it is one that could seriously limit the chances of their children escaping from poverty by reducing their opportunities for upward mobility. In this context, it should be a priority to concentrate resources on the most deprived students. A large proportion of the poorest households do not own a computer and do not have personal access to the Internet, which has important consequences for distance learning. During school closures, it is therefore imperative to provide such families with adequate equipment and Internet service, as was done in some countries in spring 2020. Even if the provision of such equipment is not in itself sufficient, it is a necessary condition for ensuring pedagogical continuity during lockdown.

Finally, after prolonged periods of school closure, many students may not have acquired the skills needed to pursue their education. A possible consequence would be an increase in the number of students for whom teachers recommend class repetitions. Class repetitions are contentious. On the one hand, class repetition more frequently affects working-class children and is not efficient in terms of learning improvement 133 . On the other hand, accepting lower standards of academic achievement or even suspending the practice of repeating a class could lead to pupils pursuing their education without mastering the key abilities needed at higher grades. This could create difficulties in subsequent years and, in this sense, be counterproductive. We therefore believe that the most appropriate way to limit the damage of the pandemic would be to help children catch up rather than allowing them to continue without mastering the necessary skills. As is being done in some countries, systematic remedial courses (for example, summer learning programmes) should be organized and financially supported following periods of school closure, with priority given to pupils from working-class families. Such interventions have genuine potential in that research has shown that participation in remedial summer programmes is effective in reducing learning loss during the summer break 134 , 135 , 136 . For example, in one study 137 , 438 students from high-poverty schools were offered a multiyear summer school programme that included various pedagogical and enrichment activities (for example, science investigation and music) and were compared with a ‘no-treatment’ control group. Students who participated in the summer programme progressed more than students in the control group. A meta-analysis 138 of 41 summer learning programmes (that is, classroom- and home-based summer interventions) involving children from kindergarten to grade 8 showed that these programmes had significantly larger benefits for children from working-class families. Although such measures are costly, the cost is small compared to the price of failing to fulfil the academic potential of many students simply because they were not born into upper/middle-class families.

The unprecedented nature of the current pandemic means that we lack strong data on what the school closure period is likely to produce in terms of learning deficits and the reproduction of social inequalities. However, the research discussed in this article suggests that there are good reasons to predict that this period of school closures will accelerate the reproduction of social inequalities in educational achievement.

By making school learning less dependent on teachers and more dependent on families and digital tools and resources, school closures are likely to greatly amplify social class inequalities. At a time when many countries are experiencing second, third or fourth waves of the pandemic, resulting in fresh periods of local or general lockdowns, systematic efforts to test these predictions are urgently needed along with steps to reduce the impact of school closures on the social class achievement gap.

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We thank G. Reis for editing the figure. The writing of this manuscript was supported by grant ANR-19-CE28-0007–PRESCHOOL from the French National Research Agency (S.G.).

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Goudeau, S., Sanrey, C., Stanczak, A. et al. Why lockdown and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to increase the social class achievement gap. Nat Hum Behav 5 , 1273–1281 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01212-7

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Research Article

Student’s experiences with online teaching following COVID-19 lockdown: A mixed methods explorative study

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Nursing and Health Promotion, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Primary and Secondary Teacher Education, Faculty of Education and International Studies, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

Roles Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Kari Almendingen,
Marianne Sandsmark Morseth,
Eli Gjølstad,
Asgeir Brevik,
Christine Tørris

Published: August 31, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378
Reader Comments

The COVID-19 pandemic lead to a sudden shift to online teaching and restricted campus access.

To assess how university students experienced the sudden shift to online teaching after closure of campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Material and methods

Students in Public Health Nutrition answered questionnaires two and 12 weeks (N = 79: response rate 20.3% and 26.6%, respectively) after the lockdown in Norway on 12 March 2020 and participated in digital focus group interviews in May 2020 (mixed methods study).

Findings and discussion

Two weeks into the lockdown, 75% of students reported that their life had become more difficult and 50% felt that learning outcomes would be harder to achieve due to the sudden shift to online education. Twelve weeks into the lockdown, the corresponding numbers were 57% and 71%, respectively. The most pressing concerns among students were a lack of social interaction, housing situations that were unfit for home office purposes, including insufficient data bandwidth, and an overall sense of reduced motivation and effort. The students collaborated well in digital groups but wanted smaller groups with students they knew rather than being randomly assigned to groups. Most students agreed that pre-recorded and streamed lectures, frequent virtual meetings and student response systems could improve learning outcomes in future digital courses. The preference for written home exams over online versions of previous on-campus exams was likely influenced by student’s familiarity with the former. The dropout rate remained unchanged compared to previous years.

The sudden shift to digital teaching was challenging for students, but it appears that they adapted quickly to the new situation. A lthough the concerns described by students in this study may only be representative for the period right after campus lockdown, the study provide the student perspective on a unique period of time in higher education.

Citation: Almendingen K, Morseth MS, Gjølstad E, Brevik A, Tørris C (2021) Student’s experiences with online teaching following COVID-19 lockdown: A mixed methods explorative study. PLoS ONE 16(8): e0250378. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378

Editor: Mohammed Saqr, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SWEDEN

Received: September 30, 2020; Accepted: April 6, 2021; Published: August 31, 2021

Copyright: © 2021 Almendingen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused extraordinary challenges in the global education sector [ 1 , 2 ]. Most countries temporarily closed educational institutions in an attempt to contain the spread of the virus and reduce infections [ 3 ]. In Norway, the move to online teaching and learning methods accelerated as a consequence of the physical closure of universities and university colleges on 12 March 2020 [ 4 ]. Education is better implemented through active, student-centered learning strategies, as opposed to traditional educator-centered pedagogies [ 5 , 6 ]. At the time of the COVID-19 outbreak, the decision to boost the use of active student-centered learning methods and digitalisation had already been made at both the governmental and institutional levels [ 7 , 8 ] because student-active learning (such as use of student response systems and flipping the classroom) increase motivation and improve learning outcomes [ 5 , 7 , 9 ]. However, the implementation of this insight was lagging behind. Traditional educator-centered pedagogies dominated higher education in Norway prior to the lockdown, and only 30% of academic teachers from higher institutions reported having any previous experience with online teaching [ 4 ]. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, most educators had to change their approaches to most aspects of their work overnight: teaching, assessment, supervision, research, service and engagement [ 4 , 10 ].

Bachelor’s and master’s in Public Health Nutrition (PHN) represents two small-sized programmes at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet). PHN is defined as ‘the application of nutrition and public health principles to design programs, systems, policies, and environments that aims to improve or maintain the optimal health of populations and targeted groups’ [ 11 , 12 ]. Traditional teaching methods dominated on both programs during winter 2020. Following the lockdown, online learning for the continuation of academic activities and the prevention of dropouts from study programmes in higher education were given the highest priority. Due to an extraordinary effort by both the administrative and academic staff, digital alternatives to the scheduled on-campus academic activities were offered to PHN students already in the first week following lockdown. The scheduled on-campus lectures were mainly offered as live-streamed plenary lectures lasting 30–45 minutes, mainly using the video conferencing tool Zoom. Throughout the spring semester educators received training in digital teaching from the institution and increasingly made use of online student response systems (such as Padlet and Mentimeter) as well as tools to facilitate digital group-work (Zoom/Microsoft Teams). Non-theoretical lectures (e.g. cooking classes), were cancelled, and face-to-face exams were re-organized into digital alternatives in order to ensure normal teaching operations. Several small tweaks were employed to minimize dropout. There was no time for coordinating the different courses with regards to the types of online teaching activities, exams and assessments. Social media, i.e Facebook, and SMS were the primary communication channels the first week after lockdown. The use of learning management systems (LMS) Canvas and digital assessment system, Inspera, remained mainly unchanged. Due to the new situation, the deadline for the submission of bachelor theses was postponed by 48 hours. In addition, bachelor students submitting their thesis where given permission to use the submission deadline for the deferred exam in August as their ordinary exam deadline. The deadline for the submission of master theses was extended by one week, but all planned master exams were completed by the end of June, including oral examinations using Zoom instead of the traditional face-to-face examinations on campus. Even though most of the new online activities where put in place with limited regard for subtle nuances of pedagogical theory, and did not allow for much student involvement, the dropout rate from PHN programs remained unchanged compared to previous years. PHN is a small-sized education with close follow up of students. However, although the students experienced a digital revolution overnight, we know little about how they experienced the situation after the university closed for on-campus activities.

Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to assess how Norwegian PHN students experienced the shift to digital teaching following campus lockdown. Students were also asked to provide feedback on what might improve the learning outcomes in future online lectures and courses.

Design and sampling

This study utilised a mixed methods cross-sectional design, where quantitative and qualitative methods complemented each other. An invitation to participate was sent out to 79 eligible students via multiple channels (Facebook, Teams, Zoom, LMS Canvas, SMS), with several reminders. The only eligibility criteria was being a student in PHN during spring 2020. All students received the quantitative survey. Due to few students eligible for each focus group interview, all who wanted to participate were interviewed/included. The invited students were in their second-year (n = 17) and third-year (n = 28) bachelor’s and first-year (n = 13) and second-year (n = 21) master’s programme at PHN in the Faculty of Health Sciences at OsloMet. The response rate was 16/79 (20.3%) and 21/79 (26.6%). Two focus group interviews were scheduled in each class (a total of 8) but only 4 interviews were conducted. The research team was heterogeneously composed of members with both pedagogical and health professional backgrounds.

Online questionnaire

To the best of our knowledge, this study was the first “corona” study at our Faculty. No suitable national or international questionnaire had been developed and /or validated by March 2020. Hence, online questionnaires for the present study were designed virtually ‘over-night’. The questions were however based on experiences from a large-scale interprofessional learning course using the blended learning approach at OsloMet [ 13 , 14 ] and specific experiences that academic staff in Norway reported during the first week of teaching during the lockdown [ 4 ]. The questionnaires were based on an anonymous self-administrated web survey ‘Nettskjema’ [ 15 ]. ‘Nettskjema’ is a Norwegian tool for designing and conducting online surveys with features that are customised for research purposes. It is easy to use, and the respondents can submit answers from a browser on a computer, mobile phone or tablet. During the first week after lockdown, the questionnaire was sent out to university colleagues and head of studies and revised accordingly. The questionnaires were deliberately kept short because the response rate is generally low in student surveys [ 16 ]. Ideally, we should have pretested and validated the questionnaires, but this was not possible within the short-time frame after lockdown. Items were measured on a five-level ordinal scale (Likert scale 0–5). The two forms contained both numerical and open questions, permitting both quantitative and qualitative analyses. The first questionnaire was sent out to the students on 25 March 2020 (two weeks after the closure of university campus; students were asked to submit their answers during the period from 12 March until the link was closed at Easter Holiday), and the second questionnaire was sent on 3 June 2020 (12 weeks after closure; students were asked to submit their answers during the period after Easter and until the end of the spring semester). The questionnaires were distributed as web links embedded in the LMS Canvas application. Because live-streamed lectures were offered primarily through Zoom during the first weeks, students were not asked about interactive digital teaching and tools in the first questionnaire. At the end of both questionnaires, the students were asked what they believed could improve the learning experience in future online education. The qualitative part consisted of text answers to open questions from the two electronic questionnaires.

Digital focus group interview

To capture meaningful insights into the participants experiences, we conducted digital focus group interviews [ 17 ], aiming to conduct one digital focus group interview in each class. PHN is a small sized education, and the teachers know all the students. The focus group interviews were therefore performed by two external independent researchers (EG and CT) who are not directly involved in the PHN education and had no prior knowledge to the students. The two interviewers (moderators) were middle-aged female teachers working in the university, and both have significant experience in digitalizing education. They were presented to the participants as researchers from the university. The report of this study was guided by the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ). The interviews were conducted via the video conferencing system Zoom during May 2020, following internal guidelines [ 18 ]. In the focus group interviews, the participants reflected on their own experiences, and the moderator guided the discussion using a semi-structured interview guide. This guide was prepared based on the research questions. One pilot interview was conducted, which resulted in some minor changes to the interview guide. The results from the pilot interview are not included in the results. The focus group interviews lasted for approximately one hour, and five students were invited to each focus group interview. The interviews were not recorded, but the moderator took notes, ensuring that the participants remained anonymised.

Data analysis

Quantitative data are described descriptively with numbers and percentages. Apart from re-categorization of response categories, no statistical analysis was performed. Quantitative data were extracted directly from the survey system. Answers in categories 0 or 1 were categorised as ‘Disagree/slightly agree’, answers in categories 2 or 3 were categorised as ‘Somewhat agree’ and answers in categories 4 or 5 were categorised as ‘Agree’. Qualitative data were analysed using systematic text condensation (STC), inspired by Giorgi’s phenomenological approach and modified by Malterud [ 17 ]. First, the entire texts (from the interviews) were read to get an overall impression, and preliminary themes were derived from the interviews. Then, meaning units, such as sentences and words, were identified and connected with the preliminary theme to elucidate the study question. The meaning units were then coded and systemized into groups, so that meaning could be abstracted from the different code groups. Finally, the meanings of the various units were summarised. The qualitative data from the questionnaire were then extracted by the moderators, and the words and sentences were identified and abstracted. In order to ensure quality, the notes from the focus group interviews and the text answers from the questionnaires were reviewed by both moderators.

Ethical considerations

All participants gave their informed consent. The questionnaires did not include questions about personal health information or sensitive data. The quantitative data were collected through an anonymous web survey using ‘Nettskjema’ [ 15 ]. Internal routines at OsloMet for using Zoom in research interviews were applied [ 18 ]. In the interviews, the participants provided their written consent in the chat without their names and remained anonymous. The data protection was approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (NSD, reference no. 846363), as PHN is a small-sized study programme and because Zoom was used for the digital focus group interviews.

Quantitative data

There were 16 (20.3%) and 21 (26.6%) students who answered the questionnaires two and 12 weeks after lockdown, respectively ( Table 1 ). Both samples had an even distribution of bachelor and master students.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t001

Among the respondents two and 12 weeks after lockdown, 7/16 students (44%) and 9/21 students (43%) reported having previous experience with online learning, respectively ( Table 1 ). After two weeks of forced online education, 8/16 students (50%) expected that their learning outcomes would be inferior with online education compared to their pre-COVID-19 education at campus. After 12 weeks, 15/ 21 students (71%) expected that their learning outcome would be lower, and, notably, none of the students expected that it would be higher. On both occasions, most students reported that studying had become more difficult compared to the time before the pandemic.

Several of the identified challenges with online education were reported by more than 50% of the students, and there was an uneven spread across categories of answers (Tables 2 and 3 ). Only one of 16 students (6%) agreed that they needed to increase their digital competence, but approximately half reported having technical challenges at home. All of the students agreed that the lack of contact with other students was a challenge. However, after 12 weeks, the lack of contact with academic staff seemed to pose less of a challenge.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t002

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t003

After 12 weeks, 20/21 students (95%) agreed that their motivation and effort had been reduced. At the same time, all students wanted to return to campus. Only 5/21 (24%) reported that their learning outcomes had not deteriorated.

Suggestions for how to increase learning outcome in future digital courses

Two weeks after lockdown, most students answered that the use of different components of online education would improve the learning outcomes in a future online course ( Table 4 ). Regarding participation in digital group work, there was a nearly even spread across the different categories of answers. Finally, participants preferred written home exams and feedback over the digital options suggested ( Table 5 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t004

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t005

After 12 weeks of (forced) online teaching, more ambivalence toward the use of digital learning tools could be detected ( Table 6 ). However, the proportion of students who agreed that digital group work would increase the learning outcomes seemed unchanged (around 1/3 of both samples). In line with the findings obtained only two weeks after lockdown, written submissions and feedback seemed to be preferable to digital exam options ( Table 7 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t006

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t007

After 12 weeks, 16/21 students (76%) agreed that social interaction plays a role in learning outcomes and well-being ( Table 8 ), and an equal proportion agreed that it was important that everyone had their camera on during teaching.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.t008

There were 15/21 students (71%) who agreed that their digital competence and interest in digital teaching methods had increased while 6/21 students (29%) disagreed with this statement.

Qualitative data

In total, there were four master students who participated in digital focus group interviews (on two different occasions, with three students and one student in the groups, respectively).

Digital lectures.

The students were satisfied with the teaching and reported that the lecturers were competent in arranging online teaching. The lecturers were also good at adapting to the students’ wishes regarding teaching. Lectures that were streamed live (synchronous classes) were preferred over recordings (asynchronous). One student said it was a privilege to still be able to study even though the university campus was closed due to corona and all the lectures were digital. The students expressed that it is an advantage if the lecturer has digital competence to ensure that the lecture runs smoothly without digital/technical problems, or if there is a co-host who can assist. Technical competence is also important when invitation links are sent out. It signals that the student group is well taken care of. The informants described a course co-ordinator as a person with a good overview and sense of responsibility—someone who is good at structure and order. These qualities were highlighted as important in a fully digitalised teaching program.

The students did not support compulsory attendance, as it would reduce the feeling of freedom that most students value. If learning activities were compulsory, students felt it might also present challenges in dealing with their children and part-time work. The students expressed that most of their fellow students were present in lectures that went live on Zoom. One student stated that live digital lectures were best because it was easier to ask questions. When using a flipped classroom or recordings, the questions must be written down and asked afterwards, but both options (flipped classroom and live streaming) were perceived as fine.

Interestingly, the qualitative results from the questionnaire indicated that some students found it easy to ask questions, while others thought it had become more difficult. According to one student, ‘As long as we have the opportunity to ask questions online, I think it will go just fine. I commute three hours per school day to get to and from school, so I feel I have more time to work with school now that the lecture is online’.

One of the informants thought that interaction was challenging, and it did not feel as natural to ask questions in online classes. ‘Raising your hand’ was not perceived to be as easy as in the face-to-face setting on campus, which could mean that the students did not always get answers to their questions.

The students’ indicated that recorded lectures should not be longer than one hour, as it is easy to lose focus, and one must rewind the recordings. For live online lectures, two hours was deemed fine, and they were perceived as fun to watch. However, each session of the live online lectures should not be longer than 45 minutes.

The online teaching (mainly in the form of synchronous plenum lectures originally intended as on-campus lectures) was challenging in the beginning because some students fell out of the digital rooms due to technical reasons, but it got better over time. Some students experienced poor bandwidth, which led to them not being able to turn on their camera and reduced sound quality. One student stated that poor internet quality was something he could not do anything about, but it resulted in a non-optimal learning situation. It was suggested that using a flipped classroom/recorded lectures in the first weeks after lockdown could have solved this problem.

The respondents pointed out that the use of several conference systems/channels in addition to LMS Canvas provided a poor overview and ineffective communication, and they would prefer a single learning platform. The students were unsure how to contact their teachers in the first weeks after lockdown due to the use of several platforms. Even with a single contact channel (LMS), the students found that the threshold barrier for sending questions to the teacher through email was high.

When asked what they thought about ‘black screens’ (students turning off the camera), several answered that this reduced the quality of communication between the lecturer and student. The lecturer missed affirmative nods from students, and the students also likely missed parts of the communication when the camera was turned off. In some of the lectures, all of the students were encouraged to keep the camera on, and some of the lecturers asked the students questions to initiate two-way communication. The students expressed that it was nice to see the other attending students on video. Furthermore, the participants felt that the lecturers mainly engaged the students who had their camera on. However, several students said that they turned off their cameras during the lectures because the session was being recorded. Another stated that having the camera on was particularly useful when having discussions in digital groups. The students who participated in the survey wished for more recorded lectures, indicating that their lecturers did not do this often.

One of the informants assumed that she would have turned off the camera when recording the lecture, and she thought she had not contributed much. She would have to consider whether a question was ‘stupid’ before asking it, and probably she had not asked any questions at all. She thought this was due to habit, and she indicated that one might get used to being recorded. That is, if recording had been the norm and she had become accustomed to it, it would have been easier to relate to.

All of the informants agreed that presentations with audio were useful, as the material could be repeated by rewinding to the desired location. They also reported that it sometimes took a while for the teachers to post such files, even though the students found these learning resources very useful.

They noticed an increased attendance rate among their peers in the online lectures, which they perceived as positive. The reason for the increased attendance, they believed, was that many students have to make a long trip to attend class, and the threshold for participating had become lower now that all teaching was online. This was supported by the qualitative results from the questionnaire, where a student said, ‘I commute several hours per school day to get to and from school, so I feel I have more time to work with school now that the lecture is online’.

However, one of the informants pointed out that it is important for students to be able to talk to each other when the lecturer is not present, that group activities should be arranged and that they should be provided with opportunities for voluntary meetings on campus in their spare time. One of the informants believed it to be important that the students themselves have a responsibility to address the learning environment and initiate meetings in both academic and social arenas. One felt that it was not desirable that the university was responsible for social contact between peers. It was suggested that time could be set aside, for example, after teaching, so that only students could talk together. It was expressed that in order to preserve social aspects in digital teaching and learning, the first meeting should be on campus. A mentor scheme was suggested, where former students could give tips and advice on how to function as a ‘digital student’.

Digital group work.

The students expressed that they mainly collaborated well in digital groups (breakout rooms). Communication usually worked well with both the teacher and peers in these digital rooms. Nevertheless, some students reported that group work was not effective when it was carried out in ‘breakout rooms’. The students felt that the allocated time for group work was too short for collaboration, and some of the time was spent on technical challenges. There were also some students who withdrew from the group work, which the respondents believed was because some were shy. One student said that discussions during group work paid off and that communication worked well, but it was a pity that so few students participated. Getting to know the others in the group well was also deemed to be important for the level of collaboration and professional discussions. The students did not like to be randomly assigned into groups. However, they expressed that it would be advantageous to plan for more group work in smaller groups.

Another positive effect of online teaching the students highlighted was the increased amount of written feedback from lecturers on work submitted voluntarily. The students perceived that this was offered as a compensation for shorter teaching sessions.

One of the respondents thought that it was important to socially interact with peers and missed having lunch with fellow students. Others felt that there had not been many social gatherings in the group previously, and so they did not experience the absence of fellow students as a great loss. They also pointed out that students who had met each other physically at an earlier time had a different starting point in online meetings and for online education. One student stated, ‘Getting to know new peers digitally feels weird’. Furthermore, one of the informants pointed out that most people have a general need for physical contact, and that touching and eye-to-eye contact is important.

Motivation.

Some of the students were more motivated to participate in online learning activities, yet it was perceived to require greater effort to stay motivated and ‘in the course’. Some students work alongside their studies and thus do not attend classes, and others have children who must be tended to. Some indicated that student response systems such as Mentimeter, Quizlet, Padlet, Kahoot! and the use of polls was motivating factors, but it depended on the context in which they were used. Some of the students reported that they especially liked Kahoot, but it was important that the use of such response systems was done in a structured way. They expressed that they liked the teaching programme, which consisted of an introductory video and teaching in which the basics were presented, followed by group work and finally teaching, where the teacher went more in depth. This approach made it easier to follow the teaching and to ask questions.

The students said it was good for motivation when an overview of the course content was published, as it contributed to predictability and more people participate when they know what is planned.

Nevertheless, the qualitative results from the questionnaire indicated that it was difficult to get an overview of everything that needed to be done. It could be challenging to concentrate and have self-discipline due to many distractions, which reduced the students’ motivation. Several students expressed that they felt alone in their studies, and it was difficult to feel alone with the responsibility for learning the curriculum. One student wrote that there was considerable uncertainty, which negatively affected concentration, and that the COVID-19 crises was a difficult time for everyone.

Overall, these students were satisfied with the ad hoc online teaching after the lockdown, although they experienced self-perceived reduced learning outcomes compared to the pre-pandemic situation. It appears that they adapted quickly to the new situation, but they also reported difficulties with the transition to new teaching methods. Based on both the surveys and interviews, the most pressing concerns among students were a lack of social interaction, housing situations that were unsuitable for home office purposes, including insufficient data bandwidth, and a sense of reduced motivation and effort. PHN is a small sized education which enables close contact between educators and students. The low student volume might explain why the dropout rate from the bachelor and master programs remained unchanged compared to that in previous years.

Receiving teaching, supervision, exams and assessments solely through online solutions was a new experience for these students. Apart from a 15-credit mandatory bachelor course offered as hybrid learning (7), traditional teaching methods still dominated the bachelor and master study programmes of PHN in winter 2020. Importantly, the students evaluated the ad hoc solutions offered during the chaotic spring of 2020 rather than a well-planned, high-quality online education using student-active methods [ 5 ]. Teachers switched to online teaching without any time to learn the technology, or standard quality online teaching practices [ 4 ]. They had many years of experience teaching in -person, and they had arranged their lessons and interactive elements around this mode of learning. Alternatively, they had very little experience teaching online. The students’ experiences in these online learning environments, which were thrown together at the last minute, are not necessarily indicative of students’ experiences in a quality online course based on principles from Quality Matters online education [ 19 ].

Although the students reported reduced learning outcomes after 12 weeks dominated by synchronous live-streamed lectures lasting for 30–45 minutes on Zoom, they had positive attitudes toward use of digital learning materials and tools in future online courses. For asynchronous lectures, the rule of thumb in online education is less than 10–15 minutes [ 19 ]. Although lectures of 45 minute duration is far beyond what is recommended for digital teaching [ 19 ], the students responded based on their recent experiences where many teachers, for reasons of feasibility, conducted their planned on-campus lectures digitally shortly after lockdown. Some of the students also reported that they especially liked Kahoot, however, since we wanted to keep the research questionnaire short, we did not ask more in detail for concrete digital tools. A pre-corona study from OsloMet reported that physiotherapy students’ attitudes toward a flipped classroom intervention were mainly positive, although the academic outcomes from the final exam were similar to those in previous years [ 20 ]. Further, in a recent large-scale pre-COVID-19 blended learning interprofessional course conducted a few weeks ahead of the lockdown, first-year bachelor’s students at OsloMet reported positive perceptions of the blended learning approach, using only short video clips (less than 10 minutes) [ 21 ]. Approximately 3/4 of the students in that study disagreed that virtual group discussions resulted in better learning outcomes than face-to-face group discussions. The present data do not conflict with the findings from that larger-scale study.

The students expressed in various ways that online teaching with a lack of social interaction leads to worse learning outcomes and lower levels of motivation and well-being. Concerns about lack of face-to-face contact may have been aggravated by the stressful situation, and contentment with teaching methods would likely improve if teachers had been able to integrate the appropriate elements in a fully digitalized course. Face-to-face interactions provide the foundation for social communication, the lack of which can be viewed as a critical disadvantage of online learning [ 5 ]. Face-to-face training may be particular crucial for candidates expected to have communication skills, such as nutritionists [ 11 , 12 , 22 – 24 ]. The ad hoc solutions for teaching offered during the 2020 spring term were thus not in agreement with the suggested conceptual dimensions, which allow students to expand their knowledge beyond the intended learning outcome established by the teacher: motivation and attention [ 5 ].

The students expressed concerns that are common in traditional in‐class teaching as well, and such issues should not be overlooked in online teaching [ 25 , 26 ]: insufficient pre‐class study preparation, limited participation and inadequate depth in class discussions. Quality of education lies in the knowledge, skills and expertise that are conveyed as well as in the manner in which they are communicated and learned [ 7 , 26 ]. In different ways, the students’ responses revolved around central quality aspects, such as learning objectives, content, programme design, adaptation, teaching, work methods, supervision and forms of assessment [ 7 ]. These findings are in agreement with other studies on COVID‐19 and education [ 4 , 25 , 27 ].

The students stated that they received insufficient information about the exams. This is understandable because staff initially did not know how the different exams would be digitally transformed in spring term 2020. Asked about exam preferences students said that they preferred longer written exams at home, over old campus-style exams, with short timelines, adapted to an online format. They also preferred multi-day written home exams over potential alternatives such as video or podcasts, which none of them had tried before. It should be noted that they had limited experience with digital options. Student-produced podcast and video have been used as formative assessment forms at our university [ 14 ], but to lesser extent as formative assessment forms. The preference for written home exams over digital options was thus likely influenced by student’s familiarity with the former since no exams during this time-period were in the form of podcast or video. Feedback and guidance from academic staff have been found to be key aspects of study quality, and good feedback contributes to increased motivation and improved learning outcomes (6). Exam uncertainty causes undue stress, and thus a key recommendation during the transition to online learning is to ensure that all information about exams is communicated to the students clearly and in a timely manner [ 27 ].

‘Black screens’ do not necessarily reflect individuals lack of motivation and attention or embarrassment, but they may reflect a lack of digital training among freshmen or technical issues, such as poor bandwidth. Broadband bandwidth overload issues and a lack of suitable equipment will probably not be significant problems in Norway in the future. The students suggested that both flipped classrooms and live streaming should be used in future online courses. Flipping the classroom [ 9 ] ahead of live streaming, with the possibility for the students to write down questions during the live streaming or afterward in a seminar, increases flexibility. Asynchronous tools may be utilised to support students to work at different times. We cannot overlook the possibility that new students might have needs that differ from those of senior students in terms of getting accustomed to online education. Nevertheless, our date indicates that clarification of expectations constitutes an important success criteria for online teaching, especially when it comes to group work and formative and summative assessment [ 4 , 27 ].

The closure of campus may have unknown implications for society in both the short and long term [ 28 – 30 ], including impacts on educational quality and the mental health of students and academic staff [ 31 ]. If students are unable to study effectively for some unknown reason, it will make online learning ineffective, regardless of educational quality. The situation after the lockdown in Norway was confusing, and many students lost their jobs and moved back in with their parents [ 4 ]. We did not collect person-sensitive data, and thus we know little about these students’ circumstances. The dropout rate remained nearly unchanged among these students as compared to previous years. Being a small-sized education, the staff were able to follow-up each student individually using digital videoconference tools, such as Zoom and Teams. In the future, more sustainable approaches should be developed, for example, by increasing peer-to-peer interactions and through mentoring programs [ 1 ]. Reducing dropout and increasing completion rates was a strategic goal for higher education before the lockdown [ 29 ], and we do not know the impact of the lockdown on future dropout and completion rates. The high dropout rate from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has been a major concern of researchers and educators over the years [ 32 ]. Although some universities worldwide had already started offering MOOC-based undergraduate degrees before the COVID-19 pandemic [ 32 ], most MOOCs do not lead to degrees. The online courses offered in spring 2020 after the lockdown were mandatory courses leading to degrees, and thus they were not directly comparable to the voluntary MOOCs. However, such issues are premature for consideration in the present study. OsloMet is currently participating both in the future ‘The COVID-19 Multi-Country Student Well-being Study’[ 33 ] and the ‘Corona and Campus’ study [ 34 ]. The ‘Corona and Campus’ study has secondary outcomes related to teaching satisfaction and learning outcomes, and such data will have the power to inform future decision-making [ 30 ]. However, the present data were collected shortly after the national lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic on aspects of digitalisation relevant to the (post)-pandemic situation.

Strengths and weaknesses of the study

This study has several strengths. The most important strength is data collection shortly after a national lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The combined use of both quantitative and qualitative approaches enabled different perspectives to be captured and adds strength to the study. The triangulation allowed us to identify aspects more accurately and helped to offset the weaknesses of each approach alone. Group dynamics in focus group interviews can help bring out nuances in the data material beyond the answers to the predefined quantitative questions in the electronic questionnaires [ 17 ]. Another strength was the research team consisting of both external moderators providing objectivity, lack of vested interest and a fresh perspective, and internal evaluators who were familiar with the education and the students. One limitation is using a questionnaire which was not pre-tested or validated. However, due to time constraints shortly after campus lockdown following the COVID-19 outbreak, it was not possible to perform pre-testing or validation of the instruments used in the present study. Many of the necessary ad hoc changes to the course plans and exams (spring semester 2020) had yet to be made and decided upon when the present study was initiated, even when the first questionnaire was sent out before Easter 2020. The candidates actual achieved learning outcomes and working skills are unknown due to limited opportunities to monitor the quality of their work [ 4 ]. We do not consider it to be relevant to repeat the study, or reuse its instruments, since the acute phase after lockdown is over. PHN is a small-sized education, and the total number of students were only 79 individuals. The stress associated with the unprecedented situation may have contributed to a low response rate. Private circumstances such as poor internet connection, children at home, and lack of an adequate home office may also have contributed to a low response rate. A low response rate is also a limitation in studies performed in a normal situation [ 16 ]. We cannot rule out selection bias in the sample. The students who volunteered for the digital focus group interviews were positive and thorough. In particular, they seemed to reflect on a more general level, not restricted to their own personal situations. However, the range in age among the study participants was representative for the age range of all PHN students, and both bachelor and master students participated in the study. Data are collected from one single university, and the results might not be representative for large sized educations. Since the study is exploratory, we had not planned the data collection in order to test hypotheses. The study seeks to provide a snapshot in time of an evolving situation. Even with some limiting factors we believe the explorative study offers value since it provides a student perspective on an unprecedented black-swan event in higher education.

Conclusions

Although they had little previous experience with online education, these students seemed to adapt quickly to the sudden shift to ad hoc online education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The most pressing concerns among students were a lack of social interaction, a feeling of being alone in their studies, unfit housing situations for home office purposes, including insufficient data bandwidth, and a sense of reduced motivation and effort. Although our data indicate that face-to-face contact was greatly missed during this time-period, a thoroughly planned online course with numerous contact points between teachers and students would likely have been received more favorably. Finally, the students expressed that they wanted more structure in future digital courses. Due to the very unusual circumstances experienced both by students and teachers in the early stages of national lockdown in Norway, we are hesitant to conclude with regards to students preferences for future online courses.

Supporting information

S1 file. spss file questionnaire 1—please see line 154..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.s001

S2 File. SPSS file Norwegian questionnaire 1—please see line 154.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.s002

S3 File. SPSS file questionnaire 2—please see line 154.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.s003

S4 File. SPSS file Norwegian questionnaire 2—please see line 154.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.s004

S5 File. Structured interview guide–please see line 145.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250378.s005

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the participating students and the academic and administrative staff at Oslo Metropolitan University for their contributions.

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Blog Teaching

https://teaching.blog.gov.uk/2020/06/02/life-as-a-teacher-during-lockdown/

Life as a teacher during lockdown

Images of Addison Brown's life as a teacher and with family

Addison Brown, science teacher at Bedford High School in Leigh, shares his experience of juggling family life with the pressures of being a teacher during lockdown.

Like every teacher in the country my job has changed drastically over the past couple of months. Standing in front of 30 children to share my passion for science every day is what I love most about teaching. Dealing with not being able to do that has been a massive adjustment.

But, like everyone, I’ve got used to a ‘new normal’. I am at home with my 9-month-old son, Stevie, while my wife, an urgent care nurse, has gone back to work after maternity leave. It’s been amazing to spend so much more time with my son. At the same time, it has been hard to keep a family going while balancing the pressures of work.

Working from home I have to fit my job around my family - I try and find time to work whenever I can, while my son is napping or when my wife is back from her shifts. But my colleagues understand the difficulties of childcare and so they have been really great in helping me out during this time. I’m very grateful to have their support.

What I’ve really missed is talking to and interacting with the kids when I’m teaching. When you’re doing everything online during lockdown, it’s easy to forget that I’m doing a job that I enjoy so much. So when I’ve had the odd day in school it’s felt great to be back there with the children of key workers. Seeing them all reminds me how grateful and lucky I am to do a job that I love doing!

I’ve learnt a lot from all the ups and downs of this unusual time. Although there have been many challenges, there has also been a huge amount of positivity that has come out. For example, the appreciation for teachers and the way communities have come together. Now I’m really looking forward to going back to school and getting back into the classroom. But I hope we’ll all look back and take something from this time, which will shape the way we live our lives so that we all feel more grateful for what we have and what we do.

A week in the life of a teacher

I shared a glimpse of what life is like as a teacher during these unusual times by posting a video on the Department for Education’s Instagram page every day for a week. If you missed it, you can watch the combined compilation video below:

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Comment by Hanane posted on 02 June 2020

We all learnt from this unusual situation Addison! Teachers been our heroes as well. Keep sending work to children, feedbacks, offering help. it’s amazing!! . I Was struggling in the beginning as I’m a trainee teacher having two children. Big thanks to them and to all the teachers around the country for their superb help and support.

Comment by Mark Stevens posted on 18 June 2020

With my school closing due to COVID 19 I was landed with the task of no work as PPA cover as a Music specialist- so I have spent the last 13 weeks as a Home schooler with my 13 and 9 year old. I abandoned the idea of trying to recreate the school day as it didn’t really work. My children completed online lessons in the morning then I took over in the afternoon - my own designed lessons consisted of studying historical figures such as George Washington and Churchill , SPAG studies , got them to write reviews of their favourite films , studying healthy eating habits and yesterday we chose the song ‘Stand by me’ we learnt it , talked about it then wrote the lyrics down artistically and presented them. We’ve changed plugs , looked at acronyms and wrote surreal stories - the quest goes on.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Distance learning during the first lockdown: impact on the family and its effect on students' engagement.

$\nAntonella Chifari$

Institute for Educational Technology, National Research Council of Italy, Genova, Palermo, Italy

This contribute investigates how Emergency Remote Education (ERE) impacted families during the spring 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, and in particular, the extent to which the impact of ERE on families, measured in terms of space and equipment sharing, moderates the effect of student and family characteristics on students' engagement. The study derived from the administration of an online survey to 19,527 families with children attending schools, from nursery to upper secondary grade. The total number of student records collected amounted to 31,805, since parents had to provide data for each school-age child in the family. The survey contains 58 questions, divided into three sections, with the first two sections designed to get a reading at family level and the third section to gather data for each school-age child in the family. After verifying the validity of the engagement construct through confirmatory factor analysis, two structural equation models were used to analyze the students' engagement. The main findings reveal how the impact of the ERE on the families has had a significant role in predicting students' level of engagement observed by parents with respect to different predictor variables. Finally, we argue that it is necessary to follow a holistic approach to observe the challenges imposed by the switch of the process of deferring teaching from presence to distance, imposed by the pandemic emergency on families. In fact, a holistic approach can promote student engagement and prevent the onset of cognitive-behavioral and affective problems linked to disengagement in ERE.

1. Introduction

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in the early 2020s forced most educational institutions to suspend face-to-face teaching activities and move toward distance learning to contain the spread of the epidemic. Not all European countries have adopted the same measures, some have progressively readmitted students to school after the most critical period, others, like Italy, implemented nationwide school closures as of 9 March 2020 until the end of the school year ( United Nations Educational, 2021 ). The closure of school in presence on our national territory was firstly established with a Decree by the Prime Minister (DPCM 4 March 2020), and confirmed with subsequent similar decrees (DPCM of 26 April 2020; D.L. 16 May 2020, n. 33; DPCM 17 May 2020); teaching was provided online until the end of the school year. Therefore, Emergency Remote Education (ERE) represented a temporary solution, the only way “to survive in a time of crisis with all resources available, including offline and/or online” ( Bozkurt and Sharma, 2020 , p.2), realistically a branch of online learning and homeschooling.

It is interesting to note that during the period of school closures caused by the pandemic, the focus of many studies has been on what happens when the classroom space-time setting moves into the home environment, introducing the multi-faceted world of learning in the digital age into the rhythms of family life ( Benigno et al., 2021 ; Gentile et al., 2021 ). Scholars and academics worldwide have searched answers to the many research questions raised by the ERE, mainly from the schools' and teachers' perspective: how schools and teachers managed the emergency.

However, the number of scientific papers on how students reacted, in terms of student engagement, to ERE is still very deficient. In particular, there is a gap in the literature concerning the study of engagement in relation to its impact on the cognitive-behavioral and affective attitudes toward the new online learning experiences during the pandemic crisis. Starting from this, the motivation for the study presented in this paper is to analyze the impact of ERE on students' engagement — defined in terms of cognitive-behavioral and affective attitudes toward ERE — considering at the same time both the support provided by the Italian families during the homeschooling period and the educational approach followed by teachers.

The importance of considering the complexity and diversity of families' settings to cope with ERE from home has been highlighted by several studies ( Brom et al., 2020 ; Di Pietro et al., 2020 ; Hapsari et al., 2020 ; Pellegrini and Maltinti, 2020 ), which have investigated specific variables influencing ERE activities (e.g., the number of children engaged in ERE at the same time; the number of parents working from home, at full or part time; availability of separate space for studying or the necessity to share house spaces; availability of technology equipment in the household). It is reasonable to assume that comfortable and arranged family conditions, with the necessary space to work and technological equipment, foster a more positive and productive engagement for studying and, more in detail, to complete the assigned learning tasks. Unfortunately, this might not be the case for many students who live in a disadvantaged condition, in which they carry out their work in a small space shared with other family members. Several studies reveal considerable differences in housing quality across European countries, and capture important disparities that affect children's engagement and goals achievement ( Di Pietro et al., 2020 ; Gigli, 2020 ; Ndhine, 2020 ).

Besides, it is important to reflect non only on the different families' conditions, but also on the educational challenges raised by the ERE context. According to Affouneh et al. (2020) , the course design, assessment, and teaching strategies originally planned for face-to-face teaching have changed. Teachers, students, and parents have had to adapt very quickly to new educational scenarios where the use of technology plays a very strong and important role. The massive and not always prepared use of emerging technologies, during the crisis, has reshaped different learning aspects, influencing the student's engagement ( Bergdahl et al., 2020 ; Khlaif et al., 2021 ), and impacting on their affective, cognitive and behavioral attitudes toward the educational experiences. Theoretically, student engagement is defined as “the student's psychological investment in and effort directed toward learning, understanding, or mastering the knowledge, skills, or crafts that academic work is intended to promote” ( Newmann et al., 1992 , p.12).

It plays a crucial role in students' learning and satisfaction in distance education because online learners seem to have fewer opportunities to be engaged with positive learner experiences and interactions with content, peers, and instructors ( Bolliger and Martin, 2018 ; Martin and Bolliger, 2018 ).

However, if before COVID-19 several studies have focused on online learning trying to identify the factors influencing student's engagement in normal situations ( Fugate et al., 2018 ; Wong and Chong, 2018 ), there is a lack of research about the distinct components influencing student's engagement in online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency. So, in accordance with Bond's definition of engagement, that is rooted in the communities of learning paradigm, engagement represents “the energy and effort that students employ within their learning community, observable via any number of behavioral, cognitive or affective indicators across a continuum” ( Bond and Bedenlier, 2019 , p.3). Following this definition, the present study explores the construct of engagement taking into consideration both the cognitive-behavioral and emotive-affective factors which influence student engagement in the Italian families, during the ERE in the period of COVID-19 crisis.

Consequently, through the administration of an online survey to a representative sample of 19,527 Italian families, the current study tries to answer the following research questions:

• Q1 How do specific ERE strategies adopted by teachers directly impact on students' engagement?

• Q2 How do specific students characteristics directly impact on students' engagement?

• Q3 How do specific family characteristics directly impact on students' engagement?

• Q4 How does the impact of ERE on the family moderates the influence of students and family characteristics on students' engagement?

The choice of the variables to be investigated, both those related to the student characteristics and those related to the family characteristics and the educational context, has guided the entire research process. A process based on a systemic approach according to which studying the construct of engagement could not be separated from the analysis of what could influence it, directly or indirectly. Thus, it became very important to understand how, during the pandemic period, variables related to the family or the instructional contexts could provide sensible and practical answers to why student engagement was not always constant, but often depending on the situational antecedents that trigger it and the consequences that maintained it.

Studying the strength of this impact, in such a large sample, will add an important piece of knowledge to the current literature on engagement by relating it not only to the quality of the learning provided, but also to the quality of the family support given to the students who had to face the challenge of emergency remote education.

2.1. Participants

The survey participants were 19,527 families, and the total number of child records collected amounted to 31,805. This difference is due to the design choice of allowing parents to provide data for each of the school-age children in the family, thus obtaining a more detailed picture of the impact of distance learning. The responding parent was generally the mother(86,7%). Considering data from all parents (both respondent and other parents), 30.8% of them are between 45 and 49 years old; 94.4% of them are Italian citizens. About the level of education, 36.5% of parents have a university degree, and 46.2% have a secondary school diploma. In terms of employment status, 77.2% of parents were employed, and 10.6% were unemployed. Data reveals that 55.3% of the parents interviewed worked from home during the lockdown period. The sampled families live prevalently in the regions of Central Italy (68.9%). The sample of children includes kids in nursery school (10.2%), and pupils at first cycle primary schools (16.6%), second cycle primary schools (23.3%), first cycle secondary schools (25.5%) and second cycle secondary schools (24.5%). The presence of a disability was reported for 905 children out of 31805. These students are distributed among the following school levels: 11.2% preschool, 21.7% first-cycle elementary, 20.3% second-cycle elementary, 26.3% first-cycle secondary, and 20.6% second-cycle secondary.

2.2. Design

The objective of the survey was to obtain a comprehensive picture of the impact of distance learning on the families during the Covid-19 emergency. To this aim, during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (March-May 2020), we structured the questionnaire in such a way to allow parents to report data for each of the school-age children in the household. It contains 58 questions, divided into three main sections, with the first two sections designed to gather information regarding the family as a whole, and the third section to collect data for each child in the family. Considering the use of the survey as a tool to investigate the impact of ERE on families, the present study complies with the approach provided by selective studies ( Kish, 1987 ; Ato et al., 2013 ).

2.3. Procedure

The questionnaire was administered online through the open-source software LimeSurvey, and spread through the snowball sampling technique between May 12 and June 22, 2020. The data collection has been conducted according to the regulation established by the General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR, 2016 ). In particular, the questionnaire has been designed according to the privacy by default principles, as specified in the article 25 of the Regulation, so as to reduce the personal and special data to be collected, and minimize the ethical impact as indicated by Hoerger and Currell (2012) . Specifically, all the collected data are anonymous, thus minimizing the risk that this information could lead back to the identity of the participants. Furthermore, the LimeSurvey software used to administrate the questionnaire has been installed on the Institute's management server in order to maintain total control over the life cycle of the data and the technical information collected by the servers themselves and necessary for the use of the questionnaire (e.g., IP address, type of browser, etc.). Finally, along with the questionnaire we provided an informative letter containing details on the purpose of the research, the authors, and any other information useful for understanding the scientific context in which the survey has been conducted.

2.4. Instrument

The first set of questions concerns the socio-demographic profile of the family. In particular, parents' personal data (gender, age, nationality, citizenship, school level, employment status), and general data on the composition of the household (i.e., the number of adults and number of children of school age) have been collected. In this first section, we investigated whether one or both parents worked from home (WFH) during the pandemic and if they needed support to manage their child(ren) (whether they worked from home or not). The second section provides a picture of families' technological endowment and their initial capacity to respond to distance learning and parents' WFH requirements. In particular, whether or not they had immediate availability of the equipment necessary to attend remotely, and whether they were in some way “forced” to equip themselves independently or with the support of the school. Resources availability and parental confidence in information technology constitute an essential part of the questionnaire useful in corroborating the studies on socio-cultural and instrumental inequalities highlighted by many of the previously mentioned studies. The third section of the questionnaire collects information about the family's distance learning experience concerning the individual child. Therefore, parents fill out a form for each school-age child, specifying the school leveland the presence of any disabilities or special educational needs. This section investigates the impact that distance learning has had on family management, whether it has had repercussions on daily life and shared spaces organization. An additional set of questions was proposed to detect families' perceptions related to the educational effectiveness of distance learning and school organization, both in terms of support and communication with the families. Specific questions were also formulated to understand whether their children's psycho-physical well-being was affected during the lockdown period and whether noteworthy changes were observed in the socio-affective and behavioral domains. Finally, in the case of a child with disabilities parents were asked to report how distance learning had ensured inclusion even in the virtual context.

2.5. Statistical Analysis

To analyze students' engagements during ERE, we focused on the responses provided by parents to the question “What attitude do you notice in your son/daughter toward distance education?”. In particular, through this question, we asked parents to what extent (in a scale from 0 to 10) they had noticed the following attitudes: cooperation, curiosity, interest, concern, restlessness, and emotional volatility.

First, we conducted a qualitative investigation calculating the descriptive statistics on the scores for these items. Then we analyzed these attitudes observed by the parents according to the engagement model reported by Bond and Bedenlier (2019) and Bond (2020a , b) , where the construct of engagement is defined as a second-order latent variable built on the first-level latent variables (affective and cognitive-behavioral). Specifically to the Affective component, a less restless, worried and volatile behavior observed in the student corresponds to greater involvement in distance learning activities. Similarly, concerning the Cognitive-behavioral component, the level of engagement increases when their family members perceive students as very interested, collaborative and curious about learning. We verified the factorial structure of the engagement model through a Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

Next, we studied student engagement as certain conditions varied. In particular, we considered the following variables grouped in three areas:

• the family context

• age of the parents, calculated as the maximum age of the two parents

• school level of the parents, calculated as the maximum school level of the two parents

• residence, considered ad the macro-area of Italy (North, Center and South Italy)

• citizenship

• presence of at least one parent in remote working

• the characteristics of the student

• gender

• school level

• presence of disabilities

• the teaching approach used during the ERE

• technology tools used during ERE

• implementation of collaborative activities during ERE.

We verified the effects of these variables on the students' engagement by means of a structural equation model (Model A) (Q1,Q2,Q3).

Finally, we fitted a second structural equation model (Model B) to check if and how the impact of ERE on the family moderates the effect of the variables related to family background and student characteristics over the students' engagement (Q4). The impact of ERE on the family was defined as a latent variable observed by the responses of two items through which we asked parents about the impact of distance education on space sharing and instrumentation sharing.

Both the models was defined as multilevel structural equation model to cope with the hierarchical structure of the collected data. In fact, allowing the parents to provide data for each school-age child we obtained a sample of 19,527 families and 31,805 students; indicatively, an average of 1,63 student records was reported for each family. Data about students represent the first-level units, while the second-level units are the family.

For the purposes of this article of the 31,805 student records collected, the 25,563 student records for which distance education was enabled were analyzed. Structural models were estimated on the 20,586 student records for which the variables investigated were found to have no null values.

Multiple fit indices were considered to check the models : the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), the standardized root mean squared residual (SRMR), and the comparative fit index (CFI). RMSEA levels of < 0.05 indicate a good fit while values < 0.08 indicate an acceptable fit ( Kline, 2015 ). SRMR < 0.05 represents a good fit and < 0.10 is acceptable ( Schermelleh-Engel et al., 2003 ). Finally, CFI values of > 0.97 can be considered a good fit ( Schermelleh-Engel et al., 2003 ), and > 0.95 can be considered an acceptable fit ( Schermelleh-Engel et al., 2003 ).

All the analyses on student-level variables were carried out using the Lavaan package ( Rosseel, 2012 ) of the open-source software R ( R Core Team, 2018 ).

The 20,586 student records used to estimate the structural model are divided into 10,497 records referring to male students and 10,089 to female students. In 570 cases, parents reported the presence of disabilities. The 20,586 cards are composed by 3,476 cases relating to the first cycle of the primary school, 5,050 to the second cycle of the primary school, 5,985 to students of the first degree secondary school and 6,075 to students of the second degree secondary school. In the structural models, a variable representing the linear component of a polynomial contrast matrix was used to assess the effects on engagement as the school level increases. In 8,831 out of 20,586 cases, at least one parent in remote working was present in the household. Concerning citizenship, only in 364 cases did the respondent household declare itself a first or second-generation immigrant. The vast majority of the responding households were residents in central Italy (14,020), while 5,027 and 1,539 households were residents in northern and southern Italy. The parents' educational level shows a prevalence of families with a university degree (10,598) or a high school diploma (10,479). In 3,233 cases, parents declare a Bachelor degree, while there are residual cases of parents with a secondary school license (1,232), an elementary school license (11) or no qualification at all (10). As in the case of students' school level, it was chosen to use a variable capable of representing the linear component of this ordinal variable. Table 1 shows the distribution of the age of the parents.

Table 1 . Distribution of parents' age.

Table 2 shows the frequencies of technologies adoption during ERE.

Table 2 . Frequencies of technologies adoption during ERE.

Mean scores, standard deviations, together with skewness and kurtosis for the investigated observed students' behaviors are shown in Table 3 .

Table 3 . Descriptive statistics of observed students' behaviors.

According to the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, all items show significantly non-normal distributions ( p < 0.0001 for all the items).

Table 4 shows the correlations between individual attitudes highlighting the significant correlations, with an absolute value ranging between 0.14 and 0.86. Particularly strong are the correlations between the collaborative, curious, and interested items and between the restless, emotionally volatile, and worried items.

Table 4 . Correlations of observed students' behaviors.

The CFA of the engagement construct built on observed behaviors in accordance with Bond and Bedenlier (2019) and Bond (2020a , b) shows a good fit according to all the fit indices ( SRMR = 0.03, CFI = 0.99) except for RMSEA ( RMSEA = 0.08). Figure 1 shows the factor loadings of the engagement model.

Figure 1 . CFA students' engagement. *** p < 0.001.

The model A shows a good fit according all the fit indices ( RMSEA = 0.04, SRMR = 0.02, CFI = 0.96). Also, model B shows a good fit according all the fit indices ( RMSEA = 0.04, SRMR = 0.02, CFI = 0.96).

Figures 2 , 3 report the factor loadings and the regression coefficients of the two structural models.

Figure 2 . Model A: Effects of student and family characteristics on students' engagement. * p < 0.05; *** p < 0.001.

Figure 3 . Model B: The role of distance learning family's impact on students' engagement. * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.

Table 5 shows the estimates of indirects effects, respectively on the engagement latent variable, mentre la Table 6 shows the estimates of total effects of the variable on the engagement latent variable.

Table 5 . Estimates of indirect effects on engagement.

Table 6 . Estimates of total effects on engagement.

4. Discussion

The results analyzed according to the two structural models described above and obtained through the wide survey carried out on Italian families during the period of the first lockdown (March-June 2020), explain how some variables related to the family context, to the student's characteristics and to the didactic approach influenced the families' perception of their children's emotional-affective and cognitive-behavioral involvement during the remote education activities.

The first of the two models used ( Figure 2 ) highlights the effect of some descriptive variables on students' engagement. In particular, the model analyzes how some characteristics of the family (parents working from home, migrant family, area of residence, parents' age and school level), of the student (gender, disability and school level) and of the remoteness education approach adopted during the pandemic emergency influenced students' engagement.

Specifically to the educational approach, the model shows that parent's perception of children's engagement is higher especially where collaborative activities were proposed, thus confirming the findings by Bolliger and Martin (2018) . The use of videoconferencing systems, online platforms and shared folders have played a key role in keeping interest and motivation high. The effect of using these tools have resulted in more effective motivation than using other online tools. Therefore, we can deduce that the education approach used during the remote activities has had a strong impact on the children's engagement, especially when it has adopted teaching strategies and support tools which are contextually appropriate and motivationally salient.

These findings support the idea that, in order to be effective in engaging the student's interest, ERE must have characteristics that make it not a mere transposition of face-to-face teaching, but rather a corpus of activities properly designed for the distance setting ( Zhu et al., 2016 ). Furthermore, ERE should provide students with rich, holistic learning opportunities during the pandemic lockdown engaged relatively frequently and successfully with online learning ( Domina et al., 2021 ).

Specifically to the students' characteristics that influenced her/his engagement model A has highlighted that the gender of the students had a significant impact on engagement; in particular, female students were more involved than their male peers. This result is confirmed by a number of studies showing that female adolescent students can achieve significantly more positive online learning outcomes than males because they are more persistent, motivated, and more self-regulated than their male peers ( Yu, 2021 ). In particular, Korlat et al. (2021) in their study examining the relationship between gender and level of engagement, state that if boys are perceived as more able than girls in online activities, girls are more engaged in learning activities and more study oriented. Thus, it could be that girls are more likely to have transferred their previously established learning practices to the new online learning context. Similarly, in Hsiao (2021) study, the male gender tends to be more passive in learning and consequently boys' independent learning ability may require further improvement.

Individuals with disabilities are perceived by their parents to be less involved (β = −1.12**), in addition, the analysis reported in Model B confirms both a direct effect on engagement (β = −0.88***) and an indirect effect through an increased impact on families (β = 0.31*). We hypothesized that children with disabilities, during the period of the pandemic emergency, as Parmigiani et al. (2020) suggests, suffered more from the loss of contact with their peers and teachers, thus making the family feel less involved in their studies and more socially isolated. In addition, their presence at home, being less autonomous and deprived of the support they usually enjoy in class, had a greater impact on the family who had to, often without external help and very quickly, provide their own care and share both physical and temporal spaces.

Besides, we note that there is a small difference between central and northern Italy and that, in particular, students from northern Italy seem to have been less involved than those from central Italy, while there are no significant differences between the south and the center. It is remarkable to point out that when the school level of the students grows, engagement increases, and that parents' age and working from home do not impact on the perception of parents' level of engagement. Similarly, no significant differences have emerged between families with migrant backgrounds and native families.

The parent's school level, on the other hand, has a significant impact in the sense that parents with high schooling seem to perceive lower engagement of their children. This is probably due to the fact that parents with a higher level of education and greater knowledge of how the ERE could be carried out, having higher expectations, found greater deficiencies and critical issues in the design of the educational activities. The results indicate, on the other hand, according with other studies ( Domina et al., 2021 ) that parents with a higher school level can support their children more readily both in the technical management of suitable tools, and in the supervision of the contents proposed through the ERE.

These considerations can be further explored by discussing some effects that emerge from the analysis of Model B ( Figure 3 ) in which the effect of context variables at the level of engagement is mediated by the latent variable “impact on the family” declined in two dimensions: sharing of spaces and sharing technological tools. In general, Model B highlights that the greater the need of the family members to share spaces and tools, the less is the perceived involvement of children (β = −0.19***) in distance learning activities. In particular, where in the first model (Model A) some of the identified effects did not seem to be completely intuitive, in the second model they can be explained in greater detail. Two aspects are particularly contrived: the fact that in model A the presence of the parent working from home has no impact on engagement (β = 0.01) and also the non-impact of immigrant families (β = −0.11).

In fact, if in the model A the presence of a parent working from home has no impact on engagement, in the light of a more in-depth analysis that also includes and considers the study of the impact on the family, we note that when there is a parent working from home, the impact on the family increases in terms of sharing spaces and technological equipment (β = 0.49***), probably because family members are “forced” for reasons of work and/or support for children's learning to physically share the same spaces and tools. In the study of Di Pietro et al. (2020) , for example, it has debated the role that a more well-equipped home environment, in terms of greater autonomy of spaces, has in facilitating learning of children in ERE. If the parent working from home can facilitate the support of children in ERE more closely, understanding in real time the needs that arise and proposing timely solutions ( Lagomarsino et al., 2020 ), it is also true that the emergency situation significantly increased the risk of psycho-physical stress of parents with a potential negative effect on the well-being of children in ERE ( Spinelli et al., 2020 ). Therefore, if the presence of the parent impacts “negatively” on the family for the reasons described, on the contrary, it positively impacts on the engagement, removing the initial effect that apparently could seem insignificant.

The non-impact of immigrant families appears at odds with the literature regarding the impact of Covid-19 on migrant families. Darmody et al. (2021) , after pointing out the limited empirical evidence available on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrant/refugee/asylum-seeking children, highlight how the pandemic has widened pre-existing socio-economic inequalities ( Dustmann et al., 2012 ; Entorf, 2015 ) and, in particular, educational inequalities, with dramatic consequences on vulnerable groups, such as children with special educational needs and migrant children. Similar conclusions are achieved by Bond (2020b) , in her systematic review on K-12 research on teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, who points out that, even though little research has focused on migrant students, support for migrants and refugees is one of the priority topics highlighted in literature. Amongst the reasons that led to this worsening of the situation of student migrants forced to home-schooling during the pandemic, the literature highlights several factors, including the educational attainment of their parents, who are less familiar with the curriculum and with the host country language ( Smyth et al., 2009 ; Lehmann et al., 2021 ); the lack of educational technology and, accordingly, reduced opportunities to engage in online education ( Bayrakdar and Guveli, 2020 ; Popyk, 2020 ; Primdahl et al., 2020 ; Save The Children, 2020 ); the scarce availability of a quiet place to study ( Kluge et al., 2020 ; Darmody et al., 2021 ; Lehmann et al., 2021 ); the socioeconomic factors that generally penalize migrants ( Dustmann et al., 2012 ), which were found to be dramatic during the pandemic and lockdown periods ( Kluge et al., 2020 ); the negative impact on learning engagement and academic progress of students ( Mohan et al., 2020 ; Darmody et al., 2021 ; Lehmann et al., 2021 ).

All these studies have widely demonstrated the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on families with migrant backgrounds and, specifically to our analysis, the negative impact on students' engagement. By taking into account the number of surveys received by families with migrant backgrounds, it emerges that it is unrepresentative of the actual situation in the Italian schools. In fact, comparing data on the presence of pupils of foreign origin in Italian schools (data updated to 31/08/2019; source: Italian Ministry for Education), it emerges how the sample of respondents is extremely small: preschools: 11.4% (compared to a percentage of respondents equal to: 1.61%) primary schools: 11.5% (compared to a percentage of respondents equal to: 1.44%) lower secondary schools: 10.5% (against a response rate of: 1.07%) secondary schools: 7.4% (against a percentage of respondents equal to: 1.12%) It is therefore highly likely that the data for migrant families are in fact not statistically significant, and for this reason the models presented in this paper do not provide statistically appreciable indications of the impact that the pandemic had on these families. Although not explicitly investigated in our research, the low number of responses would seem to be a consequence of what was said earlier about the socio-economic and cultural gap between families with a migrant background and native families. Specifically, migrant families may have met problems in responding to the questionnaire due to their difficulties in accessing information technology, their educational attainment, and their difficulties with the Italian language.

Furthermore, if we look at the school level of students, we notice that as the school level increases, engagement increases (β = 0.31***) and the impact on the family decreases (β = −2.43***). Intuitively, we could hypothesize that older children impact less on the sharing of spaces and tools, as they are less dependent in terms of educational support from parents and more autonomous in the use of technology.

The data also reveal a lower suffering of families in Northern Italy respect to the impact on the family (β = −0.19**), compared to those in the Center, probably due to a better socio-cultural condition and a greater propensity to consider distance learning as a valid alternative during the lockdown period. Otherwise, for families in south Italy, no significant data emerges in comparison with the center of the Italian territory.

As for the explanatory variable “age of parents,” the model A shows a non-significant effect on perceived engagement (β = −0.03). In fact, model B highlights how the direct negative effect as the age of the parents increases (β = −0.2**) is balanced by a positive indirect effect ( ab _ p _ age _ L _ impact = 0.2**) given by the decrease in the impact on the family (β = −1.06**).

Compared to the level of education of the parents, in the model A we observed that as the parents 'school level increases, engagement decreases (β = −0.47***). The second model, shows that the total negative effect of parents' school level on engagement is the sum of a direct effect (β = −0.17*) and of an indirect effect ( ab _ p _ school _ level _ L _ impact = −0.13*) on the engagement. Specifically, the indirect effect highlights the more the parents' school level increases and the more they increase the requests in terms of sharing tools and space (β = 0.7***). It is plausible that parents with a higher level of schooling, as well as professionals, have done more working from home than parents who are self-employed or have a lower level of schooling. Consequently, parents who have been working remotely from home for a long time have had the opportunity to observe their children more closely during activities in ERE, with a twofold consequence. On the one hand, being more competent due to their level of schooling, they were more sensitive in understanding the advantages and disadvantages of the didactic approach used remotely, on the other hand, remaining in the household they had more difficulties in sharing both the technological equipment and the physical spaces.

If previously the reading of this data without the impact could lead us to an interpretation that parents with a higher school level have a more negative perception of ERE, in reality, this value of the negative impact on engagement is not only due to a direct effect but it is also due to the indirect effect, that is to say the increase in the impact on the family that the parent with the highest level of education has.

5. Conclusion

In this paper we have examined how the student engagement construct, too often misused, poorly understood, and overgeneralized, during the period of the pandemic emergency is influenced by a variety of factors such as the family environment, the didactic approach and the student attitudes toward the remote learning activities. This with the intention of emphasizing how the construct of engagement, defined as a learner's interest and participation in an educational initiative, is directly related to favorable instructional strategies, supportive family characteristics and positive affective, cognitive-behavioral attitudes. Working collaboratively using online communication tools and building effective cooperative activities, in the specific context of the forced distance, has been found to be extremely important for student engagement. Besides, we found that the perception of interviewed parents about the student engagement depends on their effective presence and support at home, according to working from home practices, or to their school level. Moreover, the level of student's engagement reflects the parents' perception of their affective and cognitive-behavioral attitudes. So it is notable that students' engagement is related to their approach to learning processes: curiosity, interest and collaboration are important antecedents of a more involvement, such as to be restless, worried or emotionally volatile could impact differently on the level of engagement. These results suggest many interesting implications that should be addressed in the present and in the future in Italy, and in all countries involved in the pandemic, if we want to promote student engagement also during the remote learning and prevent the onset of cognitive-behavioral and affective problems linked to disengagement. Families and schools need to have correct information and guidelines about the best way to establish positive behavior support and a conducive environment that positively affects their personal and student's well being. A limitation of this study can be given by the fact that there are certain factors that have to be dealt with more in depth, with particular regard to alternative and appropriate educational suggestions to make students more engaged. At the same time, starting from the theoretical framework of Zhu et al. (2016) , it could be interesting in a future study to reflect on the engagement as one of the main key factors to be improved to make ERE a multidirectional interactive learning experience based on a technology-enriched environment. Furthermore, in depth investigation of the family impact is necessary, in order to better understand the relationships between specific variables and students' engagement. Among the others, our analysis of data regarding families with migrant background has produced findings which do not fit with evidence from the several empirical studies on the subject. We argue that this is due to the limited number of questionnaires filled by migrant families, thus making data not statistically significant. Nevertheless, this reveals a dramatic fact: not only children from migrant families have been penalized by ERE more than native children, but these families have been widely excluded from surveys of the impact that ERE had on them, constituting a serious additional element of social exclusion for these families.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Commission for Ethics and Integrity in Research of the National Research Council on Italy. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

AC: conceptualization, investigation, methodology, supervision, and writing—original draft. MA: conceptualization, investigation, project administration, and supervision. VB: conceptualization, investigation, project administration, supervision, writing—review, and editing. GC: conceptualization, investigation, and supervision. GF: conceptualization, investigation, supervision, writing—review, and editing. MG: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, supervision, visualization, and writing—original draft. LF: conceptualization, investigation, supervision, and writing—original draft [according to the CRediT–Contributor Roles Taxonomy ( https://casrai.org/credit/ )]. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.762213/full#supplementary-material

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CrossRef Full Text

Keywords: emergency remote education (ERE), students' engagement, COVID-19, family involvement in education, home learning environment (HLE)

Citation: Chifari A, Allegra M, Benigno V, Caruso G, Fulantelli G, Gentile M and Ferlino L (2021) Distance Learning During the First Lockdown: Impact on the Family and Its Effect on Students' Engagement. Front. Psychol. 12:762213. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.762213

Received: 21 August 2021; Accepted: 14 October 2021; Published: 11 November 2021.

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Copyright © 2021 Chifari, Allegra, Benigno, Caruso, Fulantelli, Gentile and Ferlino. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Manuel Gentile, manuel.gentile@itd.cnr.it

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

After the Lockdown: Learning From Students' Experiences

School lockdowns are traumatic. we must listen and validate students' feelings..

Posted October 18, 2022 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

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Every month, hundreds of schools are forced to go into "non-drill" lockdowns because of a credible threat of violence.
Students experience "invisible wounds" after school lockdowns that need to be addressed when creating school safety plans.
Students may experience panic attacks, soil themselves, cry uncontrollably, and/or disassociate during or after a lockdown.

Co-authored by Annalisa Enrile and Harley London.

Harley is 14 years old and in the 8th grade. This year, her school, like hundreds of schools in the United States, was forced into a lockdown because of a suspected shooter threat. Thankfully, the police and school officials found it to be a hoax. What was not false, however, was the experience of all the kids in the school for the 45 minutes they were in lockdown. This story that Harley and I are sharing is an important one, especially for kids who have this experience. But we would like to offer a trigger warning because the experience that is described is traumatic , disturbing, and violent. Please read with care for yourself.

Swatting Incidences on the Rise

The most recent research data is from 2018, during which at least 4.1 million students had to go through at least one non-drill lockdown. Of course, lockdowns are essential to keeping kids safe, but following an actual act of school violence, there has been a rise in what the FBI refers to as “swatting” incidences. Swatting is a term that is used to describe filing false reports or threats to cause chaos and provoke a law enforcement response.

Swatting incidences are dangerous because they are fake but the response from law enforcement and the community is real. There have been incidences in which people have been injured in the process. It also can erode emergency responses if it happens so frequently in a kind of “the boy who cried wolf” syndrome where the threat becomes habitual and perhaps makes responses less urgent. Whether it’s authentic or “swatting,” the reality is an emotional and psychological cost to students, teachers, and other school personnel.

Despite the rise in “swatting,” one of the things that the tragedy at Uvalde taught is that there cannot be hesitation to act, especially when children are literally caught in the crosshairs. All schools in the United States are required to have a safety plan in place. But the need for a strategic plan on paper does not always tell the whole story of what is experienced when it must be acted upon.

First-Hand Experience

I was taking a test in math class, so the room was completely silent. Suddenly, I heard sirens and then we heard the PA system turn on, but no one was saying anything, so, we thought the principal accidentally turned it on. After a few moments, the principal said in a shaky voice, “Teachers, please lock your doors and close the blinds; we are in a lockdown. I repeat, we are in a lockdown.” 1 minute later: Everyone quickly stopped the test. I looked at my friends, and we immediately got down. Everyone was panicking trying to grab their phones and hide under the desks. One of my classmates whispered, “Guys shut up and hide.” First, we got on the ground, then my teacher had us crawl to another classroom. I crawled into a corner, but unfortunately, I was by a window so I wanted to move but was frozen there. 10 minutes later: The PA system went off again. The principal said, “Teachers and students please remain calm and silent, we are still in lockdown.” At that point, the majority of us were freaking out. The girl in front of me was crying and hugging her friend. I didn’t know what to do, so I just started praying to calm me down. I didn’t know where my friends were. I only saw two of my friends from the other class across the room, lending their phone to other classmates. One of my classmates tapped me on my shoulder and then held my hand. 5 minutes later: The phone in one of the classrooms rang, and a bunch of my classmates were whispering and crying. I realized then that the elementary students were probably so scared. 30 minutes later: Suddenly the door opens. Everyone was scooting away and hiding. But we learned that it was one of the teachers getting water for a student who had passed out. 45 minutes later: The PA system went off again. The principal announced, “Teachers, you may go back to teaching again. We will contact parents to pick up the students.” The lights turned on and everyone was crying. I ran up to all my friends hugging them and crying. I felt relieved. I don’t normally cry but I just couldn’t stop crying.

Invisible Wounds

Harley’s story emphasizes the potential trauma that children feel when they experience a lockdown, even if there is no active violence. The fear and anxiety may last well beyond the “all clear” is given. Dr. Marleen Wong , leading expert on childhood trauma and one of the original developers of Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools and Psychological First Aid calls these “Invisible Wounds.” Just as Harley’s story demonstrated, the invisible wounds of school lockdowns are immediate, urgent, and often both physical and emotional.

A Washington Post yearlong focus on school violence found that children aged as young as 4 years have participated in lockdowns where they have had to do things like hide in darkened rooms or learn how to “play dead” or camouflage themselves for survival. It is not uncommon for children and youth to soil themselves, pass out, panic, or cry during or right after these experiences.

Trauma-Informed Practices

There are some key things to address the trauma children may have following a lockdown.

I told my mom I needed a couple of days off after the lockdown and she let me stay with my grandparents. I think parents should listen to their kids. We aren’t lying when we say we are scared or nervous. Not all my classmates were allowed to do that. The next day, there was another threat called in and another lockdown. I don’t know how I would feel if I had to go through it all over again so soon. A lot my friends were sending me pictures and videos because they now carried their phones with them. One of my friends told me how scary it was—almost worse than the day before.

Dr. Kennedy, a.k.a. " Millennial Parenting Whisperer ," works with parents to help them foster resiliency and empathy, reminding parents about the power of really listening . Harley’s mom said, “I have to trust that she knows what she is feeling and validate that information. I took a look at her workload (no big assignments due), we talked about how long was appropriate (two days) and what she would do while she took time off (spend time with her grandma, paint, and journal). I want her to feel safe coming to me with what she is experiencing, but, even more, I want her to be able to name what she is feeling and act on that.”

Dr. Steve Hydon, Director of Social Work in Schools at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work states, “Parents ought to embrace Dr. Bruce Perry's six R’s: Relational, Relevant, Rhythmic, Repetitive, Rewarding, Respectful. These six R’s are what Perry identified as core considerations for trauma-informed care when implementing therapeutic interventions and experiences.

School violence remains a reality that schools, communities, and families will have to continue to face. However, engaging in trauma-informed practices can help the healing process, especially when safety plans are developed and other strategic decisions are made. Most importantly, the voices of students themselves should be expressed, listened to, and included in how solutions are created. After all, they, along with their teachers, administrators, and school staff, are right at the epicenter.

Greco, V. (2021). The Casualties You Don’t See: The Omnipresent Trauma of School Shootings. Dress Rehearsals for Gun Violence: Confronting Trauma and Anxiety in America’s Schools, 1.

Osher, D., Mayer, M. J., Jagers, R. J., Kendziora, K., & Wood, L. (Eds.). (2019). Keeping Students Safe and Helping Them Thrive: A Collaborative Handbook on School Safety, Mental Health, and Wellness [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO.

Schildkraut, J., & Nickerson, A. B. (2022). Lockdown Drills: Connecting Research and Best Practices for School Administrators, Teachers, and Parents. MIT Press.

Annalisa Enrile, Ph.D. , is a Clinical Professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, turning classrooms into brave spaces to train the next generation of change-makers.

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Some teachers reported their relationships had suffered and alcohol consumption increased to cope with the job.

Work pressure in Covid lockdown was shattering, say teachers

One in four teachers tell union they sought medical help because of pandemic impact

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Teachers say their mental health has been so damaged that many needed medical help to cope with “overwhelming” work pressures during lockdown, while some resorted to self-harm, according to one of the UK’s major teaching unions.

One in four teachers who answered questions about their mental wellbeing told the NASUWT union that they had needed to see a doctor or other medical professional because of the pandemic’s impact, with many undergoing counselling or taking antidepressants.

A small number of the 4,700 members who replied said they had self-harmed within the last 12 months as a result of their work. Others reported that their relationships had broken down during the pandemic, and nearly one in three said they had increased their alcohol consumption as a means to cope with their job.

One teacher told the union: “Managing my own family with the increased workload of remote learning, as well as in-the-classroom learning, was ridiculous. I was working two jobs. My mental health suffered, my family’s mental health suffered. I considered leaving the profession.”

Patrick Roach, the NASUWT’s general secretary, said: “These figures are truly shocking and starkly illustrate the significant impact of the pandemic on the mental health and wellbeing of teachers and school staff.

“It has led to a huge increase in workload and while the profession has responded with remarkable agility and professionalism, Covid-19 and the impacts on working have had a detrimental effect on teachers’ physical and mental health.

“Ministers and school employers must recognise that to deliver the programme of education recovery vital for the nation’s children and young people, teacher wellbeing has to be recognised.”

More than 80% of teachers who responded said their work-related stress had increased since March 2020, while just 5% said it was lower.

One teacher told the union: “The pressure from the principal is unbearable and I am considering leaving the profession if I do not find a job in another school. No one is checking on the workloads of staff.”

Several teachers blamed the government’s policies, with one saying: “The lack of consultation with the teaching profession from this government is shocking … It is extremely difficult to stay in teaching in England because of the lack of respect shown to the profession and I am truly surprised anyone still wants to join the profession at present.”

The figures come as the NASUWT prepares to debate a motion on teachers’ wellbeing at the union’s annual conference. The motion backs a Trades Union Congress campaign to include job-related stress as a reportable injury under workplace regulations.

Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, will tell the virtual conference that the government’s stealth cuts will affect 30,000 children whose schools will lose out on pupil premium funding this year.

The Department for Education’s change to when it calculates the number of children on free meals means schools with children from disadvantaged families miss out on extra funding if their parents lost their job since the beginning of October.

The pupil premium is worth more than £1,000 a year to schools for each pupil receiving free school meals.

“For some schools this stealth cut will more than wipe out the pitiful funding the government provided to support pupils to recover the learning lost over the last year,” Labour said.

Freedom of information requests by Labour found that schools in Bristol could lose up to £1.8m because of the change. Schools across the north-east are likely to lose between £5m and £7m this year.

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Letters from Lockdown: how writing helped my students express their experiences of lockdown

20 Nov 2020

Helena Goodrich, English teacher, reflects on her open letter writing imitative students took part in during lockdown while teaching at Mulberry Academy in Shoreditch to help navigate and articulate this extraordinary time.

‘Hello guys, are you there?’

That was the universal cry of teachers across the country for six months. The change from seeing students every day, trying to get them to stop talking in class, to sudden radio silence was an unexpected shock.

When lockdown originally hit, it was difficult to decipher whether students were engaging with their work and, even more importantly, whether they were ok and how they were spending this surreal block of free time.

A huge gulf opened between students and their teachers and I wanted to reach across that and find out how students were doing, as well as motivate them in their writing.

Since I already ran a creative writing club at school, I decided to activate this via Google Classroom during lockdown and was amazed by the beautiful responses I received from students. It made my day to read the comments students would post on the classroom thread, checking in on each other or recommending films to watch. If anything, students were writing too much and I felt guilty when I did not have time to read their work straight away.

As part of my PGDE programme I needed to design a targeted literacy intervention. This allowed me to research literacy as a wider issue, particularly within the context of societal deprivation.

As the National Literacy Trust explains on its page on the importance of literacy : Lacking vital literacy skills holds a person back at every stage of their life. As a child they won't be able to succeed at school, as a young adult they will be locked out of the job market, as a parent they won't be able to support their own child's learning. This intergenerational cycle makes social mobility and a fairer society more difficult.

It is also evident that students from disadvantaged backgrounds were struggling most to complete work in lockdown, heightening the existing inequalities, often due to lack of technology or difficulties at home. This was particularly apparent at my school which has over 70% of students on pupil premium.

This included a Year 12 student without any access to a computer or even a phone, who had not completed any work as a result. Many students I teach speak English as an additional language, and their parents are sometimes unable to help them.

Even for those able to access work, there were other difficulties, particularly when it came to setting routines. When I set an online survey, many students reported feeling ‘demotivated’ when it came to completing their work.

I decided to tackle this by creating a school- wide creative writing competition called ‘Letters from Lockdown’

This project invited students to write an open ‘letter’ about their experiences in lockdown and the best ones would be published on the school website.

I hoped this project would allow students to process this difficult time in a way that might be therapeutic, as well as motivating students to write more and enjoy the process of writing. This opportunity could perhaps have a positive and healing effect on students struggling with lockdown and it would help me to understand how to best support them.

As a creative writer, the generic nature of creative writing tasks at GCSE level has long been a concern: I cannot think of how to write something interesting about many of the images, so how should I expect students to? The project was set as optional ‘holiday’ homework. Whilst students in the higher sets generally seemed more likely to complete the activity than those in lower sets, there were also examples of students who had failed to complete any other work but chose to do this activity. The responses were varied in style and content but certain themes appeared regularly: students celebrating Eid in lockdown, finding new hobbies, doing their best to keep in touch with family.

Some of my favourite responses were in the form of poems which I found particularly interesting given recent National Literacy Trust research that students were writing more poems in lockdown.

One student’s response, although written in prose contained beautiful metaphors for lockdown:

“a flimsy calendar filled with cold days, merging into a continuous sleep, with your eyes wide open … you never know why the end of the sentence doesn’t stick, like the words fall apart as if climbing stairs that disappear halfway.”

8 out of 10 students believed that the letter had a positive impact on their wellbeing and helped them to process events

“There was no script, I was just writing down my feelings and thoughts and more activities along these lines would keep up people’s mental health.” Said one of my students.

I found running this project rewarding and motivating. Teaching from home was challenging for teachers and it was encouraging to read how students were managing this time as well as opening up valuable discussions.

I’m grateful to my Head of Department, Amy Higgins, and Mulberry school for being so supportive of this project.

As we try to return to school as we know it, it would be easy to focus on exams and the need to catch up on what has been missed. However, school time is precious and we must think how best to engage and motivate students, to allow them to share their own thoughts, voices and experiences by offering creative opportunities to express their individual perspectives on the world itself, not just GCSE texts.

If you are interested in reading this collection, please visit: http://www.mulberryacademyshoreditch.org/must-read-memoirs-of-lockdown/

Here’s another great example of a poetry writing activity from the National Literacy Trust: Write about your lockdown experience with poet Laila Sumpton

Helena now teaches at Bridge Academy in Hackney.

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Teachers in Lockdown: Challenges Educators Faced During the Pandemic

The COVID-19 coronavirus has put everyone into a state of uncertainty. This uncertainty has affected almost every sector and every business thus impacting the future of our country.

It has been more than 7 months now since the nationwide lockdown was announced. For the last couple of months, the Ministry of Home Affairs has slowly allowed resuming normal work, in phases.

The education sector is one of the fields that were majorly affected by the lockdown. We know that the study of school children was suffering because of the lockdown. And that is why online classes were started so that students can continue their education.

However, there is another side to the educational system that also had to face just as many difficulties, if not more – the teacher’s side.

As a teacher conducting an online class for their students, there are many challenges they had to face and overcome to keep going through the pandemic.

Challenges teachers had to overcome during the lockdown

A teacher is not only a teacher during his/her working hours in a school. And this notion has shined through in these trying times. Teachers have constantly stayed in contact with not just the school but also with parents and students.

And that has come up with its own set of new challenges apart from the ones that everyone was going through.

Understanding the nuances of technology

This was the first most important challenge that teachers had faced. Using the available technology optimally to deliver effective lectures was harder for teachers that did not have anything to do with such technology until then.

This led to unprepared and disorganized lecture delivery. Unprepared teachers were also one of the main reasons why students were disinterested in online classes .

Many experienced teachers had to learn how group video calling apps worked, or how they could use Google classroom to send notes and other study materials. Many of them figured it out as they started teaching online and tried to make their lectures more interesting by different applications and software.

Work-life balance was disrupted

When the teachers taught in a physical classroom, they had a clear partition between their personal life and professional life. They only worked during those 6-7 hours of school and then they went home to their personal duties.

However, because of the lockdown, the lines have been blurred. At home, their spouse and children use laptops and computers too to work or study. In that case, if they have only one laptop in the house then often they have to take turns to use it.

Accordingly, they had to schedule their classes and their timings. Because of this, many times they had to take classes at hours when they should usually be at home had the school been open.

They cannot make a clear distinction between home hours and work hours when at home. They give the remaining time to solving doubts and problems that the student asks through a telephonic conversation. They receive constant calls from students and parents to solve queries regarding their studies or about the management of the school and fee structure during the lockdown.

Teachers often have to answer questions outside of their field of work. For example, they would get calls from parents or students asking about the technicalities of any certain application they are using for learning and teaching.

The constant stress of possible pay-cut

The lockdown saw a large number of people getting laid-off from their jobs because of the financial problems their employers were facing. Schools were no different.

While there were students to educate, many parents were in a tight spot economically. This is why many state governments asked schools to not take fees for online classes. This resulted in many teachers getting a pay-cut or partial pay.

Even so, the teachers dedicatedly kept teaching their students. Despite all these challenges, the teachers and educators did their best to ensure that their students get the education by any means possible.

Schools and educational institutions that use the school management software can creatively subside or remove these challenges for teachers.

How can School ERP help teachers?

A school ERP is created to facilitate teachers with ease of teaching and better connectivity with the students. It is easy to use with a quick demo provided by the customer service executive to let the teachers know how to use it optimally so that they can use its features to make it more interesting for students.

Its features allow teachers to teach their students remotely through online smart classes and if a student is not able to attend the class, they can also record a video lecture and put it into the video tutorial library so that the students can go back to it whenever they want to learn and relearn the same topic.

The school management system allows teachers to operate using an application on their smartphones. This means that they do not have to wait to use the laptop while at home. They can simply use their phones to teach students.

This will not only be faster and convenient but will also save time. If the classes are scheduled smartly, teachers can make sure that their work stays away from their personal life. It would have allowed them to spend more time with their family and children.

There are many different ways that the school management system can help teachers . In fact, it is also just as useful for parents, students, and school admins. It provides better interpersonal communication between these entities, decreases work overload, and increases the productivity of your school.

In these trying times, schools and teachers have come together to ensure continuity of education for every student. They are constantly trying out better practices to make education more fun and interactive with the students to avoid possible distractions.

During these times, people often do not realize that teachers too are facing the same problems as everybody else, if not more. However, teachers are relentlessly trying to overcome these challenges and make sure that their students never miss a class.

With the school management system , teachers can streamline the process of teaching without extending it farther than their regular working hours and solve the doubts of their students without always being on call with them.

The only thing you need to do to adapt a school ERP for your school is to get a subscription. You get a free one-year trial that allows you to understand the different features and how they work to provide your school a better, faster, and productive handling experience.

What was your most challenging experience of teaching in lockdown? Let us know in the comments below. And don’t forget to check out our blog for more topics like this.

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Challenges of online teaching during COVID ‐19: An exploratory factor analysis

Mohd. imran siddiquei.

1 Business Administration, Pasadena, University of the People, California, USA

Shashank Kathpal

2 Institute of Business Management, GLA University, Mathura Uttar Pradesh, India

Associated Data

Data available on request from the authors

COVID‐19 has forced academic institutions around the world to shift toward the digital platform for teaching. The study aimed to find a possible model to understand the challenges of online teaching from home. Literature review and expert opinion identified the issues related to students, institutions, instructors, technology, and content, and based on the expert's opinion, the motivation construct was added. To obtain the data faculty members of different universities of North India were approached and requested to fill a self‐administered questionnaire. This data was analyzed for its reliability and validity. Finally, the factor loading of all the items was analyzed to determine the scale appropriability.

Six key factors were recognized and validated using Exploratory Factor Analysis, that were impacting the online teaching during COVID‐19, namely Instructors/Teachers, Institution, Students/Learners, Infrastructure, Content and Motivation.

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1. INTRODUCTION

The spread of the coronavirus epidemic is responsible for the cause of medical emergencies all over the world, due to which millions are suffering from the disease and more than half of the millions have died. The entire world economy has been crushed by COVID‐19. Its spread has caused panic in almost all sectors of the world economy (Ali & Khan, 2020 ). A nationwide lockdown was announced in India on 22 March 2020 to prevent the epidemic from spreading in the country. Thousands of school colleges and universities have had to be closed due to lockdown in India. Lockdown has affected the education of more than 500 million students in India (Gupta & Tiwari, 2020 ). Lockdown has forced colleges, universities, and schools all over India to take entire education to the digital platform without any preparations. It has pushed the academic institutions towards online teaching due to the indefinite shutting down of schools, colleges, and universities by the governments (Martinez, 2020 ). The closure of schools has affected more than 290 million students across the globe (UNESCO, 2020 ). The education industry has witnessed a pedagogical shift in the teaching toward e‐learning to cope up with the challenges posed by COVID‐19. The issue of students' safety compelled academic institutions to devise strategies for educating students with nominal disruptions (Hale et al., 2020 ). The teachers were aware of using technology for enhanced learning; however, they were not ready for such revolutionary change.

The education system was obligated to reinvent itself to handle this unparalleled challenge. Earlier the e‐learning was majorly used in nonformal education and distance education courses. However, the COVID‐19 has compelled the formal institutions to embrace e‐learning, as maintaining social distance is of utmost value. Maintaining stringent rules such as maintaining social distancing is improbable in the regular classroom mode of teaching. The motivation of different stakeholders is a prerequisite to breaking the ice of interaction that occurs due to the absence of regular classes (Siegal et al., 1996 ). Both the teachers and students need to adopt the digital learning process to make e‐learning successful (Lederman, 2020 ). The sudden change from a brick‐and‐mortar model to only a click model of education and learning has posed serious challenges in front of teachers and students (Adnan & Anwar, 2020 ; Bdair, 2021 ). For students in India, the challenges are not limited to technological infrastructure, but it extends to psychological well‐being as well (Pandita et al., 2021 ). The psychological impact of online teaching among students includes anxiety, and depression (Bashir et al., 2020 ; Hasan & Bao, 2020 ; Pandita et al., 2021 ). The Government of India promoted online teaching to ensure the continuation of learning even during the lockdown. Chinese government emphasized continuous learning even during the suspension of classes in the time of COVID‐19 (Zhang et al., 2020 ). The emphasis on digital teaching has burdened all the stakeholders of the education industry. A shift toward remote teaching at such short notice globally was a novel phenomenon (Brom et al., 2020 ). These types of emergencies are not planned and require the competency of using technology to teach remotely (Joshi et al., 2018 ; Rush et al., 2016 ). Many teachers are struggling to adopt online teaching (Hodges et al., 2020 ).

The conventional view suggests that instructors and probably the textbook are the primary source of students' information. Information and Communication Technology(ICT) support, such as audio/videos or slides, or films, is available to teachers. Online teaching is different because the instructor is not there to make students vigilant. The e‐learning system makes the role of the teacher more complex, as teachers have to collect, prepare, and present the information via the internet as a course facilitator (Adedoyin & Soykan, 2020 ; Bdair, 2021 ; Buzzetto‐Hollywood, 2007 ). The complexity of online teaching has increased the workload of teachers many folds (Adnan & Anwar, 2020 ; Connolly & Begg, 2006 ).

Post lockdown majority of the educational institutions adopted either synchronous learning or asynchronous learning models. Synchronous learning consists of online or remote training that takes place in real‐time in the form of live sessions using various conferencing software's like zoom, google meet, Blackboard, Skype, and Cisco WebEx, while online learning is achieved without real‐time contact through online networks using WhatsApp, YouTube, and Learning management systems of educational institutes.

Both synchronous and asynchronous models require hardware, software, and network supports for both teachers and students. The recent report from Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) suggested that Internet infrastructure in India is not ready for a complete shift from offline teaching to online teaching (Source: QS I ‐ GUAGE).

Even before COVID‐19 pandemic, developing countries like India were facing challenges and many obstacles in adopting e‐learning (Heeks, 2002 ). The challenges have become more prominent as the entire education system shifted from offline to online teaching.

There have been numerous studies that have been conducted to understand the quality of e‐learning from different perspectives. Critical questions such as communication, technology, time management, pedagogy, and evaluation have been identified and analyzed through various studies on online teaching (Bassoppo‐Moyo, 2006 ; Conaway et al., 2005 ; Ko & Rossen, 2010 ; Limperos et al., 2015 ). However, challenges faced by educators in the era of COVID‐19 have been less explored (Adedoyin & Soykan, 2020 ; Adnan & Anwar, 2020 ). The objective of this study is to understand the challenges of online teaching from home in the education sector.

2. CONCEPTUALIZING ONLINE TEACHING CHALLENGES

Almost all the major countries have adopted e‐learning in the post‐COVID‐19 scenarios including developing countries like India. The challenges can categorize into three major perspectives, that is, pre‐COVID, during COVID, and post‐COVID. To understand challenges from all perspectives, extensive literature reviews and expert opinions have been used. Numerous studies have highlighted various issues of online education. A large number of studies have suggested various constructs and their measuring elements (Adedoyin & Soykan, 2020 ; Adnan & Anwar, 2020 ; Bdair, 2021 ). While each of these constructs and elements looks important and relevant but it is unclear that which construct and element will be suitable to, measure the challenges of online teaching from home in the era of COVID‐19. Therefore, with the help of a literature review, a list of constructs and items has been prepared (Table 1 ).

Literature review

The literature contributed five important factors like instructors, institutions, learners, infrastructure, content factors that are crucial as challenges of teaching online. The factor of motivation, which is recommended by the experts, can be viewed from a different point of view including the role of the instructor, the process of learning, the environment of learning, and the role of participants. Researchers have looked at motivational variables as significant indicators of desire to continue with any form of technology‐assisted education (Panisoara et al., 2020 ). Since the target sample for this study is faculty members working in private universities, motivation factors become more imminent from the Indian perspective as these institutions are known for their exploitative policies (Sindhi, 2012 ). We took those factors that affect the motivation of faculty members which are salary, job security, family support, mental, and emotional support. A paucity of research was found which could incorporate the challenges that emerge out of the present pandemic in the life of a faculty, to adopt online teaching. Therefore, to fill the existing research gap, the study will propose the model to understand the challenges faced in online teaching during COVID‐19.

3. METHODOLOGY

The proposed model “Challenges of Online Teaching during‐COVID 19” has been designed to understand problems faced by instructors/teachers in the delivery of online lectures to the students in the COVID‐19 scenario. The following nine steps were undertaken to propose the model (Figure 1 ).

Literature review: Review of literature is one of the prominent and effective ways to find out the factors and measures used in determining any phenomenon (Knopf, 2006 ). The first step of conceptual definitions, their elements, and description started with a literature review of existing studies in the online teaching domain. More than 50 studies were reviewed to understand conceptual definitions, that can be a theoretical base for model development
Development of list of items: A total of 30 elements were identified and grouped under instructors, institution, learners, infrastructure, and content factors. The factors selected for the study represent the challenges in the adoption of online teaching (Adedoyin & Soykan, 2020 ; Adnan & Anwar, 2020 ; Bdair, 2021 ).
Expert opinion: List of elements and their broad factors were presented to five academicians working in the domain of engineering and management (two professors and three associate professors) for evaluation of the relevance of each item, reclassify the items, point out ambiguity, and suggest a replacement or additional items (Devellis, 1991 ). Experts have suggested a new factor as motivation with five items including salary, job security, family support, mental, and emotional support to incorporate challenges that arise due to COVID‐19. Some minor changes have also been suggested by experts like network speed and online counseling sessions for teachers, which are peculiar to Indian Internet infrastructure and stress‐relieving exercises for teachers.
Questionnaire development with a final list of items: The factors used to examine the challenges of online teaching were finalized after the extensive review of the existing literature and with the help of experts in the field (Bohrnstedt, 1983 ). A total of six factors (instructors, institutions, students/learners, infrastructure, content factors, and motivational factors) with five items each were constructed for the final development of a questionnaire. All the items were measure on a 5‐point Likert scale ranging from “Strongly disagree To Strongly Agree.” The questionnaire was also verified with the experts of the field who helped in finalizing factors (Caro & Garcia, 2007 ).
Face and content validity: Content validity of a questionnaire comes from the review of literature while face validity could be achieved by considering expert opinion (Taherdoost, 2016 ). All the items were taken from the extensive literature review and validated by experts; therefore, achieving both content and face validity (Bohrnstedt, 1983 ; Caro & Garcia, 2007 ).
Data collection: Due to COVID‐19, it was not feasible to collect data by sending physical questionnaires. Therefore, the questionnaire was designed in a google form and sent through email and WhatsApp to 300 faculty members working in the private universities of north India. Gentle reminders were sent at regular intervals to the respondents. Total 124 responses were received; nine responses were dropped due to incompletion and 115 were taken as the final sample size.
Reliability, validity, and normality: To analyze the internal consistency and strength of the results the reliability of the instrument is measured (McMillan, 2007 ). The reliability was tested with the help of Cronbach's alpha. To analyze whether the data is adequate to run for Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), the Kaiser‐Meyer‐Olkin (KMO) test was run (Marsh et al., 2009 ). The normality was also tested by analyzing the skewness of data before running EFA.
Factors determination: The eigenvalues of the 30 items were calculated to determine the number of factors to be considered for the study. A scree plot is also created for the same.
Exploratory factor analysis: To have a reliable scale, the items selected must be suitable. With the help of EFA, inappropriate items can be removed. The EFA is a very useful tool to categorize the constructs when there is a paucity of information available on their dimensionality (Netemeyer et al., 2003 ). The scale for the proposed model was analyzed with the help of EFA using the software of SPSS 20. A total number of 30 items were finalized to represent the six latent variables used to run the EFA. A sample of 115 respondents is taken, which is considered to be suitable to conduct EFA (Churchill Jr, 1979 ; Hair et al., 2010 ; Malhotra & Das, 2010 ). The EFA analysis was conducted over Principal Component Analysis (PCA) using the Varimax rotation while analyzing the principal component.

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Scale development methodology

4. ANALYSIS

The current study aims to investigate the suitability of the proposed model as well as the items included in it. The data collected were analyzed using SPSS 20 has indicated the following findings:

4.1. Normality

The normality of the items is confirmed by analyzing the skewness of the data which is created using SPSS 20. If the degree of skewness is less than the absolute 1, the data is considered to be normally distributed (Field, 2009 ). Table 2 shows that the data used in the study is normally distributed.

Descriptive analysis

4.2. Reliability

If the value of Cronbach's alpha is higher than 0.8, it is considered to have very good internal consistency (Blunch, 2008 ), while Nunnally ( 1994 ), considers the value of 0.7 as reliable. The outcome values of Cronbach's alpha for the current study ranges from 0.886 to 0.936, indicating good reliability of the data (Table 3 ).

Cronbach's alpha

4.3. KMO and Bartlett's test

The acceptable value for the KMO test should be greater than 0.6 (Hair et al., 2010 ; Kaiser, 1974 ; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013 ). The result of KMO analysis was 0.880 (Table 4 ), which is an acceptable value to run PCA in EFA. The result for Bartlett's Test was having a p‐value of .00, which is also considered significant.

Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett's test

4.4. Eigen value and scree plot

The total variance of each latent variable is characterized by eigenvalue. According to Kaiser ( 1960 ), factors with an eigenvalue of more than 1 is should be considered for retention. The eigenvalue for six factors was found to be greater than 1 (Table 5 ) and the same is confirmed by using a scree plot (Figure 2 ). While 24 variables did not qualified to be considered as factors, because their eigenvalue is less than 1 (DeVellis, 2003 ). The same results can be seen in the scree test, where the six factors are seen on a vertical slope (Figure 2 ) and hence considered for the retention (Comrey & Lee, 1992 ; DeVellis, 2003 ).

Total variance

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4.5. Exploratory factor analysis

EFA is used to develop new instruments. Comrey and Lee ( 1992 ) suggested that if the factor loading is more than 0.63, it is considered to be good. As shown in Tables 6 and and7, 7 , all of the 30 items of the given five constructs have shown a very good factor loading value ranging from .662 to .858, which reflects a robust correlation between variables and factors. Due to the outstanding results of EFA, all the items were retained and none were removed.

Rotated component matrix a

Notes : Extraction method: Principal component analysis. Rotation method: Varimax.

Factors along with their attributes

5. DISCUSSIONS

This study aims to analyze the challenges faced by the academicians in shift their teaching pedagogy from traditional to online mode due to COVID‐19. This paper provides different perspectives pertaining to the adoption of online teaching while remaining within the boundaries of existing literature. The results present novel insights in understanding the perception of faculty members toward the adoption of online education.

This pandemic has given many lessons to every industry including education. An important takeaway for education institutes is to be prepared for effective digital learning.

The findings of the study indicate the relevance of technological infrastructure and commitment from the top management in making e‐learning effective. The results also emphasized the role of employees' as well as students' motivation in making digital learning valuable. During the emergencies such as COVID‐19, remote teaching could be proven a feasible substitute for traditional teaching. However, its effectiveness could only be studied in the future by analyzing the performance of students. The performance of students could deteriorate due to the challenges posed by this new method of education. In the end, it is essential to address the challenges posed in the adoption of digital learning to make it effective.

Literature indicates a poor ability of faculties in using digital platforms for teaching (Foulger et al., 2017 ). The faculties who were not versed with online teaching faced enormous challenges, as they need to learn teaching online while delivering the lectures online. Despite the difficulties, the digital platform for teaching provides opportunities to faculties for experimental teaching, as teaching in different setups and platforms was possible (Archambault & Kennedy, 2014 ; Graham et al., 2019 ; Pulham & Graham, 2018; Zweig & Stafford, 2016). The faculty members were motivated to support the shift toward e‐learning (Trust et al., 2016 ).

6. CONCLUSION

A review of the literature, expert opinion, and EFA were performed to understand the major challenges posed by COVID‐19 in teaching online from home.

There are six major factors identified as instructors, institution, students/learners, infrastructure, content factors, and motivational factors for the proposed model (Figure 3 ). Challenges related to instructors included a transition to online from offline, communication barriers innate in online teaching, preparation, teaching style. Challenges related to institutions include training for teachers and students, technical and multimedia support, technical troubleshooting team, online counseling sessions for teachers. Challenges related to students are readiness, technical skills to learn online, network and speed issues, identity, interaction, and participation. Challenges related to content include the development of new material, multimedia tools (Videos, PPT, and Animation) regular assignments, checking assignments, regular feedback from students. Challenges related to motivational factors include salary on time. Sense of job security, family support, mental and emotional support from colleagues and higher authorities. Challenges related to technological factors include network stability and speed, device suitability, ease of use, and tools of conferencing software for online teaching.

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Proposed model: Challenges Of Online Teaching During COVID‐19

7. CONTRIBUTION AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

This study will bridge the gap of existing literature on major challenges of online teaching from home in post‐COVID‐19 scenarios. As social distancing has become the norm, this study will help higher institutions to understand major challenges and try to come up with strategies for a better online learning environment for students and faculty members by focusing on factors that can be solved at an institutional level like counseling, adequate training, job security. The study will also help the government to focus on a critical area like Indian Internet infrastructure which plays an important role in the success of online teaching and learning in India. Finally, it helps faculty members as they are responsible for service delivery. They can employ innovative teaching strategies to improve students' participation and interaction in online classes.

7.1. Limitations and future research implications

The study is not without any limitations. The study was conducted in the Indian context; therefore, generalization for other countries is limited. The study employs a small sample size due to limitations of accessibility to respondents due to COVID‐19; therefore future can explore factors with greater sample sizes. Future research must try confirmatory factor analysis to validate the proposed model further. The study can be replicated in other developing countries due to the existence of a similar type of challenge, which can further improve the acceptability of the proposed model.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The author states that there is no conflict of Interest.

PEER REVIEW

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1002/hbe2.300 .

Biographies

Mohd Imran Siddiquei is working as an Assistant professor with the University of the People. He has completed his PhD from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh in Business Administration with a core area of Service quality. He has 14 years of experience in teaching Management subjects like Marketing Management, Research Methodology, Marketing of Services, International Business, Managerial Economics, Financial Services, Strategic Management, and Brand Management. As an avid researcher, He has many Scopus Indexed and ABDC Category Papers. He has covered Research areas like Service quality, Service delivery, Consumer Ethics, Brand Loyalty, Vendor Selection, Consumers' Frequency of Eating Out, Public Policy, and many papers on Challenges of COVID‐19 in various sectors of an Economy. His future research aspirations involve a special focus On COVID‐19 and emerging challenges in Hospitality, Education, Banking, transport, tourism, and many other services sectors. He is also interested in collaborative research projects with researchers, students, community organizations.

Shashank Kathpal is currently working as an assistant professor at the Institute of Business Management, GLA University, Mathura, UP. His area of specialization includes Marketing and Analytics. He has completed three post graduations whose details are as follow: Masters in Commerce from Guru Jambheshwar University, Haryana, India, Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Kirloskar Institute of Advanced Management Studies, Karnataka, India, MSc in Applied Psychology: The Global Open University, Nagaland, India. He is pursuing a PhD in (Business Administration) from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh India, and the topic of His doctoral work is “Investigating the relationship between personality traits and investors' bias: A study of financial literates”. He has also earned multiple certifications in Analytics through Massive open online courses and attended many Faculty Development programs at reputed institutes. He has more than 8.5 years of teaching experience. He has published many Scopus indexed papers and actively working on future research output.

APPENDIX A. The questionnaire provided in the Appendix are developed by the authors

Dear Faculty,

As we know that Covid‐19 has forced all the leading institutions to move their classes online. We are conducting an online survey about the challenges faced by the faculty pertaining to adoption of online teaching. Please fill the form with utmost honesty. It should take approximate 10 min only.

We assure you that the information given by you will be used for academic purpose only.

Section‐A (Demographic Profile)

Name: _______________________________.

Email: ________________________________.

Prefer not say

Educational Institute________________________.

Monthly Income (In Rs.):

Less than 20,000
20,000–35,000
35,000–50,000
More than 50,000

Education Qualification:

Post Graduate

Section‐B (Educator's Perception)

Kindly rate all of the following statement from 1 to 5, where:

1: Strongly disagree; 2: Disagree; 3: Neither agree nor disagree; 4: Agree; 5: Strongly agree

My students are ready to learn online.
My students have technical skills to learn online.
My students do not have network and speed issues.
My students do not hide identity in online learning.
My students are interactive and participate in my class.

Institution support

My institution has given me adequate professional training for online teaching.
My institution has provided adequate training to students for online learning
My Institution provided me technical and multimedia support
My institution has a dedicated Team for troubleshooting arises in online class.
My institution has arranged online counseling sessions for me.

Instructors

I am as comfortable teaching online as offline.
I do have not any communication barriers in teaching online.
I am interested in online teaching.
I am well prepared before taking online class
I have changed my teaching style for online teaching.
I have developed new material for online teaching.
I am using multimedia tools (Videos, PPT, Animation) for online teaching.
I am giving regular assignments to students.
I am checking assignments regularly given to student's
I am taking regular feedback from students of online teaching.

Motivational support

I am getting my salary on time.
I am having a sense of job security.
I am getting family support.
I am getting mental and emotional support from colleagues
I am getting mental and emotional support from higher authorities.

Technological Factors

My network connection is stable.
My network connection is having adequate speed.
My device (mobile/laptop) are suitable for online teaching.
My video conferencing software (Zoom, Google meet, Skype, Blackboard) is easy to use.
My video conferencing software (Zoom, Google meet, Skype, Blackboard) are having adequate tools for online teaching.

Source: Prepared By the Authors.

Siddiquei, M. I. , & Kathpal, S. (2021). Challenges of online teaching during COVID‐19: An exploratory factor analysis . Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies , 3 ( 5 ), 811–822. 10.1002/hbe2.300 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

Funding information There are no funders to report for this submission.

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Lazy? Anxious? Overlooked? Teachers Sound Off on Unmotivated Students

Labeling students who don’t do their work and seem unmotivated as “lazy” has transcended generations in the classroom. As time has gone on, and social science research has gotten more advanced, it’s clear that there’s many factors at play. Technological advancement, a pandemic, and an educational system under stress have only further complicated the question of what drives student apathy.

In a recent EdWeek Opinion piece , Kyle Coppes, a secondary school principal at an international school in Germany, wrote about the nuances of “student laziness.” In response to the article, many teachers felt inspired to share their own opinions on the topic. Some agreed that what seems like laziness is often a symptom of another problem; others insist that sometimes, students just don’t put in the effort that’s needed.

Here’s a collection of the most popular themes from what they had to say.

The success of classrooms reflects the system ...

“as an educational psychologist, i strongly agree but it is not the fault of the teacher. schools are a mirror of society.”, “the education system—or at least where i teach—is primarily responsible for creating the lazy child. maybe lazy isn’t the word we need to be looking at, but rather the unmotivated child.”, “i appreciate the philosophy brought into the argument. furthermore, i very much want to believe the idea here, but this requires a much more practical follow-up question: if the reason students appear lazy, but are not, is that educators are not addressing other issues, how are administrators, school boards, and others in charge of school policy going to change to allow students to get their needs met”, “what if this apathy is a result of the school system itself”, the issue is nuanced, “i can understand my students are avoiding the content by doing many of the things they are doing. i can understand why they are avoiding the content, because they avoided the content during covid and now can’t handle the content before them.”, “i agree there’s usually reasons behind behaviors that appear to be “laziness.” unfortunately, many of the times the classroom teacher has little to no control over many of the factors contributing to that ... family issues, lack of food at home, student mental health problems, etc. this is why student support in terms of counselors, psychologists, and social workers are needed.”.

Gabrielle M.

“You only have to listen, as students tend to know it’s self-inflicted sleep deprivation from texting, surfing, online games, and chats. They start their homework after midnight—2 a.m., and then have to get up at 7-8 a.m. to make it to school. All this from a group that needs more quality sleep than almost any other age bracket.”

“always look further into what is going on with your students. don’t ever just label them lazy and move on—just like i always try and look when the behavior is defiant—99% of the time the kid is crying for help, attention, love, etc. ... i am not doing my students justice to just label them defiant and move on—however—in this case, there is still that 1 percent that is just downright defiant because they want to be …. “, “i totally agree with this. and honestly the first person to tell you kids are lazy are the kids themselves. it’s the only 4 letter word totally banned in my classroom. there is a reason behind their lack of motivation. uncover the reason, address the problem, work gets done. i have spent a lot of my career with kids with school anxiety and avoidance. a lot of teachers just don’t get it.”, “it is true that knowing one’s students, truly knowing them, helps immensely. but there are some factors at work right now that are totally student laziness.”, “it’s not about blame—mindset is the invisible aspect of teaching practice that guides how we respond to students and how they see us. when we label, even subconsciously, a student, they know it —when we bypass the inactions and speak to the ‘function of their behavior’ we can actually move mountains.”, do principals understand what teachers face, “i’m curious how long this principal was a teacher. we are seeing less and less time in the classroom from administrators. experience doesn’t mean expertise but it is one of the requirements for it.”, “this person has clearly been out of the classroom for the past 40 years and most likely spends all of their days in their office hiding from actual responsibility.”, “well, i—like most teachers—agree that we educators can suss out the reasons that a student appears “lazy” and provide formative support ... i would have been more impressed if kyle talked about how, as principal, he supports teachers in this endeavor ....”, “this principal will struggle to keep a fully staffed building.”, “i like the overall tone of this but i’m guessing that this administrator has not had to spend much time guiding classrooms lately. there are some systemic things that have been put in place in many school districts where a student can almost never fail ... and then there’s the added element of how something can look like laziness but it’s masquerading a much deeper issue. that’s its own special consideration.”, “as long as perspectives like this continue placing 100% of the responsibility & accountability for learning on teachers, there will continue to be high burnout and turnover rates. another disconnected administrator missing the mark.”, “kids tell me they don’t care. they google the answers right in front of me instead of trying to do the work. he needs to get into the classroom.”, true laziness can be a factor, some teachers insist, “some students find anything that requires any effort nearly impossible to do.”, “i think a better way to put it is don’t assume laziness is the issue right off the bat. explore other reasons why students are avoiding work. but, sometimes, students will admit to me they just feel lazy ... it can happen.”, “i’m a teacher and sometimes i’m lazy, too. i’m human.”, sign up for edweek update, edweek top school jobs.

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What Students Are Saying About Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’

Chronic absenteeism has increased in American schools since the Covid-19 pandemic. We asked teenagers what they make of the trend.

Students walk through an outdoor breezeway at the Patti Welder Middle School in Victoria.

By The Learning Network

Nationally, an estimated 26 percent of public school students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15 percent before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the most recent data, from 40 states and Washington, D.C., compiled by the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

The increases have occurred in districts big and small, and across income and race.

In “ Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’ Almost Everywhere ,” Sarah Mervosh and Francesca Paris explain:

The trends suggest that something fundamental has shifted in American childhood and the culture of school, in ways that may be long lasting. What was once a deeply ingrained habit — wake up, catch the bus, report to class — is now something far more tenuous. “Our relationship with school became optional,” said Katie Rosanbalm, a psychologist and associate research professor with the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University.

In a related Student Opinion question , we asked teenagers if that explanation resonated with them. Had their relationship to school — and school attendance — changed since the pandemic? And if so, what did they make of this shift?

Many students said, yes, school feels different now. Why? They pointed to remote learning changing their routines, an increase in anxiety and a decrease in motivation, the ease of making up schoolwork online and much more. Read their responses in full below.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the conversation on our writing prompts this week, including students from Central Bucks South High School in Warrington, Pa .; Norwood High School in Norwood, Mass.; and West Salem High School in Salem, Ore.

Please note: Student comments have been lightly edited for length, but otherwise appear as they were originally submitted.

Remote learning made students comfortable with missing school.

I believe that there are two main contributors to missing school too much. The first is online school. Myself included. It was very easy to simply leave the call after taking attendance and the teacher wouldn’t realize. Skipping class was easy and you could still get high grades. Transitioning back to real school, kids still held that true. They knew that they could miss school and still do well because covid taught that to them. The second reason is punishment. When you miss school, nothing happens. Class goes on and you have a little extra homework the next day but that’s it. What is the issue with missing class is a very common thought and it’s true. There is very minimal downside to missing school. When I had surgery, I missed a full week of school and within a day and a half, I was fully caught up again. Missing school has just become all too easy.

— Xavier, Pennsylvania

2020 was when our lives completely changed for the worst. We all had to stay inside and stay separate from each other. It was terrible, not being able to talk to my friends, and seeing the death toll on news constantly rise. However, after a year into the pandemic, I believe students realized the power they now had, including me. Now that I am a highschooler, I am going to admit that sometimes I would just mute my class and do whatever I wanted. School became shorter and easier to pass than ever before. That’s why when we all transitioned back into school, it was weird. We all still wanted to get through class the “easy way,” yet now that we were back, it wasn’t possible. This is why we started increasing our absences. The threat of absence has become weak, students are not as afraid to stay out of school. Furthermore the threat of being infected gave just one more reason to be out of school, for the sake of “preventing others from getting sick,” when in reality you feel fine. That is most likely why the absences in school had an exponential increase.

— Joshua, Pennsylvania

Students feel like expectations are lower than they were before the pandemic.

As a student in high school, I’ve come to realize the horrible state our attendance has been in since the pandemic. The reason can be simplified into one idea: laziness. We are lazy, willing to do only enough to get by, no more, no less. If a student doesn’t need to come to a class to obtain the grade they wish to achieve, then they won’t show up. Classes are not challenging enough to make students feel that they are worth going to. My mom is used to getting texts from me during the school day, begging to be excused from a class where “we’re doing nothing” or, “I already finished the work,” which is true, yet I abuse the opportunity to miss class because I know there will be no greater coincidence, I will still be getting an A. Due to my laziness, I would rather be at home taking a nap than sitting in a class with no greater impact on my life.

— Clara, Salem, Oregon

Since the pandemic, schooling has been focused on getting students caught up to where we’re supposed to be. Consequently, more allowances are made for students who don’t do assignments or don’t even show up. And with the switch to all online because of the pandemic, things have never shifted back. If a student misses a day or even a week, they can easily see what they missed and do it and submit it from home. With this option giving them the exact same grade as it would if they actually went to school, it’s no wonder why students are choosing to stay at home or skipping class. Additionally, the pandemic had heightened anxiety levels in students, specifically social anxiety, making them less likely to show up. The allowances made by the school district for students has created a space for students to be lazy and get away with it. This is fostering a negative impact on student work ethic not only now, but also in the future when this generation will be entering the work force.

— Emma, West Salem High School

The period of school shutdowns got students out of their school routines.

When I think back to virtual learning, my brain automatically goes to how stress free it was. I was in sixth grade when Covid first hit and going through a period of my life where I was extremely anxious at school. I believe that this break is exactly what I needed at the time. However, I do believe that in the long run, this online learning time period got a lot of people into the routine of not having a routine. A lot of people at my school would turn their camera off and fall asleep or go on their phones during online learning. I believe that there were times that I did this as well. I also think that this mindset carried through into the grades where I did not have an online/hybrid option. In eighth and ninth grade, I happened to stay home sick, go into school late, or leave early a lot. I think this is due to me not taking school as seriously due to the grading methods that were being used and how some of my teachers were not grading harshly. Now that I am a sophomore in high school, I think I have finally gotten back into the routine of actual schooling and not staying home sick unless I actually feel extremely sick.

— Madison, Pennsylvania

Before the pandemic and as I was growing up, I was the kind of student that wanted perfect attendance. For some odd reason, it made me feel like a better student if I never missed a day. This included turning my parents down when they offered me to go on trips, even though I was only in fourth grade and the work that I would have missed wouldn’t have made an impact in my academic career. However, after the pandemic school began to feel optional. We felt what it was like to fall out of the routine that going to school was and were never able to fully recover from it. I think that having experienced attending school from your bed, in your pajamas has played a major role in the current trend of students receiving more absences. For me, it made me realize that the “0” next to your number of absences didn’t matter as much as I had once thought. As a now highschooler, the school days are long and every class requires an abundance of work and undivided attention that whenever there is a substitute or not much going on, it is easy to decide to leave school. With senior year approaching, everything’s purpose is college and the fact that colleges aren’t able to see how many absences a student has when they apply, does play a role in the increasing number of absences.

— Ava, Miami Country Day School

Because assignments and other materials are online, students find they can keep up with their classes even if they don’t attend school.

Schools have adjusted rules so much that it makes school feel optional. Don’t want to attend class publicly? Take online classes. Don’t want to take “required” state testing? Opt out. Before, school seemed strict, we didn’t have the option to opt out of tests, we didn’t think of taking online school. Yet now, schools make it so easy to skip because everything is simply online. Our assignments, lectures, and teachers are all online. There are no longer requirements in school. What’s the point of attending if we can graduate without taking state testing or attending advisory — also a requirement, yet I no longer have an advisory because my counselors said I don’t need to take it to graduate. It’s confusing. Students have been enabled for over 4 years now since quarantine started. School doesn’t feel mandatory, it’s optional. I’m currently enrolled into 2 AP classes, so I try my best not to miss school. But it’s inevitable, I get sick, I have family situations or maybe I simply don’t feel like attending school. But I see people skip school like nothing. “I didn’t feel like going” is a constant statement I hear. Not many students have the motivation to attend, and simply don’t go because they have a comfort in their head that they can graduate while missing multiple days of school nearly everyday.

— Olivia, Salem, OR

Current absenteeism rates have significantly impacted my learning experience for the past few years. Since the pandemic, there has been a noticeable shift in the perception of the value of education and whether or not attendance is an important factor in a student’s academic success. In the years following 2020, I found myself struggling to make it to class everyday due to my new found efficiency of working at home with my computer. I felt that even if I was not in class personally, I would be able to keep up with my work easily as it was all online regardless. Due to this I would go on trips or skip class purely because I was under the impression that I would be able to continue achieving virtually.

— Ruby, RFHS

Before the pandemic, my attendance was stable but after the pandemic, my absences were piling on. It was difficult to get back in the rhythm of in person school when I had already done a whole year online, but now my attendance in school is definitely getting better. On the other hand, students in my school tend to miss school and it is a rare sight to see a full class. Some students go as far as showing up to class once a week and just do the classwork online. After the pandemic, schools went from paperwork to all online, which is a big reason why students miss all the time, knowing that school work can just be done at home. It has definitely affected students’ grades and goals in life, but hopefully in the future, absences can lower back down.

— Emily, Atrisco Heritage Academy High School

Going to school, and finding the motivation to have as good an attendance record as possible, now feels like more of a struggle.

As students, we’ve developed a comfort in staying in bed during school without having to get ourselves ready to go outside. We had the ability to wake up five minutes before “school” started to get on our zoom calls. Now, we must wake up an hour and a half prior, and make breakfast and pack lunch, before driving to school. The process is tenuous as the article states, but because we’ve accustomed to a different lifestyle, it just makes this one seem like so much more work. I, myself have noticed my difference in attendance after COVID-19. I used to be very obsessed with perfect attendance, but I had 11 absences in my sophomore year, right after coming back from online school. Nowadays, I’m more lenient on myself when it comes to taking a mental health day, because the process can be overwhelming. School is very important, so of course I try to always come in, but sometimes it can be hard. I have not noticed this trend in the world, as well as with myself until this article. It’s enlightening to know that this had not only an effect on me, but all over the country. Hopefully the rates of absenteeism will decrease as time goes on, because we are the future.

— Anisha, New Jersey

Before virtual learning, I never made much of a habit of not turning in work or showing up for class. It was so much easier then but since virtual learning, it had become incredibly difficult for me to focus as well as keep up motivation to continue school. It was easy to skip and nobody really said much about it so it easily became a bad habit. That bad habit eventually leaked into normal school as well and it always sounds so much easier to break out of than it actually is.

— Tayy, NRHS

As the average high school class skipper (only sometimes), in my personal experience, missing out on classes hasn’t really been because of mental health concerns, but more of just lasting laziness from the pandemic. I feel as though I was relatively hard working in middle school/elementary but after a few years off with only half effort assignments, I have grown to become more sluggish and reluctant when it comes to more advanced work while in school. And it makes the option of missing out on classes because of my own reluctance a lot more appealing.

— Luke, Bali, Indonesia

My schedule during the week is get up, get ready for school, go to school, go home, do homework, go to sleep and then I repeat that everyday for 5 days. As much as I don’t want to dread going to school, it’s exhausting having the same schedule repeated everyday of the week. While in school, you have assignments assigned nearly everyday. I feel as though school has had a change in its meaning because of the COVID-19 pandemic. While in quarantine, we were looking at a screen for the whole day and lacked motivation to get assignments done. When we shifted to in person school again, it didn’t change. I now look at school as a task that I need to complete to shape my future. I need to have all my assignments perfect and turned in on time. The meaning of school has turned into a draining task rather than a place that you look forward to going to.

— Jamisan, Salem, Oregon

Some students face challenges in attending class that may have nothing to do with the pandemic.

I don’t believe that students are skipping because it is so easy to catch up and pass, despite their absences. In fact, I know that a lot of people who skip aren’t passing most of their classes. They do this because their parents don’t hold them accountable, and there is always something deeper going on in that student’s life that makes it that much harder for them to find the motivation to go to class. I don’t think making the classes harder will hold students more accountable, but in fact deter them from going to class at all. If a student is aware that they are failing and doesn’t understand the concept of the class, and the class proceeds to become harder, they are going to quickly become unmotivated to go to class in the first place, feeling out of place compared to the other — passing — students in the class. While I don’t have a solution for this problem, myself, I feel that the problem is much broader than we suspect, and the answer will be a much deeper journey to find.

— Kylie, West Salem HS

Schools can do more to get students back in class.

I attend a French school in London and attendance is closely monitored. Absences have to be justified by your parents or you could get into trouble. I think it’s important to attend school as we did before Covid - because as well as learning the curriculum, it is crucial to socialise with your friends and classmates, which is good for your mental health … I wonder if social media could be a factor? If students did not have access to social media or the internet, would they prefer to be in school with their friends? This increase in absenteeism could affect students’ chances of getting into University when they come to finish school or even their opportunities later in life. Students need to be reminded of this more and more perhaps. School helps you to learn not just about facts but also helps to build your emotional quotient & social intelligence — which are all valuable for life.

— Alexandre 14, London

As a current high school junior, my experiences with skipping have been minimal at best, however, I feel strongly that the reason behind skipping is pretty simple. Students don’t care as much about school and the system encourages it. When faced with the choice of sitting in a class and learning about the Patagorian theorem or hanging out with friends, many students are now choosing the latter. The lack of care or effort being put forth in school doesn’t even affect their grades! This is due to certain classes having minimal grades set at 50%, which is 10% away from a pass. This system is actively encouraging people to put minimal effort into a class just to get a pass and graduate. Removing courses like this would certainly raise the importance of getting the work done. Another solution to this problem would be having attendance as a grade, if your grade depends on you being in classes then most would show up. If you have to show up to class to pass then more students would be inclined to do so. The emphasis is on not bending the knee to people who don’t want to show up to class, not giving them a minimal 50%, we should mark attendance for a passing grade, and letting them fail. If we keep letting students skip with minimal consequences then their attitudes won’t change and thus hinder our students’ growth.

— Henry, Salem, OR

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Essay on Lockdown in English for Students and Children

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1.7 Conclusion

Long Essay on Lockdown in English 800 Words

Lockdown essay in English – Lockdown is a term that exploded collectively around the world in the year 2020. With the widespread attack of an invisible virus, known as the Novel Coronavirus , the entire world was devastated by the Pandemic of this virus. It occurs during a wide variety of emergencies and it disrupts normal life.

Many words became popular after the arrival of Coronavirus, the term “lockdown” being one of them. A lockdown is a period of time when people have to stay home and are only allowed to travel in an emergency. During this period everything is closed except for some essential services like hospitals, grocery stores, medical stores, etc.

Introduction

Coronavirus has been considered the most contagious virus ever in the history of mankind. Its effects have become catastrophic within a short time. To prevent the spread of this Coronavirus in the country, our government has taken some drastic steps.

One of the most important measures implemented is a lockdown, where all businesses have been closed, all people have been confined to their homes and almost all professional, personal, and economic activities have come to a standstill.

The lockdown was announced and enforced on the 25 th of March, 2020. It has been extended, in phases, to continue till mid-June. The government has issued advisories to all citizens to practice social distancing and stay at home. The purpose of the lockdown is to prevent community transmission of this deadly virus so that the chain of transmission can be broken.

Each and every person faced many difficulties during this period but for the daily wagers, it was much more difficult. Work from home, online education , and online business were some of the options during this period, and the Indian government also helped the people a lot.

Online Education During Lockdown

For the first time, schools in India have moved to online classes. It is a struggle for the teacher as well as the students. School students, children, and their parents felt the impact to close schools and educational institutions.

The lockdown situation prompted people to learn and use digital technology and as a result, increased digital literacy.

The teaching material is easily shared among the students and the doubt questions are solved on Telegram, WhatsApp, E-mail, and various social media. Students need to learn digital skills for their own sake and improve the quality of education as well as changes in syllabus, textbooks, teacher training, and examination systems, but at the very least, the quality of online education must also improve needed.

Advantages of Lockdown

Due to the lockdown, on the one hand, while people have been forced to remain imprisoned in the house, on the other hand, many big benefits are also being seen. Some important benefits of essay on lockdown:-

The rapidly spreading Coronavirus has been controlled by applying Lockdown.
Due to the lockdown, the movement of vehicles has been reduced very much, factories have been closed, and the air of the cities has started to clear due to the rein in such activities.
The impact of the lockdown is also being seen on global warming. In early April, scientists showed a hole of 1,000,000 square kilometers in the ozone layer above the North Pole. According to NASA, it has started filling these holes now.
Earth’s vibration has been reduced by 30 to 50 percent due to less traffic, machines, and noise pollution.
Due to Coronavirus, there has been a change in the cleanliness habits of the people. People are being more vigilant. Due to the lockdown, more time is also available for cleaning the house.
People are learning to live with limited resources and insist on being self-sufficient (or Aatmnirbhar ) in the future so that they can produce themselves.
During this lockdown period, we have got a lot of time for self-development and self-awareness.
Most people in Lockdown are cooking at home and eating the same. Health will also be good due to good food.

Disadvantage of Lockdown

Some important disadvantages of the essay on Lockdown:-

Many migrant laborers got trapped in different cities and they could not return to their homes due to which they had to face many difficulties.
Many industries like agriculture, education, and entertainment are suffering. It has negatively impacted the world economy.
Unemployment has increased rapidly due to the lockdown. Because of this many people have lost their jobs.
All schools and colleges were closed due to the lockdown, due to which the students were not able to study well.

Lockdown 2021

The lockdown was imposed due to Coronavirus in March 2020 last year. The same situation is being seen again. Again in April 2021, Coronavirus is spreading rapidly due to which lockdown is being imposed in all the states one by one.

In view of this spreading Coronavirus, the CBSE board canceled the class 10 examination and postponed the class 12 examination.

Lockdown is something that affects people from all backgrounds and especially the daily wagers. Some of the main problems during a lockdown are employment, poverty, and starvation.

Overall, we should keep in mind that lockdowns are only imposed for our welfare, so it is always our duty to follow the rules of lockdown.

Regions & Countries

About 1 in 4 u.s. teachers say their school went into a gun-related lockdown in the last school year.

Twenty-five years after the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado , a majority of public K-12 teachers (59%) say they are at least somewhat worried about the possibility of a shooting ever happening at their school. This includes 18% who say they’re extremely or very worried, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to better understand public K-12 teachers’ views on school shootings, how prepared they feel for a potential active shooter, and how they feel about policies that could help prevent future shootings.

To do this, we surveyed 2,531 U.S. public K-12 teachers from Oct. 17 to Nov. 14, 2023. The teachers are members of RAND’s American Teacher Panel, a nationally representative panel of public school K-12 teachers recruited through MDR Education. Survey data is weighted to state and national teacher characteristics to account for differences in sampling and response to ensure they are representative of the target population.

We also used data from our 2022 survey of U.S. parents. For that project, we surveyed 3,757 U.S. parents with at least one child younger than 18 from Sept. 20 to Oct. 2, 2022. Find more details about the survey of parents here .

Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and the survey methodology .

Another 31% of teachers say they are not too worried about a shooting occurring at their school. Only 7% of teachers say they are not at all worried.

This survey comes at a time when school shootings are at a record high (82 in 2023) and gun safety continues to be a topic in 2024 election campaigns .

A pie chart showing that a majority of teachers are at least somewhat worried about a shooting occurring at their school.

Teachers’ experiences with lockdowns

A horizontal stacked bar chart showing that about 1 in 4 teachers say their school had a gun-related lockdown last year.

About a quarter of teachers (23%) say they experienced a lockdown in the 2022-23 school year because of a gun or suspicion of a gun at their school. Some 15% say this happened once during the year, and 8% say this happened more than once.

High school teachers are most likely to report experiencing these lockdowns: 34% say their school went on at least one gun-related lockdown in the last school year. This compares with 22% of middle school teachers and 16% of elementary school teachers.

Teachers in urban schools are also more likely to say that their school had a gun-related lockdown. About a third of these teachers (31%) say this, compared with 19% of teachers in suburban schools and 20% in rural schools.

Do teachers feel their school has prepared them for an active shooter?

About four-in-ten teachers (39%) say their school has done a fair or poor job providing them with the training and resources they need to deal with a potential active shooter.

A bar chart showing that 3 in 10 teachers say their school has done an excellent or very good job preparing them for an active shooter.

A smaller share (30%) give their school an excellent or very good rating, and another 30% say their school has done a good job preparing them.

Teachers in urban schools are the least likely to say their school has done an excellent or very good job preparing them for a potential active shooter. About one-in-five (21%) say this, compared with 32% of teachers in suburban schools and 35% in rural schools.

Teachers who have police officers or armed security stationed in their school are more likely than those who don’t to say their school has done an excellent or very good job preparing them for a potential active shooter (36% vs. 22%).

Overall, 56% of teachers say they have police officers or armed security stationed at their school. Majorities in rural schools (64%) and suburban schools (56%) say this, compared with 48% in urban schools.

Only 3% of teachers say teachers and administrators at their school are allowed to carry guns in school. This is slightly more common in school districts where a majority of voters cast ballots for Donald Trump in 2020 than in school districts where a majority of voters cast ballots for Joe Biden (5% vs. 1%).

What strategies do teachers think could help prevent school shootings?

A bar chart showing that 69% of teachers say better mental health treatment would be highly effective in preventing school shootings.

The survey also asked teachers how effective some measures would be at preventing school shootings.

Most teachers (69%) say improving mental health screening and treatment for children and adults would be extremely or very effective.

About half (49%) say having police officers or armed security in schools would be highly effective, while 33% say the same about metal detectors in schools.

Just 13% say allowing teachers and school administrators to carry guns in schools would be extremely or very effective at preventing school shootings. Seven-in-ten teachers say this would be not too or not at all effective.

How teachers’ views differ by party

A dot plot showing that teachers’ views of strategies to prevent school shootings differ by political party.

Republican and Republican-leaning teachers are more likely than Democratic and Democratic-leaning teachers to say each of the following would be highly effective:

Having police officers or armed security in schools (69% vs. 37%)
Having metal detectors in schools (43% vs. 27%)
Allowing teachers and school administrators to carry guns in schools (28% vs. 3%)

And while majorities in both parties say improving mental health screening and treatment would be highly effective at preventing school shootings, Democratic teachers are more likely than Republican teachers to say this (73% vs. 66%).

Parents’ views on school shootings and prevention strategies

In fall 2022, we asked parents a similar set of questions about school shootings.

Roughly a third of parents with K-12 students (32%) said they were extremely or very worried about a shooting ever happening at their child’s school. An additional 37% said they were somewhat worried.

As is the case among teachers, improving mental health screening and treatment was the only strategy most parents (63%) said would be extremely or very effective at preventing school shootings. And allowing teachers and school administrators to carry guns in schools was seen as the least effective – in fact, half of parents said this would be not too or not at all effective. This question was asked of all parents with a child younger than 18, regardless of whether they have a child in K-12 schools.

Like teachers, parents’ views on strategies for preventing school shootings differed by party.

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and the survey methodology .

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‘Back to school’ means anytime from late July to after Labor Day, depending on where in the U.S. you live

Among many u.s. children, reading for fun has become less common, federal data shows, most european students learn english in school, for u.s. teens today, summer means more schooling and less leisure time than in the past, about one-in-six u.s. teachers work second jobs – and not just in the summer, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

This is not a drill: 1 in 4 teachers say guns forced their schools into lockdown last year

The threat of gun violence has become a fact of life for America’s schools. News headlines highlight local schools going into lockdown almost daily. In recent weeks, schools in New Mexico , Virginia and Florida had to secure buildings or otherwise halt operations due to reports of a gun on or near campus.

A new report from the Pew Research Center illustrates just how pervasive the threat has become. Roughly 1 in 4 teachers in a nationally representative survey said their campus had at least one gun-related lockdown in the last school year. Eight percent of the respondents said a lockdown due to reports of a firearm happened more than once that year.

These weren’t drills. These were, according to the teachers’ reports, incidents of guns or suspected guns on their campuses. The lockdowns were especially common at urban campuses and high schools, where roughly a third of educators said these emergencies happened at least once in the past year.

Many of the lockdowns may have been false alarms. However, schools and communities have continued to see high rates of gun violence. In 2024, there have been at least 50 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, according to research by the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety. Sixteen people were killed and nearly three dozen were injured in school shootings. Firearm-related deaths among children and teens rose 50% from 2019 to 2021, the year more Americans died of gun injuries than any on record.

Most respondents in the Pew report said they were at least somewhat worried about the prospect of a shooting happening at their school. That included nearly a fifth who said they were extremely or very worried about it.

“As they’re going to work every day, this is something that’s on their minds,” said Juliana Horowitz, associate director of research at Pew. The research organization decided to poll teachers about this topic after informal conversations with educators across the country revealed how concerned they were about school safety and gun violence.

6 years after Parkland shooting: A school librarian works hard to make her space the safest

Teachers feel ill-prepared for school shootings

Teachers’ anxieties are compounded by a sense, across a wide swath of those surveyed, that they would be ill-equipped to deal with an active shooter on campus. Pluralities of respondents, including nearly half of urban educators, said their schools had done a poor or fair job of preparing them for such a scenario. Fewer than a third of teachers said the training provided had been very good or excellent.

“There’s trauma in that worry,” said Abbey Clements, a veteran educator who was teaching at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, when a gunman entered and killed 26 people. When a lockdown occurs, Clements said, a teacher’s mind starts racing as she wonders what to do and how she’ll be able to keep all her students safe. The anxiety doesn’t just go away once the lockdown is lifted.

“No teacher signed up to be a sharpshooter or a first responder,” she said, yet “we know there isn’t one teacher who doesn’t have it at the back of his or her mind” that a shooting could happen on their campus.

Pew researchers contacted more than 2,500 K-12 teachers conducted last fall as part of the national survey. It's the first time Pew has polled educators in this way. The findings complement a separate survey conducted among parents two years prior, in which a third of respondents said they were very or extremely worried about a prospective school shooting.

Armed teachers? Better mental health services? Debate over how to prevent shootings continues

The teacher survey asked participants what they thought were the best ways to prevent school violence. A majority of educators who identified as Democrats and Republicans said they believe improving mental health screenings and treatment is an effective strategy, including 73% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans.

There was less partisan consensus about other strategies. Republican and Republican-leaning teachers were significantly more likely than their left-leaning counterparts to support putting armed officers (69%) or metal detectors (43%) in schools. They were also far more likely to call for arming teachers: 28% of right-leaning educators said it would be effective, compared with just 3% of Democratic teachers.

Max Eden, a research fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he’s skeptical of any strategy that promises to be a cure-all. But he highlighted increasing rates of disciplinary and other behavioral problems on K-12 campuses since the pandemic, suggesting the widespread lockdowns are a symptom of schools’ failure to effectively address students' behavior. Educators' instinct to use restorative justice, which focuses on mediation over punishment, may be fueling challenges that culminate in a lockdown, he said.

“The schools are responding to broader levels of chaos, disorder and threatening behavior laxly, which creates enough of a permission structure for students to take it to the level at which they meet resistance,” he said.

Hardening schools by having armed officials and even educators on campus could help create the structure needed to prevent lockdowns, in Eden's view.

Survey: Most US teachers think schools would be less safe if they were armed

In Tennessee, legislation that would arm teachers is making its way through the Legislature. The proposal, following a mass shooting at a Nashville school last year that killed three children and three adults, passed by the state's GOP-controlled Senate on Tuesday and is headed for a floor vote in the state House.

Barbara Sloan is a student at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University, where she’s studying to be a teacher and is training in a local classroom. The bill advancing for her represents “another example of how people are ignoring the actual issue, which is accessibility to guns,” she said.

The prospect of a shooting happening in her classroom, she said, “is something I think about daily.” It’s made her consider whether she should teach in another country or even pursue the profession at all. But she’s dedicated to the community, including students who don’t have the luxury of moving to another country, and to advocating for stricter gun control.

“We just want to teach and students just want to learn,” she said. “That shouldn’t be something that’s a death sentence."

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Essay on Role of Teachers During Lockdown

100 Words Essay on Role of Teachers During Lockdown

Switching to Digital Education

Maintaining Student Engagement

Providing Emotional Support

250 Words Essay on Role of Teachers During Lockdown

Transition to Online Learning

Student Engagement and Support

Collaboration and Innovation

500 Words Essay on Role of Teachers During Lockdown

The Shift to Remote Learning

Adapting Pedagogical Approaches

Mental Health Advocacy

Building Resilience and Adaptability

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Why lockdown and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to increase the social class achievement gap

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Student’s experiences with online teaching following COVID-19 lockdown: A mixed methods explorative study

Material and methods

Findings and discussion

Introduction

Design and sampling

Online questionnaire

Digital focus group interview

Data analysis

Ethical considerations

Quantitative data

Suggestions for how to increase learning outcome in future digital courses

Qualitative data

Digital lectures.

Digital group work.

Motivation.

Strengths and weaknesses of the study

Conclusions

Supporting information

S2 File. SPSS file Norwegian questionnaire 1—please see line 154.

S3 File. SPSS file questionnaire 2—please see line 154.

S4 File. SPSS file Norwegian questionnaire 2—please see line 154.

S5 File. Structured interview guide–please see line 145.

Acknowledgments

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

1. Introduction

2.1. Participants