research topic about covid 19 for students

New Data Show How the Pandemic Affected Learning Across Whole Communities

• Posted May 11, 2023
• By News editor
• Disruption and Crises
• Education Policy
• Evidence-Based Intervention

Today, The Education Recovery Scorecard , a collaboration with researchers at the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University (CEPR) and Stanford University’s Educational Opportunity Project , released 12 new state reports and a research brief to provide the most comprehensive picture yet of how the pandemic affected student learning. Building on their previous work, their findings reveal how school closures and local conditions exacerbated inequality between communities — and the urgent need for school leaders to expand recovery efforts now.

The research team reviewed data from 8,000 communities in 40 states and Washington, D.C., including 2022 NAEP scores and Spring 2022 assessments, COVID death rates, voting rates, and trust in government, patterns of social activity, and survey data from Facebook/Meta on family activities and mental health during the pandemic.

>> Read an op-ed by researchers Tom Kane and Sean Reardon in the New York Times .

They found that where children lived during the pandemic mattered more to their academic progress than their family background, income, or internet speed.  Moreover, after studying instances where test scores rose or fell in the decade before the pandemic, the researchers found that the impacts lingered for years.  

“Children have resumed learning, but largely at the same pace as before the pandemic. There’s no hurrying up teaching fractions or the Pythagorean theorem,” said CEPR faculty director Thomas Kane . “The hardest hit communities — like Richmond, Virginia, St. Louis, Missouri, and New Haven, Connecticut, where students fell behind by more than 1.5 years in math — have to teach 150 percent of a typical year’s worth of material for three years in a row — just to catch up. That is simply not going to happen without a major increase in instructional time.  Any district that lost more than a year of learning should be required to revisit their recovery plans and add instructional time — summer school, extended school year, tutoring, etc. — so that students are made whole. ”

“It’s not readily visible to parents when their children have fallen behind earlier cohorts, but the data from 7,800 school districts show clearly that this is the case,” said Sean Reardon , professor of poverty and inequality, Stanford Graduate School of Education. “The educational impacts of the pandemic were not only historically large, but were disproportionately visited on communities with many low-income and minority students. Our research shows that schools were far from the only cause of decreased learning — the pandemic affected children through many ways — but they are the institution best suited to remedy the unequal impacts of the pandemic.”

The new research includes:

• A research brief that offers insights into why students in some communities fared worse than others. 
• An update to the Education Recovery Scorecard, including data from 12 additional states whose 2022 scores were not available in October. The project now includes a district-level view of the pandemic’s effects in 40 states (plus D.C.). 
• A new interactive map that highlights examples of inequity between neighboring school districts. 

Among the key findings:

• Within the typical school district, the declines in test scores were similar for all groups of students, rich and poor, white, Black, Hispanic. And the extent to which schools were closed appears to have had the same effect on all students in a community, regardless of income or race. 
• Test scores declined more in places where the COVID death rate was higher, in communities where adults reported feeling more depression and anxiety during the pandemic, and where daily routines of families were most significantly restricted. This is true even in places where schools closed only very briefly at the start of the pandemic. 
• Test score declines were smaller in communities with high voting rates and high Census response rates — indicators of what sociologists call “institutional trust.” Moreover, remote learning was less harmful in such places. Living in a community where more people trusted the government appears to have been an asset to children during the pandemic.
• The average U.S. public school student in grades 3-8 lost the equivalent of a half year of learning in math and a quarter of a year in reading.

The researchers also looked at data from the decade prior to the pandemic to see how students bounced back after significant learning loss due to disruption in their schooling. The evidence shows that schools do not naturally bounce back: Affected students recovered 20–30% of the lost ground in the first year, but then made no further recovery in the subsequent three to four years.   

“Schools were not the sole cause of achievement losses,” Kane said. “Nor will they be the sole solution. As enticing as it might be to get back to normal, doing so will just leave the devastating increase in inequality caused by the pandemic in place. We must create learning opportunities for students outside of the normal school calendar, by adding academic content to summer camps and after-school programs and adding an optional 13th year of schooling.”

The Education Recovery Scorecard is supported by funds from Citadel founder and CEO Kenneth C. Griffin, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Walton Family Foundation.

The latest research, perspectives, and highlights from the Harvard Graduate School of Education

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Covid-19’s Impact on Students’ Academic and Mental Well-Being

The pandemic has revealed—and exacerbated—inequities that hold many students back. Here’s how teachers can help.

The pandemic has shone a spotlight on inequality in America: School closures and social isolation have affected all students, but particularly those living in poverty. Adding to the damage to their learning, a mental health crisis is emerging as many students have lost access to services that were offered by schools.

No matter what form school takes when the new year begins—whether students and teachers are back in the school building together or still at home—teachers will face a pressing issue: How can they help students recover and stay on track throughout the year even as their lives are likely to continue to be disrupted by the pandemic?

New research provides insights about the scope of the problem—as well as potential solutions.

The Achievement Gap Is Likely to Widen

A new study suggests that the coronavirus will undo months of academic gains, leaving many students behind. The study authors project that students will start the new school year with an average of 66 percent of the learning gains in reading and 44 percent of the learning gains in math, relative to the gains for a typical school year. But the situation is worse on the reading front, as the researchers also predict that the top third of students will make gains, possibly because they’re likely to continue reading with their families while schools are closed, thus widening the achievement gap.

To make matters worse, “few school systems provide plans to support students who need accommodations or other special populations,” the researchers point out in the study, potentially impacting students with special needs and English language learners.

Of course, the idea that over the summer students forget some of what they learned in school isn’t new. But there’s a big difference between summer learning loss and pandemic-related learning loss: During the summer, formal schooling stops, and learning loss happens at roughly the same rate for all students, the researchers point out. But instruction has been uneven during the pandemic, as some students have been able to participate fully in online learning while others have faced obstacles—such as lack of internet access—that have hindered their progress.

In the study, researchers analyzed a national sample of 5 million students in grades 3–8 who took the MAP Growth test, a tool schools use to assess students’ reading and math growth throughout the school year. The researchers compared typical growth in a standard-length school year to projections based on students being out of school from mid-March on. To make those projections, they looked at research on the summer slide, weather- and disaster-related closures (such as New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina), and absenteeism.

The researchers predict that, on average, students will experience substantial drops in reading and math, losing roughly three months’ worth of gains in reading and five months’ worth of gains in math. For Megan Kuhfeld, the lead author of the study, the biggest takeaway isn’t that learning loss will happen—that’s a given by this point—but that students will come back to school having declined at vastly different rates.

“We might be facing unprecedented levels of variability come fall,” Kuhfeld told me. “Especially in school districts that serve families with lots of different needs and resources. Instead of having students reading at a grade level above or below in their classroom, teachers might have kids who slipped back a lot versus kids who have moved forward.” 

Disproportionate Impact on Students Living in Poverty and Students of Color

Horace Mann once referred to schools as the “great equalizers,” yet the pandemic threatens to expose the underlying inequities of remote learning. According to a 2015 Pew Research Center analysis , 17 percent of teenagers have difficulty completing homework assignments because they do not have reliable access to a computer or internet connection. For Black students, the number spikes to 25 percent.

“There are many reasons to believe the Covid-19 impacts might be larger for children in poverty and children of color,” Kuhfeld wrote in the study. Their families suffer higher rates of infection, and the economic burden disproportionately falls on Black and Hispanic parents, who are less likely to be able to work from home during the pandemic.

Although children are less likely to become infected with Covid-19, the adult mortality rates, coupled with the devastating economic consequences of the pandemic, will likely have an indelible impact on their well-being.

Impacts on Students’ Mental Health

That impact on well-being may be magnified by another effect of school closures: Schools are “the de facto mental health system for many children and adolescents,” providing mental health services to 57 percent of adolescents who need care, according to the authors of a recent study published in JAMA Pediatrics . School closures may be especially disruptive for children from lower-income families, who are disproportionately likely to receive mental health services exclusively from schools.

“The Covid-19 pandemic may worsen existing mental health problems and lead to more cases among children and adolescents because of the unique combination of the public health crisis, social isolation, and economic recession,” write the authors of that study.

A major concern the researchers point to: Since most mental health disorders begin in childhood, it is essential that any mental health issues be identified early and treated. Left untreated, they can lead to serious health and emotional problems. In the short term, video conferencing may be an effective way to deliver mental health services to children.

Mental health and academic achievement are linked, research shows. Chronic stress changes the chemical and physical structure of the brain, impairing cognitive skills like attention, concentration, memory, and creativity. “You see deficits in your ability to regulate emotions in adaptive ways as a result of stress,” said Cara Wellman, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Indiana University in a 2014 interview . In her research, Wellman discovered that chronic stress causes the connections between brain cells to shrink in mice, leading to cognitive deficiencies in the prefrontal cortex. 

While trauma-informed practices were widely used before the pandemic, they’re likely to be even more integral as students experience economic hardships and grieve the loss of family and friends. Teachers can look to schools like Fall-Hamilton Elementary in Nashville, Tennessee, as a model for trauma-informed practices . 

3 Ways Teachers Can Prepare

When schools reopen, many students may be behind, compared to a typical school year, so teachers will need to be very methodical about checking in on their students—not just academically but also emotionally. Some may feel prepared to tackle the new school year head-on, but others will still be recovering from the pandemic and may still be reeling from trauma, grief, and anxiety. 

Here are a few strategies teachers can prioritize when the new school year begins:

• Focus on relationships first. Fear and anxiety about the pandemic—coupled with uncertainty about the future—can be disruptive to a student’s ability to come to school ready to learn. Teachers can act as a powerful buffer against the adverse effects of trauma by helping to establish a safe and supportive environment for learning. From morning meetings to regular check-ins with students, strategies that center around relationship-building will be needed in the fall.
• Strengthen diagnostic testing. Educators should prepare for a greater range of variability in student learning than they would expect in a typical school year. Low-stakes assessments such as exit tickets and quizzes can help teachers gauge how much extra support students will need, how much time should be spent reviewing last year’s material, and what new topics can be covered.
• Differentiate instruction—particularly for vulnerable students. For the vast majority of schools, the abrupt transition to online learning left little time to plan a strategy that could adequately meet every student’s needs—in a recent survey by the Education Trust, only 24 percent of parents said that their child’s school was providing materials and other resources to support students with disabilities, and a quarter of non-English-speaking students were unable to obtain materials in their own language. Teachers can work to ensure that the students on the margins get the support they need by taking stock of students’ knowledge and skills, and differentiating instruction by giving them choices, connecting the curriculum to their interests, and providing them multiple opportunities to demonstrate their learning.

Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

11 Questions to Ask About COVID-19 Research

Debates have raged on social media, around dinner tables, on TV, and in Congress about the science of COVID-19. Is it really worse than the flu? How necessary are lockdowns? Do masks work to prevent infection? What kinds of masks work best? Is the new vaccine safe?

You might see friends, relatives, and coworkers offer competing answers, often brandishing studies or citing individual doctors and scientists to support their positions. With so much disagreement—and with such high stakes—how can we use science to make the best decisions?

Here at Greater Good , we cover research into social and emotional well-being, and we try to help people apply findings to their personal and professional lives. We are well aware that our business is a tricky one.

Summarizing scientific studies and distilling the key insights that people can apply to their lives isn’t just difficult for the obvious reasons, like understanding and then explaining formal science terms or rigorous empirical and analytic methods to non-specialists. It’s also the case that context gets lost when we translate findings into stories, tips, and tools, especially when we push it all through the nuance-squashing machine of the Internet. Many people rarely read past the headlines, which intrinsically aim to be relatable and provoke interest in as many people as possible. Because our articles can never be as comprehensive as the original studies, they almost always omit some crucial caveats, such as limitations acknowledged by the researchers. To get those, you need access to the studies themselves.

And it’s very common for findings and scientists to seem to contradict each other. For example, there were many contradictory findings and recommendations about the use of masks, especially at the beginning of the pandemic—though as we’ll discuss, it’s important to understand that a scientific consensus did emerge.

Given the complexities and ambiguities of the scientific endeavor, is it possible for a non-scientist to strike a balance between wholesale dismissal and uncritical belief? Are there red flags to look for when you read about a study on a site like Greater Good or hear about one on a Fox News program? If you do read an original source study, how should you, as a non-scientist, gauge its credibility?

Here are 11 questions you might ask when you read about the latest scientific findings about the pandemic, based on our own work here at Greater Good.

1. Did the study appear in a peer-reviewed journal?

In peer review, submitted articles are sent to other experts for detailed critical input that often must be addressed in a revision prior to being accepted and published. This remains one of the best ways we have for ascertaining the rigor of the study and rationale for its conclusions. Many scientists describe peer review as a truly humbling crucible. If a study didn’t go through this process, for whatever reason, it should be taken with a much bigger grain of salt. 

“When thinking about the coronavirus studies, it is important to note that things were happening so fast that in the beginning people were releasing non-peer reviewed, observational studies,” says Dr. Leif Hass, a family medicine doctor and hospitalist at Sutter Health’s Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland, California. “This is what we typically do as hypothesis-generating but given the crisis, we started acting on them.”

In a confusing, time-pressed, fluid situation like the one COVID-19 presented, people without medical training have often been forced to simply defer to expertise in making individual and collective decisions, turning to culturally vetted institutions like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Is that wise? Read on.

2. Who conducted the study, and where did it appear?

“I try to listen to the opinion of people who are deep in the field being addressed and assess their response to the study at hand,” says Hass. “With the MRNA coronavirus vaccines, I heard Paul Offit from UPenn at a UCSF Grand Rounds talk about it. He literally wrote the book on vaccines. He reviewed what we know and gave the vaccine a big thumbs up. I was sold.”

From a scientific perspective, individual expertise and accomplishment matters—but so does institutional affiliation.

Why? Because institutions provide a framework for individual accountability as well as safety guidelines. At UC Berkeley, for example , research involving human subjects during COVID-19 must submit a Human Subjects Proposal Supplement Form , and follow a standard protocol and rigorous guidelines . Is this process perfect? No. It’s run by humans and humans are imperfect. However, the conclusions are far more reliable than opinions offered by someone’s favorite YouTuber .

Recommendations coming from institutions like the CDC should not be accepted uncritically. At the same time, however, all of us—including individuals sporting a “Ph.D.” or “M.D.” after their names—must be humble in the face of them. The CDC represents a formidable concentration of scientific talent and knowledge that dwarfs the perspective of any one individual. In a crisis like COVID-19, we need to defer to that expertise, at least conditionally.

“If we look at social media, things could look frightening,” says Hass. When hundreds of millions of people are vaccinated, millions of them will be afflicted anyway, in the course of life, by conditions like strokes, anaphylaxis, and Bell’s palsy. “We have to have faith that people collecting the data will let us know if we are seeing those things above the baseline rate.”

3. Who was studied, and where?

Animal experiments tell scientists a lot, but their applicability to our daily human lives will be limited. Similarly, if researchers only studied men, the conclusions might not be relevant to women, and vice versa.

Many psychology studies rely on WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) participants, mainly college students, which creates an in-built bias in the discipline’s conclusions. Historically, biomedical studies also bias toward gathering measures from white male study participants, which again, limits generalizability of findings. Does that mean you should dismiss Western science? Of course not. It’s just the equivalent of a “Caution,” “Yield,” or “Roadwork Ahead” sign on the road to understanding.

This applies to the coronavirus vaccines now being distributed and administered around the world. The vaccines will have side effects; all medicines do. Those side effects will be worse for some people than others, depending on their genetic inheritance, medical status, age, upbringing, current living conditions, and other factors.

For Hass, it amounts to this question: Will those side effects be worse, on balance, than COVID-19, for most people?

“When I hear that four in 100,000 [of people in the vaccine trials] had Bell’s palsy, I know that it would have been a heck of a lot worse if 100,000 people had COVID. Three hundred people would have died and many others been stuck with chronic health problems.”

4. How big was the sample?

In general, the more participants in a study, the more valid its results. That said, a large sample is sometimes impossible or even undesirable for certain kinds of studies. During COVID-19, limited time has constrained the sample sizes.

However, that acknowledged, it’s still the case that some studies have been much larger than others—and the sample sizes of the vaccine trials can still provide us with enough information to make informed decisions. Doctors and nurses on the front lines of COVID-19—who are now the very first people being injected with the vaccine—think in terms of “biological plausibility,” as Hass says.

Did the admittedly rushed FDA approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine make sense, given what we already know? Tens of thousands of doctors who have been grappling with COVID-19 are voting with their arms, in effect volunteering to be a sample for their patients. If they didn’t think the vaccine was safe, you can bet they’d resist it. When the vaccine becomes available to ordinary people, we’ll know a lot more about its effects than we do today, thanks to health care providers paving the way.

5. Did the researchers control for key differences, and do those differences apply to you?

Diversity or gender balance aren’t necessarily virtues in experimental research, though ideally a study sample is as representative of the overall population as possible. However, many studies use intentionally homogenous groups, because this allows the researchers to limit the number of different factors that might affect the result.

While good researchers try to compare apples to apples, and control for as many differences as possible in their analyses, running a study always involves trade-offs between what can be accomplished as a function of study design, and how generalizable the findings can be.

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You also need to ask if the specific population studied even applies to you. For example, when one study found that cloth masks didn’t work in “high-risk situations,” it was sometimes used as evidence against mask mandates.

However, a look beyond the headlines revealed that the study was of health care workers treating COVID-19 patients, which is a vastly more dangerous situation than, say, going to the grocery store. Doctors who must intubate patients can end up being splattered with saliva. In that circumstance, one cloth mask won’t cut it. They also need an N95, a face shield, two layers of gloves, and two layers of gown. For the rest of us in ordinary life, masks do greatly reduce community spread, if as many people as possible are wearing them.

6. Was there a control group?

One of the first things to look for in methodology is whether the population tested was randomly selected, whether there was a control group, and whether people were randomly assigned to either group without knowing which one they were in. This is especially important if a study aims to suggest that a certain experience or treatment might actually cause a specific outcome, rather than just reporting a correlation between two variables (see next point).

For example, were some people randomly assigned a specific meditation practice while others engaged in a comparable activity or exercise? If the sample is large enough, randomized trials can produce solid conclusions. But, sometimes, a study will not have a control group because it’s ethically impossible. We can’t, for example, let sick people go untreated just to see what would happen. Biomedical research often makes use of standard “treatment as usual” or placebos in control groups. They also follow careful ethical guidelines to protect patients from both maltreatment and being deprived necessary treatment. When you’re reading about studies of masks, social distancing, and treatments during the COVID-19, you can partially gauge the reliability and validity of the study by first checking if it had a control group. If it didn’t, the findings should be taken as preliminary.

7. Did the researchers establish causality, correlation, dependence, or some other kind of relationship?

We often hear “Correlation is not causation” shouted as a kind of battle cry, to try to discredit a study. But correlation—the degree to which two or more measurements seem connected—is important, and can be a step toward eventually finding causation—that is, establishing a change in one variable directly triggers a change in another. Until then, however, there is no way to ascertain the direction of a correlational relationship (does A change B, or does B change A), or to eliminate the possibility that a third, unmeasured factor is behind the pattern of both variables without further analysis.

In the end, the important thing is to accurately identify the relationship. This has been crucial in understanding steps to counter the spread of COVID-19 like shelter-in-place orders. Just showing that greater compliance with shelter-in-place mandates was associated with lower hospitalization rates is not as conclusive as showing that one community that enacted shelter-in-place mandates had lower hospitalization rates than a different community of similar size and population density that elected not to do so.

We are not the first people to face an infection without understanding the relationships between factors that would lead to more of it. During the bubonic plague, cities would order rodents killed to control infection. They were onto something: Fleas that lived on rodents were indeed responsible. But then human cases would skyrocket.

Why? Because the fleas would migrate off the rodent corpses onto humans, which would worsen infection. Rodent control only reduces bubonic plague if it’s done proactively; once the outbreak starts, killing rats can actually make it worse. Similarly, we can’t jump to conclusions during the COVID-19 pandemic when we see correlations.

8. Are journalists and politicians, or even scientists, overstating the result?

Language that suggests a fact is “proven” by one study or which promotes one solution for all people is most likely overstating the case. Sweeping generalizations of any kind often indicate a lack of humility that should be a red flag to readers. A study may very well “suggest” a certain conclusion but it rarely, if ever, “proves” it.

This is why we use a lot of cautious, hedging language in Greater Good , like “might” or “implies.” This applies to COVID-19 as well. In fact, this understanding could save your life.

When President Trump touted the advantages of hydroxychloroquine as a way to prevent and treat COVID-19, he was dramatically overstating the results of one observational study. Later studies with control groups showed that it did not work—and, in fact, it didn’t work as a preventative for President Trump and others in the White House who contracted COVID-19. Most survived that outbreak, but hydroxychloroquine was not one of the treatments that saved their lives. This example demonstrates how misleading and even harmful overstated results can be, in a global pandemic.

9. Is there any conflict of interest suggested by the funding or the researchers’ affiliations?

A 2015 study found that you could drink lots of sugary beverages without fear of getting fat, as long as you exercised. The funder? Coca Cola, which eagerly promoted the results. This doesn’t mean the results are wrong. But it does suggest you should seek a second opinion : Has anyone else studied the effects of sugary drinks on obesity? What did they find?

It’s possible to take this insight too far. Conspiracy theorists have suggested that “Big Pharma” invented COVID-19 for the purpose of selling vaccines. Thus, we should not trust their own trials showing that the vaccine is safe and effective.

But, in addition to the fact that there is no compelling investigative evidence that pharmaceutical companies created the virus, we need to bear in mind that their trials didn’t unfold in a vacuum. Clinical trials were rigorously monitored and independently reviewed by third-party entities like the World Health Organization and government organizations around the world, like the FDA in the United States.

Does that completely eliminate any risk? Absolutely not. It does mean, however, that conflicts of interest are being very closely monitored by many, many expert eyes. This greatly reduces the probability and potential corruptive influence of conflicts of interest.

10. Do the authors reference preceding findings and original sources?

The scientific method is based on iterative progress, and grounded in coordinating discoveries over time. Researchers study what others have done and use prior findings to guide their own study approaches; every study builds on generations of precedent, and every scientist expects their own discoveries to be usurped by more sophisticated future work. In the study you are reading, do the researchers adequately describe and acknowledge earlier findings, or other key contributions from other fields or disciplines that inform aspects of the research, or the way that they interpret their results?

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This was crucial for the debates that have raged around mask mandates and social distancing. We already knew quite a bit about the efficacy of both in preventing infections, informed by centuries of practical experience and research.

When COVID-19 hit American shores, researchers and doctors did not question the necessity of masks in clinical settings. Here’s what we didn’t know: What kinds of masks would work best for the general public, who should wear them, when should we wear them, were there enough masks to go around, and could we get enough people to adopt best mask practices to make a difference in the specific context of COVID-19 ?

Over time, after a period of confusion and contradictory evidence, those questions have been answered . The very few studies that have suggested masks don’t work in stopping COVID-19 have almost all failed to account for other work on preventing the disease, and had results that simply didn’t hold up. Some were even retracted .

So, when someone shares a coronavirus study with you, it’s important to check the date. The implications of studies published early in the pandemic might be more limited and less conclusive than those published later, because the later studies could lean on and learn from previously published work. Which leads us to the next question you should ask in hearing about coronavirus research…

11. Do researchers, journalists, and politicians acknowledge limitations and entertain alternative explanations?

Is the study focused on only one side of the story or one interpretation of the data? Has it failed to consider or refute alternative explanations? Do they demonstrate awareness of which questions are answered and which aren’t by their methods? Do the journalists and politicians communicating the study know and understand these limitations?

When the Annals of Internal Medicine published a Danish study last month on the efficacy of cloth masks, some suggested that it showed masks “make no difference” against COVID-19.

The study was a good one by the standards spelled out in this article. The researchers and the journal were both credible, the study was randomized and controlled, and the sample size (4,862 people) was fairly large. Even better, the scientists went out of their way to acknowledge the limits of their work: “Inconclusive results, missing data, variable adherence, patient-reported findings on home tests, no blinding, and no assessment of whether masks could decrease disease transmission from mask wearers to others.”

Unfortunately, their scientific integrity was not reflected in the ways the study was used by some journalists, politicians, and people on social media. The study did not show that masks were useless. What it did show—and what it was designed to find out—was how much protection masks offered to the wearer under the conditions at the time in Denmark. In fact, the amount of protection for the wearer was not large, but that’s not the whole picture: We don’t wear masks mainly to protect ourselves, but to protect others from infection. Public-health recommendations have stressed that everyone needs to wear a mask to slow the spread of infection.

“We get vaccinated for the greater good, not just to protect ourselves ”

As the authors write in the paper, we need to look to other research to understand the context for their narrow results. In an editorial accompanying the paper in Annals of Internal Medicine , the editors argue that the results, together with existing data in support of masks, “should motivate widespread mask wearing to protect our communities and thereby ourselves.”

Something similar can be said of the new vaccine. “We get vaccinated for the greater good, not just to protect ourselves,” says Hass. “Being vaccinated prevents other people from getting sick. We get vaccinated for the more vulnerable in our community in addition for ourselves.”

Ultimately, the approach we should take to all new studies is a curious but skeptical one. We should take it all seriously and we should take it all with a grain of salt. You can judge a study against your experience, but you need to remember that your experience creates bias. You should try to cultivate humility, doubt, and patience. You might not always succeed; when you fail, try to admit fault and forgive yourself.

Above all, we need to try to remember that science is a process, and that conclusions always raise more questions for us to answer. That doesn’t mean we never have answers; we do. As the pandemic rages and the scientific process unfolds, we as individuals need to make the best decisions we can, with the information we have.

This article was revised and updated from a piece published by Greater Good in 2015, “ 10 Questions to Ask About Scientific Studies .”

About the Authors

Jeremy Adam Smith

Uc berkeley.

Jeremy Adam Smith edits the GGSC’s online magazine, Greater Good . He is also the author or coeditor of five books, including The Daddy Shift , Are We Born Racist? , and (most recently) The Gratitude Project: How the Science of Thankfulness Can Rewire Our Brains for Resilience, Optimism, and the Greater Good . Before joining the GGSC, Jeremy was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University.

Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas

Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas, Ph.D. , is the science director of the Greater Good Science Center, where she directs the GGSC’s research fellowship program and serves as a co-instructor of its Science of Happiness and Science of Happiness at Work online courses.

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• Research Note
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• Published: 27 May 2024

Determining the challenges and opportunities of virtual teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed method study in the north of Iran

• Aram Ghanavatizadeh 1 ,
• Ghahraman Mahmoudi 1 ,
• Mohammad-Ali Jahani 2 ,
• Seyedeh Niko Hashemi 3 ,
• Hossein-Ali Nikbakht 2 ,
• Mahdi Abbasi 4 ,
• Alameh Darzi 5 &
• Seyed-Amir Soltani 6  

BMC Research Notes volume  17 , Article number:  148 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

47 Accesses

Metrics details

The aim of this study was to determine the challenges and opportunities of virtual education during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study was conducted in 2022–2023 with a mixed method. During the quantitative phase, we chose 507 students from Mazandaran Province medical universities (both governmental and non-governmental) by stratified random sampling and during the qualitative phase 16 experts were collected by purposive sampling until we reached data saturation. Data collecting tools consisted of questionnaires during the quantitative phase and semi-structured interview during the qualitative phase. Data was analyzed using SPSS21 and MAXQDA10. Mean scores of the total score was 122.28±23.96. We found a significant association between interaction dimension and background variables ( P  < 0.001). The most important privilege of virtual education is uploading the teaching material in the system so that students can access the material constantly and the most important challenge regarding virtual education is lack of proper network connection and limited bandwidth. Virtual education proved to be a suitable alternate to traditional methods of medical education during the COVID-19 pandemic in theoretical topics, we recommend that educational policymakers would take the necessary actions to provide the requirements and facilities needed to improve the quality of virtual education.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Given the adoption of technological advances in healthcare in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the dissemination of telehealth practices has dramatically increased between 2020 and 2021 [ 1 ]. Virtual education serves as a dynamic substitute for learners to constantly continue their educational journey and preserve their goals [ 2 ].

Virtual education is defined as the use of computer-based technology to provide education which consists of online learning, offline learning, or a combination of them [ 3 ]. In the web-based virtual educational platforms, students can continue to participate in the live academic lectures which they used to attend in class [ 4 ]. Virtual education varies significantly from in-person education [ 5 ]. The unavailability of necessary infrastructure and effective organizational strategies have been a major challenge for the integration of virtual education and face-to-face education [ 6 ]; [ 7 ] and this pandemic not only created the need but also provided the opportunity for accelerating digital transformation in medical education [ 8 ]. Using virtual education, learners can save and review the lectures whenever and wherever they want to. however, most professors have less experience with virtual teaching [ 9 ]. In this educational model, social interactions between the teachers and the students are solely through internet. Yet, how can a professor provide all the necessary communication, guidance, and feedback through internet alone so that learning process would be effective? Moreover, how can professors make sure that all students have access to the same content and same feedback equally? There are so many online educational activities that not all students can access equally due to differences in network conditions and inequal internet access [ 10 ]. Internet inequality could be defined as inequal distribution or access to the internet [ 11 ]. However, internet-based learning should be adjusted to different educational modalities so it would be effective [ 12 ]. Online education has played an important role in the education of undergraduate and graduate level students, and even continuing medical education (CME) of graduate doctors [ 13 ]. Learners can participate in the educational classes anytime it suits them [ 14 ].

one study conducted in Saudi Arabia revealed that using web-based video conferences during COVID-19 pandemic resulted in medical students’ satisfaction [ 15 ]. In another study by Cataudella et al. in Italy titled “Teaching During the COVID-19 Pandemic” showed that teachers exhibited lower self-esteem and self-efficacy while teaching virtually [ 16 ]. Rossi et al.’s study in Brazil demonstrated that active learning tools are helpful for students during the pandemic and they have succeeded at improving their critical thinking, motivation, and their contribution to science [ 17 ]. Khalili’s study in the United States showed that e-learning is becoming the new norm in the universities and this development can bring challenges to some, because some teachers lack the proper knowledge and expertise to create an supportive, positive and interesting environment to engage their students [ 18 ].

Currently the question is whether the implementation of virtual education has been able to satisfy students in their academic progress? Because learners are important stakeholders during the entire teaching and learning process in all educational institutions [ 19 ] and learners’ engagement in this process has positive effects on their active learning [ 20 ]. Therefore, due to widespread use of virtual education and online teaching during the pandemic, it is necessary to conduct more studies to examine the challenges and opportunities of this type of education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methodology

Study design.

The current study was conducted using a mixed (qualitative-quantitative) method in 2022–2023 in the north of Iran.

Sample size

The study population in the quantitative phase consisted of 13,500 medical science students of all the medical universities in the province, both public and private, who benefited from virtual education during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the qualitative phase the population included experts and university professors of the same aforementioned universities.

In order to determine the sample size, it is appropriate to use between 5 and 15 observations for each variable measured [ 21 ], in this study we considered between 12 and 13 times the number of questions in the questionnaire, that is in the range of 480 and 520 participants.

The sampling method implemented in the quantitative phase was cluster sampling; first the university, then the academic major, and finally the class was considered as the cluster. 507 students were selected. 194 students from Babol university, 225 students from Sari university of Medical Sciences, and 88 students from Azad university of Sari participated in this research. Inclusion criteria in quantitative phase of this study was that participants had to be a student in one of the medical universities of Mazandaran and also to have consent to participate in the study. participants were excluded if they did not use online education methods.

In the qualitative phase we selected 16 academic staff members of both basic science and clinical stage, using purposive sampling, who were policymakers and planners in their universities and had online educational activities alongside their executive posts.

Information gathering tools

After our proposal was accepted and we obtained the ethics committee approval, we commenced our executive phase of the research. For the literature review all the articles that were published between 2010 and 2021 in different national and international databases including ISI, Pubmed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Magiran, SID, and Irandoc were reviewed. We used Persian and English keywords including online teaching, virtual teaching, active learning, COVID-19, interaction in virtual education, feedback in online education, benefits of virtual learning, disadvantages of virtual learning, and types of virtual learning.

Data measurement tools

In the quantitative phase we used a questionnaire developed by Ünal Çakiroğlu and colleagues [ 22 ]. The questionnaire consists of 7 different principles. Each principle consists of approximately 5–6 questions and a total of 40 questions and answers vary between range of not satisfied to perfectly satisfied and each question has a score of 1 to 5.

In order to convert the English questionnaire to Persian we used the translation-retranslation method as described below. At first, two translator’s experts in this field translated the English version into Farsi. A conceptual translation instead of word-to-word translation was implemented; also, clarity, simplicity, brevity, type of audience, age and cultural factors were taken into consideration by the translators. In the second stage two translators fluent in English, who were not aware of the questionnaire’s content, translated the questionnaire back into English. In general, conceptual similarity was an important factor during the translation process. finally, in the third stage an expert panel consisting of people fluent in both languages reviewed the quality of the translations in the presence of researchers and in the case of inconsistency between translations, alternative words were suggested.

To perform face validity, the questionnaire was given to 20 students (10 males and 10 females) who met the inclusion criteria and a number of related experts. They were asked for feedback about the clarity of the questionnaire, its readability, writing style, easy understanding, confusing words, comprehensibility, disproportion and ambiguity. Any needed corrections were applied.

To check the reliability, Cronbach’s alpha was used as the index to evaluate internal consistency for the entire questionnaire and for each scale. Values above 0.7 were considered acceptable. To evaluate intraclass reliability, we used test-retest method. Data from 30 students, who met the inclusion criteria, were collected in two stages with a time interval of one month then the scores obtained in these two stages were evaluated using intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).

To perform the qualitative phase, the data collection tool was semi-structured interview. We used the data from the quantitative phase of the study, the quantitative statistical outputs and items in the questionnaire that had the lowest points from the students’ point of view to formulate our interview questions. In the way that less favorable items from the students’ point of view were used as questions in the qualitative phase. At this point we used semi-structured interview and in-depth interview to gather our data. After conducting the interviews, handwriting, typing and listening to the files several times all the notes and writings were named and coded. in the initial coding process, the researcher reviewed the written and typed data line by line as analytical units; and then by identifying the related semantic units or determining the important parts of the text, the researchers would extract the explicit meanings and concepts from the interview texts and would write them next to the relevant sentence in the form of a code. At the same time in another text the researcher wrote down the codes with the relevant address.

Data analysis

After collecting the data and coding, the results of the quantitative phase were entered into the SPSS21 software. In order to perform the related statistical tests, first, the normality of the data was checked using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. In order to check the linear relationships between quantitative variables, Pearson correlation coefficient was used. Friedman’s test was used to rank principals and dimensions at a significance level of p  < 0.05. For analysis of the qualitative phase, content analysis method and MAXQDA10 software were carried out.

Results of the quantitative phase

From the 507 students participating in this study, regarding the demographic characteristics, the mean age of the participants was 21.47 ± 2.34 years with a range of 18 to 43 years. 319(62.92%) females and 174(34.32%) males participated in the study. The majority of the participants 145(28.6%) were medical students. (Table  1 )

Descriptive statistics of the scores of principles and dimensions of the questionnaire showed that the mean and standard deviation of the total score is 122.28±23.96 and for the three dimensions of interaction, learning and teaching. They were 34.54±8.23, 33.80±8.01 and 53.93±10.15. (Table  2 )

The results of the test about the correlation of the seven principles of the questionnaire showed that all seven principles had a positive correlation with each other and the correlation was of strong intensity. The strongest relationship was between high expectations and diverse talents ( r  = 0.73, p  < 0.001). The lowest correlations were found between cooperation among students and the time on task with other principles, the rest of the correlations are provided in the table. (Table  3 )

Also, in examining the relationship between the three dimensions of the questionnaire, the results showed that the highest correlation was between learning with teaching ( r  = 0.786, P  < 0.001) and the lowest correlation was between interaction with learning ( r  = 0.666, P  < 0.001), The correlation between teaching and interaction was ( r  = 0.738, P  < 0.001).

The result of the Friedman test showed that from the participants’ point of view, there was a difference between dimensions of online teaching including interaction, teaching and learning. In other words, according to participants, online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic had the best performance in teaching and the weakest performance in learning. (Table  4 )

The results of the qualitative phase

In the qualitative phase of the research, interview method was used to collect the data. The characteristics of the interview participants are provided in Table  5 .

In Table  6 , there are Strengths, opportunities and challenges of virtual education according to experts. Some solutions were suggested to improve this teaching method.

Qualitative phase data analysis

One of the most important opportunities of virtual teaching according to experts is the possibility of uploading the educational material in the electronic domains. The most important challenge of virtual teaching was the lack of proper and desirable communication infrastructure (internet) and poor-quality internet. The first solution proposed by the professors to increase the quality and efficacy of online teaching is recognizing the problems related to this educational method. the most important influential weakness of this method was the lack of proper communication and internet infrastructure.

The results of the study showed that all the principles of the study were positively correlated to each other and this relation was strong. The strongest relation was between high expectations and diverse talents and also between active learning and diverse talents. The least correlation was between cooperation among students and time on activity with other principles. In a study conducted by Alahmadi et al. it was shown that students believe online classes help them overcome some learning obstacles for example the fear of communication in English. One can argue that virtual classes are helping learners, especially timid learners, to interact more and overcome their fears of interaction in face-to-face classes [ 23 ]. Tanis article revealed that quick interaction between peers is helpful for their learning, whereas isolation and lack of communication was harmful, However, group project was not the best way of learning. Students found delayed feedback and limited work by their peers harmful for learning and preferred to work at their own pace [ 24 ].

In investigating the relationship between different principles, the strongest relationship was between teaching and learning and the least relation was between interaction and learning. Alenezi study mentions that it is necessary to design an effective electronic learning environment in which the content is presented based on the characteristics of the teachers and learners, the structure of the educational material and interaction creation [ 25 ]. In another study by Adnan et al. inaccessibility to internet, lack of proper interaction among teachers and learners and inefficient technology were the major challenges of students [ 26 ].

The results of the Friedman test in the present study showed that there are differences between various dimensions of virtual teaching including interaction, teaching and learning. In other words, online teaching has had the best performance in the teaching dimension and the weakest in the learning dimension during the COVID-19 pandemic. Çakiroğlu observed in his study that although the electronic learning system has advantages, there are still challenges related to the cooperation between students, and active learning was very low in virtual education [ 22 ]. Other studies showed that active learning using simulations improves conceptual learning and memory, increases motivation and study intensity, and also reduces the achievement gap in basic students [ 27 , 28 ].

According to the results of the study, one of the most important opportunities of virtual teaching is the ability to upload the teaching material in the electronic system, because it enables the students to receive and use the material as many times as they need to; this will eventually result in improvement of learning quality provided that we address the issues and challenges related to this process [ 29 ]. In electronic teaching, educational content can be quickly delivered to learners and standardized and updated if necessary. The material can be delivered using different approaches including self-directed and coaching [ 30 ].

Another strong point in online and virtual education was the increased ability of professors in working with different educational software, uploading assignments, holding online exams, and learning different ways of feedback. In Bjekic’s study, a teacher’s capability in electronic teaching is considered a combination of educational, communicational and content creation capability [ 31 ] and teacher’s ability to conduct better tests results in students’ satisfaction [ 32 , 33 ]. In this regard the faculty can use both online and offline tools for the education of students [ 34 ]. However, we should keep in mind that medical education is not solely the theoretical matters, there are also other aspects of teaching including laboratory techniques, clinical skills and patient exposure; so electronic methods alone will not be sufficient for medical education [ 35 ].

One of the other opportunities provided by virtual teaching is decreased expenses of both teachers and students due to less commute and the easy access of students to their professors through social network and also lack of limitations because of geographical distance between one individual’s residence and the place of their institute, Fedynich states that one of the advantages of remote education is that it is not limited by the learners’ location [ 36 ], also, it can be provided by the professors regardless of their location [ 37 ], it decreases students’ expenses [ 33 , 38 ] and students can ask questions whenever they have trouble with their studies and receive answers in a short amount of time and they can also see questions asked by others [ 39 ].

Of the important challenges regarding virtual education, we can mention the lack of proper communication infrastructure (internet) and low-quality internet which can affect the quality of online classes as well as examinations. An important weakness of virtual teaching is inaccessibility to digital products needed for the education by the students [ 40 ]. Not having reliable internet connection [ 41 , 42 ], hardware and software issues of virtual educational platforms [ 43 , 44 ], problems related to speed and quality of internet [ 45 , 46 ] and audio and video streaming issues are other disadvantages of this teaching method [ 47 ].

Another engagement of professors in online education is the topic of conducting online examinations, because they believe online platforms do not hold the capacity to perform reliable and valid examinations, the results of several studies showed that due to the lack of supervision during the test, students’ grades are significantly higher compared to their previous educational records [ 37 , 48 , 49 ]. On the contrary, in Lara et al.’s study scores recorded from 49 medical students in OSCE did not have a significant difference from scores obtained from the same exam conducted in-person [ 50 ], it seems like there is a difference between the nature of theoretical and applied examinations.

The other challenge was organizing practical courses and clinical rotations. Due to several infrastructural and human limitations, holding online practical classes was not possible, and students passing their clinical rotations or those who had applied courses faced many problems. In this regard, the main issue is due to the very nature of medical education and the main problem is the inability to practice and obtain clinical skills online [ 51 ]. Clinical courses have suffered from the suspension/reduction of undergraduate student internships with a knock on impact on education. The fulfilment of professional skills in clinical training present both educational and professional challenges. Medical teachers will need to innovate and think outside the box to maintain the value of medical education in extreme circumstances. A solution may be represented and the introduction of telemedicine technologies that may contribute to the improvement of core competencies, medical knowledge, overall learning, and higher quality patient care [ 52 ]. We should keep in mind that online education cannot replace the face-to-face education of laboratory skills and techniques [ 53 ]. And most students do not feel good about learning practical skills alone or online [ 39 ].

Study limitations

This study was limited to Mazandaran Province. Also, the study population was limited to the students of the Medical Sciences universities. On the other hand, we evaluated all academic levels together, and considering the fact that challenges are different in various stages of training and in different majors this may affect the overall results. For example, students in their clinical rotations have very different problems than those passing theoretical courses and topics.

Since virtual education proved to be a suitable replacement for traditional educational methods in theoretical subjects during the COVID-19 pandemic and considering the recognition of factors affecting the quality of virtual teaching; it is crucial for policymakers in the field of education to take these factors into consideration, and implement goal-oriented plans and do their best to provide the necessary requirements to improve the quality of virtual teaching, so that it ultimately leads to an increase in the quality of learning of medical students.

Data availability

No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

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We would like to thank the officials of the universities of medical sciences as well as all the experts and experts who have helped us with their valuable views.

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Hospital Administration Research Center, Sari Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sari, Iran

Aram Ghanavatizadeh & Ghahraman Mahmoudi

Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Health Research Institute, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran

Mohammad-Ali Jahani & Hossein-Ali Nikbakht

Doctorate of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

Seyedeh Niko Hashemi

Department of Health Economics and Management, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Mahdi Abbasi

Babol Education Department, Babol, Iran

Alameh Darzi

Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Gorgan, Iran

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Contributions

Aram Ghanavatizadeh writing—original draft; writing—review and editing. Ghahraman Mahmoudi: Conceptualization; Formal analysis; Methodology. Mohammad-Ali Jahani: Conceptualization; data curation; formal analysis; investigation; methodology; project administration; software; super-vision; validation; visualization; writing—original draft; writing—review and editing. Hossein-Ali Nikbakht: Conceptualization; writing—original draft. Seyedeh Niko Hashemi: Formal analysis; investigation. Mahdi Abbas: data curation; Writing—original draft. Alameh Darzi writing—review and editing. Seyed Amir Soltani: writing—review and editing.

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Ghanavatizadeh, A., Mahmoudi, G., Jahani, MA. et al. Determining the challenges and opportunities of virtual teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed method study in the north of Iran. BMC Res Notes 17 , 148 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-024-06806-8

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-024-06806-8

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The Effect of COVID-19 on Education

Jacob hoofman.

a Wayne State University School of Medicine, 540 East Canfield, Detroit, MI 48201, USA

Elizabeth Secord

b Department of Pediatrics, Wayne Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Pediatrics Wayne State University, 400 Mack Avenue, Detroit, MI 48201, USA

COVID-19 has changed education for learners of all ages. Preliminary data project educational losses at many levels and verify the increased anxiety and depression associated with the changes, but there are not yet data on long-term outcomes. Guidance from oversight organizations regarding the safety and efficacy of new delivery modalities for education have been quickly forged. It is no surprise that the socioeconomic gaps and gaps for special learners have widened. The medical profession and other professions that teach by incrementally graduated internships are also severely affected and have had to make drastic changes.

• • Virtual learning has become a norm during COVID-19.
• • Children requiring special learning services, those living in poverty, and those speaking English as a second language have lost more from the pandemic educational changes.
• • For children with attention deficit disorder and no comorbidities, virtual learning has sometimes been advantageous.
• • Math learning scores are more likely to be affected than language arts scores by pandemic changes.
• • School meals, access to friends, and organized activities have also been lost with the closing of in-person school.

The transition to an online education during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may bring about adverse educational changes and adverse health consequences for children and young adult learners in grade school, middle school, high school, college, and professional schools. The effects may differ by age, maturity, and socioeconomic class. At this time, we have few data on outcomes, but many oversight organizations have tried to establish guidelines, expressed concerns, and extrapolated from previous experiences.

General educational losses and disparities

Many researchers are examining how the new environment affects learners’ mental, physical, and social health to help compensate for any losses incurred by this pandemic and to better prepare for future pandemics. There is a paucity of data at this juncture, but some investigators have extrapolated from earlier school shutdowns owing to hurricanes and other natural disasters. 1

Inclement weather closures are estimated in some studies to lower middle school math grades by 0.013 to 0.039 standard deviations and natural disaster closures by up to 0.10 standard deviation decreases in overall achievement scores. 2 The data from inclement weather closures did show a more significant decrease for children dependent on school meals, but generally the data were not stratified by socioeconomic differences. 3 , 4 Math scores are impacted overall more negatively by school absences than English language scores for all school closures. 4 , 5

The Northwest Evaluation Association is a global nonprofit organization that provides research-based assessments and professional development for educators. A team of researchers at Stanford University evaluated Northwest Evaluation Association test scores for students in 17 states and the District of Columbia in the Fall of 2020 and estimated that the average student had lost one-third of a year to a full year's worth of learning in reading, and about three-quarters of a year to more than 1 year in math since schools closed in March 2020. 5

With school shifted from traditional attendance at a school building to attendance via the Internet, families have come under new stressors. It is increasingly clear that families depended on schools for much more than math and reading. Shelter, food, health care, and social well-being are all part of what children and adolescents, as well as their parents or guardians, depend on schools to provide. 5 , 6

Many families have been impacted negatively by the loss of wages, leading to food insecurity and housing insecurity; some of loss this is a consequence of the need for parents to be at home with young children who cannot attend in-person school. 6 There is evidence that this economic instability is leading to an increase in depression and anxiety. 7 In 1 survey, 34.71% of parents reported behavioral problems in their children that they attributed to the pandemic and virtual schooling. 8

Children have been infected with and affected by coronavirus. In the United States, 93,605 students tested positive for COVID-19, and it was reported that 42% were Hispanic/Latino, 32% were non-Hispanic White, and 17% were non-Hispanic Black, emphasizing a disproportionate effect for children of color. 9 COVID infection itself is not the only issue that affects children’s health during the pandemic. School-based health care and school-based meals are lost when school goes virtual and children of lower socioeconomic class are more severely affected by these losses. Although some districts were able to deliver school meals, school-based health care is a primary source of health care for many children and has left some chronic conditions unchecked during the pandemic. 10

Many families report that the stress of the pandemic has led to a poorer diet in children with an increase in the consumption of sweet and fried foods. 11 , 12 Shelter at home orders and online education have led to fewer exercise opportunities. Research carried out by Ammar and colleagues 12 found that daily sitting had increased from 5 to 8 hours a day and binge eating, snacking, and the number of meals were all significantly increased owing to lockdown conditions and stay-at-home initiatives. There is growing evidence in both animal and human models that diets high in sugar and fat can play a detrimental role in cognition and should be of increased concern in light of the pandemic. 13

The family stress elicited by the COVID-19 shutdown is a particular concern because of compiled evidence that adverse life experiences at an early age are associated with an increased likelihood of mental health issues as an adult. 14 There is early evidence that children ages 6 to 18 years of age experienced a significant increase in their expression of “clinginess, irritability, and fear” during the early pandemic school shutdowns. 15 These emotions associated with anxiety may have a negative impact on the family unit, which was already stressed owing to the pandemic.

Another major concern is the length of isolation many children have had to endure since the pandemic began and what effects it might have on their ability to socialize. The school, for many children, is the agent for forming their social connections as well as where early social development occurs. 16 Noting that academic performance is also declining the pandemic may be creating a snowball effect, setting back children without access to resources from which they may never recover, even into adulthood.

Predictions from data analysis of school absenteeism, summer breaks, and natural disaster occurrences are imperfect for the current situation, but all indications are that we should not expect all children and adolescents to be affected equally. 4 , 5 Although some children and adolescents will likely suffer no long-term consequences, COVID-19 is expected to widen the already existing educational gap from socioeconomic differences, and children with learning differences are expected to suffer more losses than neurotypical children. 4 , 5

Special education and the COVID-19 pandemic

Although COVID-19 has affected all levels of education reception and delivery, children with special needs have been more profoundly impacted. Children in the United States who have special needs have legal protection for appropriate education by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. 17 , 18 Collectively, this legislation is meant to allow for appropriate accommodations, services, modifications, and specialized academic instruction to ensure that “every child receives a free appropriate public education . . . in the least restrictive environment.” 17

Children with autism usually have applied behavioral analysis (ABA) as part of their individualized educational plan. ABA therapists for autism use a technique of discrete trial training that shapes and rewards incremental changes toward new behaviors. 19 Discrete trial training involves breaking behaviors into small steps and repetition of rewards for small advances in the steps toward those behaviors. It is an intensive one-on-one therapy that puts a child and therapist in close contact for many hours at a time, often 20 to 40 hours a week. This therapy works best when initiated at a young age in children with autism and is often initiated in the home. 19

Because ABA workers were considered essential workers from the early days of the pandemic, organizations providing this service had the responsibility and the freedom to develop safety protocols for delivery of this necessary service and did so in conjunction with certifying boards. 20

Early in the pandemic, there were interruptions in ABA followed by virtual visits, and finally by in-home therapy with COVID-19 isolation precautions. 21 Although the efficacy of virtual visits for ABA therapy would empirically seem to be inferior, there are few outcomes data available. The balance of safety versus efficacy quite early turned to in-home services with interruptions owing to illness and decreased therapist availability owing to the pandemic. 21 An overarching concern for children with autism is the possible loss of a window of opportunity to intervene early. Families of children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder report increased stress compared with families of children with other disabilities before the pandemic, and during the pandemic this burden has increased with the added responsibility of monitoring in-home schooling. 20

Early data on virtual schooling children with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit with hyperactivity (ADHD) shows that adolescents with ADD/ADHD found the switch to virtual learning more anxiety producing and more challenging than their peers. 22 However, according to a study in Ireland, younger children with ADD/ADHD and no other neurologic or psychiatric diagnoses who were stable on medication tended to report less anxiety with at-home schooling and their parents and caregivers reported improved behavior during the pandemic. 23 An unexpected benefit of shelter in home versus shelter in place may be to identify these stressors in face-to-face school for children with ADD/ADHD. If children with ADD/ADHD had an additional diagnosis of autism or depression, they reported increased anxiety with the school shutdown. 23 , 24

Much of the available literature is anticipatory guidance for in-home schooling of children with disabilities rather than data about schooling during the pandemic. The American Academy of Pediatrics published guidance advising that, because 70% of students with ADHD have other conditions, such as learning differences, oppositional defiant disorder, or depression, they may have very different responses to in home schooling which are a result of the non-ADHD diagnosis, for example, refusal to attempt work for children with oppositional defiant disorder, severe anxiety for those with depression and or anxiety disorders, and anxiety and perseveration for children with autism. 25 Children and families already stressed with learning differences have had substantial challenges during the COVID-19 school closures.

High school, depression, and COVID-19

High schoolers have lost a great deal during this pandemic. What should have been a time of establishing more independence has been hampered by shelter-in-place recommendations. Graduations, proms, athletic events, college visits, and many other social and educational events have been altered or lost and cannot be recaptured.

Adolescents reported higher rates of depression and anxiety associated with the pandemic, and in 1 study 14.4% of teenagers report post-traumatic stress disorder, whereas 40.4% report having depression and anxiety. 26 In another survey adolescent boys reported a significant decrease in life satisfaction from 92% before COVID to 72% during lockdown conditions. For adolescent girls, the decrease in life satisfaction was from 81% before COVID to 62% during the pandemic, with the oldest teenage girls reporting the lowest life satisfaction values during COVID-19 restrictions. 27 During the school shutdown for COVID-19, 21% of boys and 27% of girls reported an increase in family arguments. 26 Combine all of these reports with decreasing access to mental health services owing to pandemic restrictions and it becomes a complicated matter for parents to address their children's mental health needs as well as their educational needs. 28

A study conducted in Norway measured aspects of socialization and mood changes in adolescents during the pandemic. The opportunity for prosocial action was rated on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 6 (very much) based on how well certain phrases applied to them, for example, “I comforted a friend yesterday,” “Yesterday I did my best to care for a friend,” and “Yesterday I sent a message to a friend.” They also ranked mood by rating items on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very well) as items reflected their mood. 29 They found that adolescents showed an overall decrease in empathic concern and opportunity for prosocial actions, as well as a decrease in mood ratings during the pandemic. 29

A survey of 24,155 residents of Michigan projected an escalation of suicide risk for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender youth as well as those youth questioning their sexual orientation (LGBTQ) associated with increased social isolation. There was also a 66% increase in domestic violence for LGBTQ youth during shelter in place. 30 LGBTQ youth are yet another example of those already at increased risk having disproportionate effects of the pandemic.

Increased social media use during COVID-19, along with traditional forms of education moving to digital platforms, has led to the majority of adolescents spending significantly more time in front of screens. Excessive screen time is well-known to be associated with poor sleep, sedentary habits, mental health problems, and physical health issues. 31 With decreased access to physical activity, especially in crowded inner-city areas, and increased dependence on screen time for schooling, it is more difficult to craft easy solutions to the screen time issue.

During these times, it is more important than ever for pediatricians to check in on the mental health of patients with queries about how school is going, how patients are keeping contact with peers, and how are they processing social issues related to violence. Queries to families about the need for assistance with food insecurity, housing insecurity, and access to mental health services are necessary during this time of public emergency.

Medical school and COVID-19

Although medical school is an adult schooling experience, it affects not only the medical profession and our junior colleagues, but, by extrapolation, all education that requires hands-on experience or interning, and has been included for those reasons.

In the new COVID-19 era, medical schools have been forced to make drastic and quick changes to multiple levels of their curriculum to ensure both student and patient safety during the pandemic. Students entering their clinical rotations have had the most drastic alteration to their experience.

COVID-19 has led to some of the same changes high schools and colleges have adopted, specifically, replacement of large in-person lectures with small group activities small group discussion and virtual lectures. 32 The transition to an online format for medical education has been rapid and impacted both students and faculty. 33 , 34 In a survey by Singh and colleagues, 33 of the 192 students reporting 43.9% found online lectures to be poorer than physical classrooms during the pandemic. In another report by Shahrvini and colleagues, 35 of 104 students surveyed, 74.5% students felt disconnected from their medical school and their peers and 43.3% felt that they were unprepared for their clerkships. Although there are no pre-COVID-19 data for comparison, it is expected that the COVID-19 changes will lead to increased insecurity and feelings of poor preparation for clinical work.

Gross anatomy is a well-established tradition within the medical school curriculum and one that is conducted almost entirely in person and in close quarters around a cadaver. Harmon and colleagues 36 surveyed 67 gross anatomy educators and found that 8% were still holding in-person sessions and 34 ± 43% transitioned to using cadaver images and dissecting videos that could be accessed through the Internet.

Many third- and fourth-year medical students have seen periods of cancellation for clinical rotations and supplementation with online learning, telemedicine, or virtual rounds owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. 37 A study from Shahrvini and colleagues 38 found that an unofficial document from Reddit (a widely used social network platform with a subgroup for medical students and residents) reported that 75% of medical schools had canceled clinical activities for third- and fourth-year students for some part of 2020. In another survey by Harries and colleagues, 39 of the 741 students who responded, 93.7% were not involved in clinical rotations with in-person patient contact. The reactions of students varied, with 75.8% admitting to agreeing with the decision, 34.7% feeling guilty, and 27.0% feeling relieved. 39 In the same survey, 74.7% of students felt that their medical education had been disrupted, 84.1% said they felt increased anxiety, and 83.4% would accept the risk of COVID-19 infection if they were able to return to the clinical setting. 39

Since the start of the pandemic, medical schools have had to find new and innovative ways to continue teaching and exposing students to clinical settings. The use of electronic conferencing services has been critical to continuing education. One approach has been to turn to online applications like Google Hangouts, which come at no cost and offer a wide variety of tools to form an integrative learning environment. 32 , 37 , 40 Schools have also adopted a hybrid model of teaching where lectures can be prerecorded then viewed by the student asynchronously on their own time followed by live virtual lectures where faculty can offer question-and-answer sessions related to the material. By offering this new format, students have been given more flexibility in terms of creating a schedule that suits their needs and may decrease stress. 37

Although these changes can be a hurdle to students and faculty, it might prove to be beneficial for the future of medical training in some ways. Telemedicine is a growing field, and the American Medical Association and other programs have endorsed its value. 41 Telemedicine visits can still be used to take a history, conduct a basic visual physical examination, and build rapport, as well as performing other aspects of the clinical examination during a pandemic, and will continue to be useful for patients unable to attend regular visits at remote locations. Learning effectively now how to communicate professionally and carry out telemedicine visits may better prepare students for a future where telemedicine is an expectation and allow students to learn the limitations as well as the advantages of this modality. 41

Pandemic changes have strongly impacted the process of college applications, medical school applications, and residency applications. 32 For US medical residencies, 72% of applicants will, if the pattern from 2016 to 2019 continues, move between states or countries. 42 This level of movement is increasingly dangerous given the spread of COVID-19 and the lack of currently accepted procedures to carry out such a mass migration safely. The same follows for medical schools and universities.

We need to accept and prepare for the fact that medial students as well as other learners who require in-person training may lack some skills when they enter their profession. These skills will have to be acquired during a later phase of training. We may have less skilled entry-level resident physicians and nurses in our hospitals and in other clinical professions as well.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected and will continue to affect the delivery of knowledge and skills at all levels of education. Although many children and adult learners will likely compensate for this interruption of traditional educational services and adapt to new modalities, some will struggle. The widening of the gap for those whose families cannot absorb the teaching and supervision of education required for in-home education because they lack the time and skills necessary are not addressed currently. The gap for those already at a disadvantage because of socioeconomic class, language, and special needs are most severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic school closures and will have the hardest time compensating. As pediatricians, it is critical that we continue to check in with our young patients about how they are coping and what assistance we can guide them toward in our communities.

Clinics care points

• • Learners and educators at all levels of education have been affected by COVID-19 restrictions with rapid adaptations to virtual learning platforms.
• • The impact of COVID-19 on learners is not evenly distributed and children of racial minorities, those who live in poverty, those requiring special education, and children who speak English as a second language are more negatively affected by the need for remote learning.
• • Math scores are more impacted than language arts scores by previous school closures and thus far by these shutdowns for COVID-19.
• • Anxiety and depression have increased in children and particularly in adolescents as a result of COVID-19 itself and as a consequence of school changes.
• • Pediatricians should regularly screen for unmet needs in their patients during the pandemic, such as food insecurity with the loss of school meals, an inability to adapt to remote learning and increased computer time, and heightened anxiety and depression as results of school changes.

The authors have nothing to disclose.

COVID-19 pandemic left its mark on academics. Are students caught up from learning loss?

T he academic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be felt on the Treasure Coast, years after students returned to the classrooms without masks or quarantines.

During the months of distance learning and continual interruptions from quarantines, educators were concerned students would fall behind academically and take years to get back on track. While some school districts say students now have caught up in math and reading, others say students continue to struggle, just as federal money targeted for tutoring and intensive summer recovering programs is set to end this fall.

"Overall, we are still seeing the lingering effects on students, especially in key grades," said St. Lucie County schools Deputy Superintendent Helen Wild.

Still, not all students are behind. In 2023, Indian River County students scored higher on state standardized tests than they did pre-pandemic in 2019, Superintendent David Moore said.

"The district has moved on from the pandemic. It's one of four in the state that is actually in a better place today than it was before the pandemic," Moore said.

"We've done a lot of work to offset the effects of the pandemic," Moore said.

Treasure Coast reading, math scores improve in areas, but educators say more work is needed

The pandemic's impact on learning continues to be a national concern, long after the pandemic has ended. A 2023 Northwest Evaluation Association study showed that while students have made learning gains, student achievement still is behind pre-pandemic performance.

Students would need an additional 4½ months of math instruction and 4.1 additional months in reading to fully recover, according to the not-for-profit organization's national study. The organization studied 6.7 million students in grades 3-8, comparing pre-pandemic national test scores between the 2016 and 2019 school years to scores during the pandemic school years of 2020-2023.

Florida scores weren't included in the study because of incompatible software.

"We're starting to see some pretty sizable gaps," said Megan Kuhfeld, director of growth marketing and analytics for the Northwest Evaluation Association. Some gaps began closing in the spring of 2023, but "for the most part, students have not caught up."

Of concern nationally were the 2023-2024 eighth graders, the study said. These students would need 9.1 additional months of learning in math and 7.4 months of additional learning in reading to get back to grade level, the study said.

"In other words, when these students enter their freshman year of high school, they will need to accomplish almost five years of learning during their four years of high school," the study said. An updated study, using 2024 test scores, is expected this summer.

St. Lucie's fourth graders — who were in first grade at the start of the pandemic — struggled in reading, Wild said. They were learning letter sounds and phonics when schools went remote, she said, and learning these skills online is difficult. When students returned, they and their teachers were wearing masks, impeding their progress further, she said.

"These are critical years when you are learning how to read," according to Wild.

Seventh graders — who were in third grade when schools shut down — also are behind in reading for the same reasons, Wild said. Then-third graders were making the transition from learning to read to learning to comprehend, something that is challenging with remote learning, she said.

Indian River County students were impacted in math, Moore said.

"You look at math as rungs on a ladder," Moore said. When students missed some of the sequential components, it impacted their skills. "It really made it challenging."

The district had to make sure students had the tools they needed to get back on track, he said.

St. Lucie schools provided students with intensive reading and phonics instruction as well as intervention after school and during the summer, Wild said. Students have the challenge of trying to keep pace with their current grade material while trying to get caught up, she said.

This year, as in previous years since the pandemic, St. Lucie schools offers free intensive summer learning programs that help students catch up while providing fun hands-on activities in science, math and technology STEM activities. Transportation and meals are provided at no cost, Wild said.

St. Lucie will put greater focus on math achievement in order to improve district's ranking

High school graduation rates here exceed Florida state average despite COVID-19 pandemic

While the summer programs have been successful, this year is the last opportunity students have to catch up on their learning loss. The federal COVID-relief money is ending, which means an end to the fully intensive summer program, she said.

"It's always tough when a major funding source sunsets. We knew this was temporary," Wild explained. The district plans to continue offering a summer program, as it did before the pandemic, but on a smaller scale, she said.

Overall, students are showing more promising recovery, said Kuhfeld.

Districts such as Indian River County dislike talking about the pandemic and focusing on learning loss. The district is moving forward, Moore said.

"We have moved beyond the pandemic," Moore stressed. "We do not use it as an excuse."

The Indian River County district had an aggressive plan to return students early, with restrictions such as mandatory mask policies and quarantines, Moore said. Teachers received training on interventions to help students improve, he said. Instruction was drastically different, as education plans were very individualized to meet the needs of the students, he said.

Intensive programs were implemented to raise the bar academically, Moore said.

"We had to make sure they were getting what they needed," he said.

This year, Indian River was the only Treasure Coast school district to receive an "A" grade from the state. Unlike prior years, learning gains were not considered in the grading formula because the state changed standardized tests and required a baseline year.

Indian River school district gets an A in state rankings; St. Lucie, Martin score B grades

In Martin County, school officials implemented proper accommodations, access and interventions to help bridge any performance gaps, Troy LaBarbara, Martin County schools' assistant superintendent of academics, said in a statement.

"The impact of the pandemic on academic performance varies widely among students. Overall, most of our students have closed the achievement gap caused by the pandemic," LaBarbara said in the statement. "Some students are still struggling with factors like access to resources, support systems and individual circumstances."

Third graders, who were in kindergarten when the pandemic struck, follow a statewide decline in math and reading, LaBarbara said.

"To continue to address this, we have infused a strong multitiered process in our core academic areas.  Summer school interventions will include personalized learning plans tailored to address individual areas of weakness, small-group instruction focusing on essential skills, targeted tutoring sessions and enrichment programs to engage students in accelerated areas," the statement said.

Beyond academics, local school districts had to reteach students the importance of attending school and, in some cases, how to behave.

"(Students) got used to doing their work online," Wild said. "They had to relearn these good-attendance habits."

Students got into the habit of staying home instead of going to school, and turning in work via the computer, she said. While students still should stay home if they are sick, they're again encouraged to come to school because that's where they learn better, she said.

When students returned full-time, some in Indian River County struggled with re-acclimating socially in an environment with behavior rules and dress codes and where they had to engage with others, Moore pointed out. The district implemented strict behavior expectations and made students adhere to a code of conduct.

Part of the district's successful recovery, he said, was getting 60% of its students to return to in-person instruction in that first year back.

"When you have more students return to brick-and-mortar, you're going to see a better result," he said. It's more than just academics, said Moore. Students need exposure to socialization skills.

Colleen Wixon is the education reporter for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers. Contact her at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: COVID-19 pandemic left its mark on academics. Are students caught up from learning loss?

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One way to help big groups of students? Volunteer tutors.

Research finds low-cost, online program yields significant results

Harvard Staff Writer

It’s well established that tutoring programs can make a big difference in student outcomes.

A recent study by Harvard researchers Eliana La Ferrara, Ph.D. ’99, and Michela Carlana looked specifically at the effectiveness of a low-cost, online model staffed by trained college student volunteers, one that could potentially be deployed on a wider basis.

The two found the program showed strong efficacy in improving academic performance for a range of students, including economically disadvantaged ones. And they discovered some unanticipated social, psychological, and attitudinal gains for the students — and even some for the tutors.

La Ferrara said the low cost could make this kind of approach “appealing for some governments.” In the study, the two noted, “Volunteer tutors represent a viable and cost-effective solution to reach a large number of students in need of support.”

The program showed strong efficacy in improving academic performance for a range of students, including economically disadvantaged ones.

La Ferrara is a professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School. She is president of the Econometric Society and program director of development economics for the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). Carlana is an assistant professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

Their study , which matched middle school students in Italy with volunteer tutors from several universities, began in the spring of 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We found ourselves in the middle of the pandemic that hit Italy immediately after the China outbreak,” Carlana said. “Within two weeks, schools closed, and everything became remote.”

Tutors were recruited from Bocconi University, where La Ferrara held the Invernizzi Chair in Development Economics at the time, directing the Laboratory for Effective Anti-Poverty Policies (LEAP), as well as Bicocca University and University of Milan, and trained with education specialists for three weeks to instruct students in math, Italian, and English.

 “We had this program running where the pedagogical experts provided the training and also counseling in case the tutors had issues that they wanted to discuss one-on-one,” La Ferrara said.

The study was then repeated in 2022 with a new set of students and tutors at 10 different universities in Northern Italy. “So we were trying to test out and understand both during the pandemic, but also afterwards, whether this is an effective way to improve learning for the most disadvantaged,” La Ferrara said.

Of the 2,196 students in the sample, 42 percent were female, 23 percent were immigrants, and 29 percent had learning disorders.

The researchers looked at administrative data from the Italian Ministry of Education, long-term standardized test scores, the results of a standardized test administered by the research team, and surveys of parents, students, tutors, and teachers. They found that performance, especially in math, improved for nearly every student both during and after the pandemic.

Surprisingly, Carlana said they also found the tutoring had “very strong effects on these other soft dimensions, like psychological well-being, aspiration, and social emotional skills, even if our program is not directly targeted to those.”

Researchers surveyed participants about their aspirations for college and high school and their belief in faith or luck as the key to success. To measure well-being, researchers used the Children’s Depression Screener. They found that the most disadvantaged pupils, especially immigrant students, had the greatest improvement in soft skills.

“When we look at the effect on happiness and depression, those improvements are driven by immigrant children,” La Ferrara said. “Their ability to be in touch with peers when schools are closed, these are students who probably have fewer social networks — maybe they don’t get the call, they’re not on the same WhatsApp groups, or whatever. So for these more disadvantaged or more isolated students, the tutor becomes a very important window outside the family.”

However, as in-person learning resumed, the soft skills benefits for students lessened.

“I feel like in part it could be related to the fact that now the students have a wider set of opportunities outside [of tutoring] either to improve the soft skills that could be the more beneficial in in-person interaction compared to online interaction,” Carlana added.

One thing that proved eye-opening for the researchers was the effect on tutors. La Ferrara and Carlana surveyed participating tutors and those who applied but were not selected due to capacity. They asked questions attempting to gauge empathy and attitudes about the role of hard work, luck, and social connections in achieving success.

“We found that the volunteers who had had become tutors had significantly more empathy toward others, but no different beliefs on the importance of luck versus effort,” La Ferrara said. “So we think this is an aspect that deserves more work, because all the existing studies on in-person tutoring tend to focus on what tutoring does to the recipient, the student, but it’s an important experience for the tutor, especially when they are volunteers … it could be a life-changing experience for some of these younger tutors.”

The researchers are currently in the process of following up with tutors to see how and whether the program impacted their post-graduation career paths.

The two also are working on studying the program in different countries and with different experimental designs to better target and assign students to tutors.

“We like the idea that this could be implementable in many settings, and in fact, one of the settings where we ran the program for two years was the Dominican Republic, which is very different from Italy,” La Ferrara said. “And so it created challenges in adapting the program in recruiting tutors from a very different institutional setting. But in the future, this could be picked up more.”

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FDA Takes Action on Updated mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines to Better Protect Against Currently Circulating Variants

FDA News Release

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration took action approving and authorizing for emergency use updated COVID-19 vaccines formulated to more closely target currently circulating variants and to provide better protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death. Today’s actions relate to updated mRNA vaccines for 2023-2024 manufactured by ModernaTX Inc. and Pfizer Inc. Consistent with the totality of the evidence and input from the FDA’s expert advisors, these vaccines have been updated to include a monovalent (single) component that corresponds to the Omicron variant XBB.1.5.

What You Need to Know

• Individuals 5 years of age and older regardless of previous vaccination are eligible to receive a single dose of an updated mRNA COVID-19 vaccine at least 2 months since the last dose of any COVID-19 vaccine. 
• Individuals 6 months through 4 years of age who have previously been vaccinated against COVID-19 are eligible to receive one or two doses of an updated mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (timing and number of doses to administer depends on the previous COVID-19 vaccine received). 
• Unvaccinated individuals 6 months through 4 years of age are eligible to receive three doses of the updated authorized Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine or two doses of the updated authorized Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine.
• The FDA is confident in the safety and effectiveness of these updated vaccines and the agency’s benefit-risk assessment demonstrates that the benefits of these vaccines for individuals 6 months of age and older outweigh their risks.
• Individuals who receive an updated mRNA COVID-19 vaccine may experience similar side effects as those reported by individuals who previously received mRNA COVID-19 vaccines as described in the respective prescribing information or fact sheets.
• The updated vaccines are expected to provide good protection against COVID-19 from the currently circulating variants. Barring the emergence of a markedly more virulent variant, the FDA anticipates that the composition of COVID-19 vaccines may need to be updated annually, as is done for the seasonal influenza vaccine. 
• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet tomorrow (Sept. 12), to discuss clinical recommendations on who should receive an updated vaccine, as well as further considerations for specific populations such as immunocompromised and older individuals. 
• Manufacturers have publicly announced that the updated vaccines would be ready this fall, and the FDA anticipates that the updated vaccines will be available in the near future.

“Vaccination remains critical to public health and continued protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death,” said Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. “The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality. We very much encourage those who are eligible to consider getting vaccinated.”

The updated mRNA vaccines are each approved for individuals 12 years of age and older and are authorized under emergency use for individuals 6 months through 11 years of age. As part of today’s actions, the bivalent Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are no longer authorized for use in the United States.

Data Supporting the Updated mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines (2023-2024 Formula)

The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines approved and authorized today are supported by the FDA’s evaluation of manufacturing data to support the change to the 2023-2024 formula and non-clinical immune response data on the updated formulations including the XBB.1.5 component. 

• The updated mRNA vaccines are manufactured using a similar process as previous formulations. In studies that have been recently conducted, the extent of neutralization observed by the updated vaccines against currently circulating viral variants causing COVID-19, including EG.5 and BA.2.86, appears to be of a similar magnitude to the extent of neutralization observed with prior versions of the vaccines against corresponding prior variants against which they had been developed to provide protection. This suggests that the vaccines are a good match for protecting against the currently circulating COVID-19 variants.
• The benefit-risk profile of previously authorized and approved mRNA COVID-19 vaccines is well understood as these vaccines have been administered to hundreds of millions of people in the United States. 

Based on an evaluation of the totality of the evidence, the benefit-risk profile is favorable for individuals 6 months of age and older to receive an updated COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. Although serious outcomes from COVID-19 are less common in younger individuals, they do occur, and it has been demonstrated that recently receiving a COVID-19 vaccine reduces the risk of such serious outcomes.

Additional Details on Today’s Actions

Specifically, today’s actions include:

• Approval of Comirnaty (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) to include the 2023-2024 formula, and a change to a single dose for individuals 12 years of age and older. Comirnaty was previously approved as a two-dose series for individuals 12 years of age and older. 
• Approval of Spikevax (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) to include the 2023-2024 formula, a change to a single dose for individuals 18 years of age and older, and approval of a single dose for individuals 12 through 17 years of age. Spikevax was previously approved as a two-dose series for individuals 18 years of age and older. 
• Authorization of Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine for emergency use in individuals 6 months through 11 years of age to include the 2023-2024 formula and lower the age eligibility for receipt of a single dose from 6 years to 5 years of age. Additional doses are also authorized for certain immunocompromised individuals ages 6 months through 11 years, as described in the fact sheets.
• Authorization of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine for emergency use in individuals 6 months through 11 years of age to include the 2023-2024 formula. Additional doses are also authorized for certain immunocompromised individuals ages 6 months through 11 years, as described in the fact sheets.

The approval of Comirnaty (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) (2023-2024 Formula) was granted to BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH. The EUA amendment for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (2023-2024 Formula) was issued to Pfizer Inc.

The approval of Spikevax (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) (2023-2024 Formula) was granted to ModernaTX Inc. and the EUA amendment for the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine (2023-2024 Formula) was issued to ModernaTX Inc.

Related Information

• Comirnaty (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) (2023-2024 Formula)
• Spikevax (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) (2023-2024 Formula)
• Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine (2023-2024 Formula)
• FDA Resources for the Fall Respiratory Illness Season
• Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (2023-2024 Formula) 
• Updated COVID-19 Vaccines for Use in the United States Beginning in Fall 2023
• June 15, 2023, Meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee

The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Effects of covid-19-related school closures on student achievement-a systematic review.

• 1 Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
• 2 Center for Educational Measurement, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

The COVID-19 pandemic led to numerous governments deciding to close schools for several weeks in spring 2020. Empirical evidence on the impact of COVID-19-related school closures on academic achievement is only just emerging. The present work aimed to provide a first systematic overview of evidence-based studies on general and differential effects of COVID-19-related school closures in spring 2020 on student achievement in primary and secondary education. Results indicate a negative effect of school closures on student achievement, specifically in younger students and students from families with low socioeconomic status. Moreover, certain measures can be identified that might mitigate these negative effects. The findings are discussed in the context of their possible consequences for national educational policies when facing future school closures.

Introduction

In spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused severe disruption to everyday life around the world. As one of several measures taken to prevent the spread of the virus, many governments closed schools for several weeks or months. Although school closures are considered to be one of the most efficient interventions to curb the spread of the virus ( Haug et al., 2020 ), many educators and researchers raised concerns about the effects of COVID-19-related school closures on student academic achievement and learning inequalities. For instance, Woessmann (2020) estimated a negative effect of 0.10 SD on student achievement due to COVID-19-related school closures. Moreover, Haeck and Lefebvre (2020) estimated that socioeconomic achievement gaps would increase by up to 30%.

The negative effects of school closures due to summer vacation or natural disasters, and of absenteeism on student achievement are already well documented in the literature (for an overview see Kuhfeld et al., 2020a ). Less is known, however, about the impact of COVID-19-related school closures on student achievement. The primary focus of the literature on COVID-19-related school closures to date was on the reception and use of digital learning technologies and remote learning ( Andrew et al., 2020 ; Grewenig et al., 2020 ; Maity et al., 2020 ; Pensiero et al., 2020 ; Blume et al., 2021 ). Moreover, the psychological impact of COVID-19-related school closures, the use of school counseling in connection with COVID-19 ( O'Connor, 2020 ; Xie et al., 2020 ; Ehrler et al., 2021 ; Gadermann et al., 2021 ; O'Sullivan et al., 2021 ), and the effects of the school closures on student motivation ( Zaccoletti et al., 2020 ; Smith et al., 2021 ) were investigated. Existing projections of the impact of COVID-19 on student achievement paint quite a bleak picture. A learning loss of up to 38 points on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 1 ) scale is estimated, which corresponds to an effect size (Cohen's d ) of 0.38 or 0.9 school years ( Azevedo et al., 2020 ; Kuhfeld et al., 2020a ; Wyse et al., 2020 ; Kaffenberger, 2021 ).

Thus, a year into the pandemic, it is a good time for a first stocktaking of the actual, evidence-based impact of COVID-19-related school closures on student achievement. Consequently, the present work aimed to answer two research questions. First, what was the general effect of COVID-19-related school closures in spring 2020 on student achievement in primary and secondary education? Second, did school closures have differential effects on specific student groups?

The review is organized following the reporting guidelines of the PRISMA statement ( Page et al., 2021 ) and structured as follows. We first illustrate our systematic literature search, the inclusion criteria, the risk of bias assessment, and the synthesis of the relevant information from the studies selected. We then report the general and differential effects of the COVID-19-related school closures on student achievement, which are discussed in the context of their possible consequences for future national educational policies.

Literature Search

To identify relevant studies that investigated the effect of COVID-19-related school closures on student achievement, we searched the Web of Science database for articles published between March 1, 2020 and April 30, 2021. We used the following keywords and search string: [Covid OR Corona OR “SARS-CoV-2” AND school AND learn* OR “test score” OR performance OR competenc* OR achievement OR grades]. The results were refined by using the following categories: education, educational research, economics, education scientific disciplines, psychology educational, psychology multidisciplinary, social sciences interdisciplinary, and education special. The indexes searched were SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI, CPCI-S, CPCI-SSH, BKCI-S, BKCI-SSH, ESCI, CCR-EXPANDED, and IC. Because the COVID-19 pandemic was still ongoing at the time this review was written, and the field of research on the effects of COVID-19-related school closures on student achievement is rapidly evolving, we additionally searched the preprint servers PsyArXiv, EdArXiv, and SocArXiv using the aforementioned keywords. With this initial literature search, we obtained 601 potentially relevant studies. After selecting relevant articles out of these studies, we used the backward reference searching method (i.e., examining the works cited in the selected articles) to identify additional potentially relevant studies. See Figure 1 for a PRISMA flowchart of the literature search process.

Figure 1 . PRISMA flowchart of the literature search and screening process.

Selection of Studies

The abstracts of the studies selected were carefully read by the authors, and further inclusion was decided based on the following initial criteria. The studies (1) had to have a clear focus on COVID-19-related school closures, they (2) had to focus on primary and secondary education, and they (3) had to have student achievement (or test scores) as the dependent variable. This initial selection left 109 studies for potential inclusion in the review. These studies were thoroughly read by the authors and two research assistants. We carefully assessed the quality of included studies and based the decision to include studies in the review on the following primary set of inclusion criteria: Studies were required (1) to have collected actual data prior to and during/after COVID-19-related school closures, and (2) to have applied statistical analyses and to report an effect size. This set of inclusion criteria was chosen in order to select studies that provided the aforementioned evidence-based insights. Thus, reviews or discussions on how COVID-19 affects educational processes were excluded. Likewise, exploratory analyses or simple surveys (where only percentages were reported) were also excluded. For example, Chadwick and McLoughlin (2021) investigated the impact of COVID-19 related school closures on student's science learning. However, they only questioned teachers on the impact of COVID-19 related school closures on teaching, learning, and assessment. Because the study did not meet the inclusion criteria of having collected actual data on student achievement, including a comparison of data prior to and during/after COVID-19-related school closures, and applying statistical analyses rather than solely reporting percentages, the study was excluded from the systematic review. Similarly, studies by Haeck and Lefebvre (2020) , Kaffenberger (2021) , and Kuhfeld et al. (2020a) were excluded from the systematic review because they reported predicted effects of COVID-19 related school closures on student achievement but did not collect actual data prior to and during/after COVID-19-related school closures.

To determine the degree of rater agreement on the selection of the studies, a randomly selected subset of 20 studies was evaluated by both the authors and the research assistants. Any remaining divergent evaluations were highlighted in the evaluation forms and subsequently discussed. The second selection procedure yielded nine studies that were suitable for inclusion in the review. Subsequently, a backward search of references within the nine selected studies yielded two additional studies, which were then also included in the review.

Risk of Bias Assessment

The Cochrane Risk Assessment of the included studies was conducted independently by the first and second author using the “Risk Of Bias in Non-Randomized Studies of Interventions” tool (ROBINS-I; Sterne et al., 2016 ). The result of the risk assessment is summarized in Figure 2 . Taken together, the highest risk of bias is due to the lack of inclusion of potential confounding variables (Domain 1). Most studies, however, included at least a few relevant controls. Bias due to selection of participants was unlikely as the groups were formed naturally. Similarly, where applicable, interventions were classified correctly. Except for Clark et al. (2020) , no information could be obtained about deviations from intended interventions. This is because the COVID-19 related school closures were not intended interventions. Thus, although there is no information, the risk due to deviations from intended interventions was deemed low. Lastly, bias due to missing data, measurement of outcomes, or selection of reported results is unlikely, as most studies exhibited very small proportions of missing data (except Depping et al., 2021 ), and were highly transparent in their reporting of the results (except, partially, van der Velde et al., 2021 , who only report significant mean differences between groups in sufficient detail). Depping et al. (2021) , however, thoroughly discuss and provide convincing reasons for assuming that missing data does not substantially influence their results.

Figure 2 . Result of the cochrane risk of bias assessment.

We synthesized the eleven studies by extracting the following information that was relevant for our research questions: (1) country, (2) duration of school closure, (3) sample description (type of school and sample size), (4) subjects for which student achievement was investigated, (5) statistical method, (6) general effects of the COVID-19-related school closures on student achievement, and (7) differential effects as reported by subgroup analyses (see Table 1 for a detailed list of the studies included). The focal piece of information was the reported general and differential effects. Where possible, general effects reported in different metrics (e.g., percentile scores), were converted to changes in SD . We then calculated the median of the reported effects, for the overall general effect, as well as for the general effect on reading and mathematics. In light of the relatively small number of studies, random- or even mixed-effects meta-analytic models were not feasible.

Table 1 . Descriptive criteria of studies included.

General Effects of COVID-19-Related School Closures on Student Achievement

The studies on the effect of COVID-19-related school closures on student achievement selected for our review reported mixed findings, with effects ranging from−0.37 SD to +0.25 SD ( Mdn = −0.08 SD ). Most studies found negative effects of COVID-19 related school closures on student achievement. Seven studies reported a negative effect on mathematics ( Clark et al., 2020 ; Kuhfeld et al., 2020b ; Maldonado and De Witte, 2020 ; Tomasik et al., 2020 ; Depping et al., 2021 ; Engzell et al., 2021 ; Schult et al., 2021 ), five studies on reading ( Clark et al., 2020 ; Maldonado and De Witte, 2020 ; Tomasik et al., 2020 ; Engzell et al., 2021 ; Schult et al., 2021 ), and two studies on other subjects, such as science ( Maldonado and De Witte, 2020 ; Engzell et al., 2021 ). This is in line with expected learning losses due to COVID-19 related school closures and the assumption that, in spring 2020, the ad hoc implementation of online teaching gave students, teachers, schools, and parents little time to prepare for or adapt to measures of remote learning.

Three studies reported positive effects of COVID-19 related school closures on student achievement. Meeter (2021) and Spitzer and Musslick (2021) showed students to improve their mathematics achievement when learning with an online-learning software during the COVID-related school closures. Similarly, van der Velde et al. (2021) reported an increase in correct solutions on open questions within a French learning program. Interestingly, these three studies focused on online-learning software. Thus, the positive effects may be explained by the students under investigation being familiar working with the corresponding online-learning software prior to school closures. Hence, they did not have to adapt to a new learning environment when in-person teaching was interrupted due to COVID-19. Moreover, students increased the time using the online-learning software at home, were less distracted or experienced less time pressure in a home-schooling rather than classroom setting, or were presented with individualized assignments within the online program (see also Meeter, 2021 ; Spitzer and Musslick, 2021 ; van der Velde et al., 2021 ).

Additionally, two studies found positive effects on student achievement in mathematics and reading ( Gore et al., 2021 ), or in reading only ( Depping et al., 2021 ). This result might be accounted for by the achievement measurement being timed some months after school closures in both studies and the possibility of effective compensatory measures being implemented by teachers, schools, and local policy makers during this time to counteract learning losses, such as offering learning groups during summer vacation in parts of Germany ( Depping et al., 2021 ).

Even though the median for the effect on mathematics and reading is comparable when averaging above all studies ( d = −0.10 SD and−0.09 SD for mathematics and reading, respectively), some included studies found different effects for different subjects. On the one hand, reasons for finding larger learning losses in reading than in mathematics might be that “mathematics is easier to teach in distance learning, as it is simple to provide exercises and tests digitally or as worksheets” ( Maldonado and De Witte, 2020 , p. 13). As another explanation, many students might not speak the language in which they are tested in at home, hence, not benefitting much in their language skills during school closures (e.g., Maldonado and De Witte, 2020 ). On the other hand, reasons for finding larger learning losses in mathematics than in reading might be that students spent more time on reading during school closures and that supporting children in their reading skills might have been easier to realize for parents than supporting children in improving their competencies in mathematics (e.g., Depping et al., 2021 ; Schult et al., 2021 ).

Differential Effects on Groups of Students

The studies selected for our review reported three main differential effects of COVID-19-related school closures on student achievement in different groups of students. First, the main finding was that younger children were more negatively affected in their learning than older children were (-0.37 SD vs.−0.10 SD ; Tomasik et al., 2020 ). Second, children from families with a low socioeconomic status (SES) were more affected than children from families with a high SES were ( Maldonado and De Witte, 2020 ; Engzell et al., 2021 ). In this context, one study reported an interaction between grade and SES, that is, for younger children from schools with low school-level SES, learning losses of 0.16 SD were found, while younger children from schools with medium school-level SES experienced learning gains of 0.15 SD ( Gore et al., 2021 ). Third, low-performing students were more affected by COVID-19-related school closures in mathematics, while high-performing students were more affected by COVID-19-related school closures in reading ( Schult et al., 2021 ). Finally, low-performing students benefited more from systematic online-learning methods ( Clark et al., 2020 ; Spitzer and Musslick, 2021 ).

As the original studies were not designed to identify the reasons for these effects, additional studies are required to explain the three main differential effects exhaustively. In the following, we provide potential explanations as stated in the original studies. Regarding the first main differential effect (younger students are more affected compared to older students), Tomasik et al. (2020) state that the slower pace of students in primary school may be due to younger children relying more on cognitive scaffolding during instruction, because their capability for self-regulated learning might not be sufficiently developed. From a socio-emotional perspective, younger children might have been more sensitive to stressors related to the COVID-19 pandemic ( Tomasik et al., 2020 ).

The reasons for students from low SES families being more affected relate to access to remote learning, their learning behavior, and the support provided from families and schools. Children from families with a low SES are less likely to have access to remote learning ( UNESCO, 2021 ), are less often provided with active learning assistance from their schools ( Tomasik et al., 2020 ), and spend less time on learning ( Meeter, 2021 ) than children from families with a high SES. Moreover, parents with a high SES are more likely to provide greater psychological support for their children ( OECD, 2019 ), which seems to be specifically relevant in a situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The differential effect on low-performing and high-performing students may be due to high-performing students being capable of improving their performance regardless of the learning environment, while low-performing students specifically benefit from systematic online learning ( Clark et al., 2020 ). Additionally, low-performing students might be less distracted in comparison to learning in a classroom setting ( Spitzer and Musslick, 2021 ). Finally, with the possibility to adapt the assignments in online programs individually to the students, low-performing children might have been addressed more thoroughly according to their needs ( Spitzer and Musslick, 2021 ).

The present work aimed to provide a first systematic overview of studies that reported effects of COVID-19-related school closures on student achievement and to answer two research questions. First, what was the general effect of COVID-19-related school closures in spring 2020 on student achievement in primary and secondary education? Second, did school closures have differential effects on specific student groups?

In sum, there is clear evidence for a negative effect of COVID-19-related school closures on student achievement. The reported effects are comparable in size to findings of research on summer losses ( d = −0.005 SD to −0.05 SD per week; see also Kuhfeld et al., 2020a ) and comparable to Woessmann's initial estimate. Hence, even though remote learning was implemented during COVID-19-related school closures, the effects achieved by remote learning were similar to those achieved when no teaching was implemented at all during summer vacation. Alarmingly, specifically younger children ( Tomasik et al., 2020 ) and children from families with a low SES ( Maldonado and De Witte, 2020 ; Engzell et al., 2021 ) were negatively affected by COVID-19-related school closures. This finding is in line with predictions of widening learning gaps and additive learning losses in subsequent school years ( Grewenig et al., 2020 ; Haeck and Lefebvre, 2020 ; Pensiero et al., 2020 ; Kaffenberger, 2021 ). This indicates that most remote learning measures implemented during the first school closures in spring 2020 were not effective for student learning; there was no difference between them and the absence of systematic teaching during summer vacation.

However, the present review can also identify online-learning measures that seem to be beneficial for student learning. Taking a closer look at studies that reported positive effects of school closures on student achievement, three of these studies ( Meeter, 2021 ; Spitzer and Musslick, 2021 ; van der Velde et al., 2021 ) used some kind of online-learning software to assess student achievement. Students in the studies of both Meeter (2021) and Spitzer and Musslick (2021) worked with online-learning software for mathematics, and students in the study of van der Velde et al. (2021) worked on online-learning software for language learning (i.e., for French). Hence, the positive effects of COVID-19-related school closures on performance in such online-learning programs may have occurred due to the increased use of software during school closures and the fact that students from these studies were familiar working with online-learning programs, hence, did not have to adapt to a new learning environment during COVID-19-related school closures. Additionally, Spitzer and Musslick (2021) reported that low-performing students benefited even more than high-performing students regarding their performance during COVID-19-related school closures from using the learning software. The authors explained this finding by considering that low-performing students were potentially less distracted by other students in a home-learning setting. These findings are in line with results by Clark et al. (2020) , showing low-performing students to specifically benefit from systematic online material.

The present review gives insights into the effects of the COVID-19 related school closures on student achievement in spring 2020. It has to be noted that the number of countries for which evidence of these effects are available is still small, and clustered around developed countries. Especially studies from developing countries are not available yet. We know, however, that the reduction in in-person learning was smaller for low-income countries than for medium-income countries ( UNESCO, 2021 ). Nevertheless, the proportion of students enrolled in primary or secondary education is considerably smaller in poorer countries ( Ward, 2020 ). It may be possible that studies coming from developing countries provide novel insights into the general and especially the differential effects of the COVID-19 related school closures on student achievement. The results of our systematic review can serve as a benchmark for these studies, once they emerge in the literature.

The first COVID-19-related school closures in spring 2020 were followed by similar measures in the fall and winter of 2020/2021. Due to the cumulative nature of learning processes and student achievement, additional learning losses are likely. Nevertheless, school closures do not seem to be initiated as quickly now as they were at the beginning of the pandemic, which is positive for learning. To counter the learning losses, on a micro level, educational policy makers should determine potential supportive measures that increase the active learning time on task. On a macro level, national policy makers should determine potential compensatory measures to support students in their learning and to avoid failed educational careers. In this regard, systematic online material and software have been found to compensate for learning losses, specifically in high-risk children. Hence, educational policy makers and educators should be aware of the importance of providing children with systematic material and ensuring that high-risk children, in particular, have access to adequate learning environments in order to circumvent learning losses and widening learning gaps that may be caused by subsequent school closures. We expect future studies focusing on the subsequent school closures to provide a more differentiated picture of the effects of COVID-19 related school closures on student achievement. For instance, studies may investigate whether there are differences in educational outcomes across countries with differing lockdown measures. Similarly, studies may investigate the reasons for the subject-specific general effects and the three main differential effects identified in this systematic review. Such studies require longitudinal approaches, and may provide educational policy makers with crucial additional information.

The goal of this systematic review was to provide a first evidence-based insight into the effects of COVID-19-related school closures on student achievement in primary and secondary education. The onus is now on national educational policy makers to be aware of these effects and, together with educational and psychological research fields, to work toward the implementation of measures to mitigate or even counteract these negative effects. This may be one of the most important societal tasks for the post-COVID time.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author Contributions

SH and CK conducted the literature review and synthesis, with critical input by AF. SH wrote and revised the manuscript with contributions and feedback provided by CK, TD, and AF. All authors have been involved in the conceptual design of the review.

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.

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Kaffenberger, M. (2021). Modelling the long-run learning impact of the Covid-19 learning shock: actions to (more than) mitigate loss. Int. J. Educ. Dev. 81:102326. doi: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2020.102326

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Maity, S., Sahu, T. N., and Sen, N. (2020). Panoramic view of digital education in COVID-19: a new explored avenue. Rev. Educ. 9, 424–426. doi: 10.1002/rev3.3249

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Keywords: systematic review, COVID-19, school closure, student achievement, learning loss

Citation: Hammerstein S, König C, Dreisörner T and Frey A (2021) Effects of COVID-19-Related School Closures on Student Achievement-A Systematic Review. Front. Psychol. 12:746289. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.746289

Received: 23 July 2021; Accepted: 20 August 2021; Published: 16 September 2021.

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Copyright © 2021 Hammerstein, König, Dreisörner and Frey. 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: Svenja Hammerstein, hammerstein@psych.uni-frankfurt.de

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.

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Study demonstrates the advantages of S/U grades for D.V.M. students

While S/U grading has been used at other institutions, it has not been widely applied at CVM, and the research team took advantage of the opportunity to explore the effects of an alternative system. Photo: Chris Montgomery/Unsplash

Researchers from the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) found that a satisfactory/unsatisfactory (S/U) grading system used during the early months of COVID-19 increased veterinary students’ well-being and time for self-care without sacrificing academic performance. According to their paper, published in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education , D.V.M. students performed similarly on letter-graded and S/U coursework, offering the opportunity to consider alternative grading systems that support both students’ health and learning.

Research has shown that workplace burnout is prevalent among veterinarians, highlighting the importance of promoting well-being during training and beyond. “In our profession we have a responsibility to investigate ways to improve the lives of our D.V.M. students as they transition into their professional careers,” said study co-author and assistant clinical professor in the Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences Ashleigh Newman ‘06.

Pandemic grading alternative offers research opportunity

After stay-at-home orders were issued in New York, Cornell temporarily offered an S/U grading system for the spring 2020 semester before returning to standard-letter grading in the fall. First author Kelly Lyboldt, D.V.M. ‘05, an associate professor of practice in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, said that professors were concerned about the impacts the rapid conversion to online courses might have on students’ stress levels and learning. The college ultimately decided to institute S/U grading for DVM students.

While pass/fail grading isn’t common in academia, human medicine programs have experimented with S/U grading since the 1960s to allay students’ anxiety. Studies showed that S/U grading positively affected students’ well-being without altering academic outcomes. Opponents have argued that alternatives to letter grades could undermine the rigor of medical training. Still, human medical students have received S/U grades on United States Medical Licensing Examinations since 2022, shifting the emphasis from numerical scores to clinical excellence and interpersonal skills.

While S/U grading has been used at other institutions, it has not been widely applied at CVM,, and thus the team took advantage of the opportunity to explore the effects of an alternative system. A cohort of veterinary students took a core course that spanned the spring and fall 2020 semesters, and faculty were able to compare the results of S/U and letter-graded classes. According to Lyboldt, the research team hypothesized that the S/U system would alleviate students’ stress over their GPAs without sacrificing motivation or academic success.

The team used academic performance data from the 2020 Foundation Course III — a two-part course on animal organ systems covering physiology, pharmacology, clinical pathology, and anatomic pathology — along with a questionnaire about students’ educational experiences and well-being during the course. While students received S/U grades for the spring 2020 course, administrative support kept track of their numerical and letter grades for both semesters, since a “Satisfactory” grade requires a final score above C –. Out of 118 students in the cohort, 68% responded to the questionnaire.

Gaining time for self-care while maintaining motivation to learn

In terms of academic performance, the grading system made little difference in students’ final numerical grades: 83.7% and 84.3% for the spring and fall 2020 semesters, respectively. Data also supported the team’s prediction that, without the pressure of achieving a particular letter grade, 95% of students reported redirecting some of their energy to achieving a healthier balance between academics and caring for their physical and mental wellbeing.

A majority of students saw S/U grading and the open-book exams that accompanied it positively.

One critique around S/U grading in educational literature involves motivation: will students still work hard if they’re not striving for a high GPA? Fortunately, students said their motivation to study was unchanged by the grading system. Around half of those who agreed that S/U grading contributed to their well-being on the survey reported improved learning and enjoyment of the material.

“A lot of us noticed our conversations with students in the spring S/U semester were drastically different than those in the fall,” said Lyboldt. “They seemed more curious about the material, and asked about content instead of points on a quiz.”

Not everyone enjoyed the temporary grading system. Almost 50% of questionnaire responders would have preferred a final letter grade in the spring 2020 class. The authors suspect that’s because grades are important for internships, and their spring 2020 grades would have enhanced their overall GPAs.

The future of S/U grading at CVM

While CVM isn’t throwing in the towel on letter grades, the college did move to S/U grading for fourth-year D.V.M. students performing clinical rotations. Foundation Course III is now hybrid, with weekly S/U quizzes and built-in reflection opportunities for graded assignments, along with a letter-graded final exam and letter for the final grade.

Eleni Casseri, M.P.H. ’19, D.V.M. ’24, took a hybrid version of Foundation Course III. “The pass/fail grading on the quizzes took a lot of pressure off me,” she said. “It wasn’t about whether I got 80% or 85%; it was about learning material because I’m going to be a doctor someday. I felt like I wasn’t just trying to pass another class.”

The research team also believes that S/U grading allows students the space for low-stakes failures and learning resilience. “Our veterinary students are very intelligent and motivated individuals,” said Kathryn D. Bach ‘04, M.S. ‘09, Ph.D. ‘19, paper co-author and lecturer in the Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences. “We want them to focus on growing after their mistakes instead of stressing about impacts to their GPAs.”

Antonia Jameson Jordan, D.V.M. ‘99, Ph.D. ’08, is a senior lecturer in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and paper co-author who sees S/U grades within a larger context. “Our students have been pushing for years for the college to support their wellness,” she explained. “It’s great to find systems that support students’ learning, health, and ability to be great veterinarians.”

As CVM continues to examine and refine its curriculum, these findings will help in establishing approaches that optimize long-term learning and healthy habits for sustaining a lifetime of career satisfaction in veterinary medicine.

Written by Jennifer DeMoss

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More than half of Americans are following election news closely, and many are already worn out

A majority of Americans say they are closely following news about the 2024 U.S. presidential election, a slightly higher share than in April 2020. At the same time, many people already say they are worn out by so much coverage of the campaign and candidates, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted this April.

To examine Americans’ habits and attitudes toward political and election news and information, Pew Research Center surveyed 8,709 U.S. adults from April 8 to 14, 2024.

Everyone who completed the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The surveys are weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the  ATP’s methodology .

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

Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. This is the latest analysis in Pew Research Center’s ongoing investigation of the state of news, information and journalism in the digital age, a research program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, with generous support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

How closely Americans follow election news

More than half of Americans (58%) say they are following news about candidates for the 2024 presidential election very or fairly closely. Another 28% say they aren’t following it too closely, and 13% aren’t following it closely at all.

The share of Americans who are closely following election news is slightly higher now than it was in April 2020 (52%). In October 2020, however, that share increased to 75%.

This year, Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party are slightly more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say they are closely following election news (64% vs. 58%).

As in past presidential elections, older adults are more likely than younger adults to say they are closely following news about the candidates. Roughly eight-in-ten U.S. adults ages 65 and older (82%) currently say this, compared with 68% of those ages 50 to 64, 48% of those ages 30 to 49, and only 34% of those ages 18 to 29.

Fatigue over election coverage

Although many Americans are following news about the 2024 presidential candidates, they are also experiencing fatigue over election coverage. About six-in-ten U.S. adults (62%) already say they are worn out by so much coverage of the campaign and candidates, while 35% say they like seeing a lot of this coverage.

This is similar to the share of Americans who said they felt worn out at later points in the last two presidential election years. In June and July 2016 , 59% of Americans said they felt worn out, and in October 2020 , 61% felt this way.

Americans who are following election news closely are less likely than those who aren’t to be worn out by election coverage. Four-in-ten Americans who say they follow news about candidates very closely say they are worn out by so much coverage, compared with 77% of those who say they don’t follow it closely at all.

Republicans are slightly less likely than Democrats to say they are worn out by election coverage (58% vs. 66%). This gap is driven by conservative Republicans (55%), who are less likely than moderate or liberal Republicans (65%) to feel worn out.

How Americans come across election news

Americans are more likely to say they mostly get political news because they happen to come across it (57%) than because they are looking for it (42%).

However, there are striking differences on this question by age. Just a quarter of Americans ages 18 to 29 say they mostly get political news because they are looking for it, compared with 60% of those 65 and older – a gap of 35 percentage points.

Those who say they closely follow news about the 2024 presidential election are also far more likely to actively seek out political news. About six-in-ten U.S. adults who closely follow election news (58%) say they mostly get political news this way, compared with 18% of those who are not closely following election news.

Republicans and Democrats are equally likely to say they mostly get political news because they look for it (44% vs. 43%). However, independents who do not lean toward either party (21%) are about half as likely to say this.

Sources of election news

We also asked what type of sources Americans get most of their political and election news from. A majority of U.S. adults (62%) say they get most of this news from journalists and news organizations. (The question did not ask how people access that news , such as through TV, print, news websites or social media.)

Around one-in-ten Americans (11%) say they get most political and election news from friends, family and neighbors. Smaller shares say they get most of this news from celebrities and social media personalities (4%), politicians and political parties (3%), and ordinary people they don’t know (2%). An additional 17% say they don’t get most of their political or election news from any of these sources.

There are a few differences in election news sources by Americans’ age and political party:

• Older Americans are far more likely than younger ones to say they get most political and election news from journalists and news organizations. Around three-quarters of Americans ages 65 and older (78%) say this, compared with 68% of those ages 50 to 64, 55% of those 30 to 49, and 45% of those 18 to 29.
• Adults under 30 are significantly more likely than those 65 and older to say they get most of this news from celebrities and social media personalities (10% vs. 1%). They are also more likely to get this news from friends, family and neighbors (18% vs. 6%).
• Democrats are slightly more likely than Republicans to say they get most political and election news from journalists and news organizations (69% vs. 59%).
• Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to say they don’t get most political or election news from any of these sources (20% vs. 12%).

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and its methodology . Research Assistant Emily Tomasik contributed to this analysis.

• Election 2024
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Kirsten Eddy is a senior researcher focusing on news and information at Pew Research Center .

Two-thirds of U.S. adults say they’ve seen their own news sources report facts meant to favor one side

A growing share of voters say it’s important to them to hear from the trump and biden campaigns, americans are following news about presidential candidates much less closely than covid-19 news, black and white democrats differ in their media diets, assessments of primaries, 5 key findings from our latest election news pathways survey, from impeachment to the democratic race, most popular.

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6 priorities for future research into COVID-19 and its effects on early learning

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, christina weiland , christina weiland associate professor, school of education - university of michigan @weilanch erica greenberg , erica greenberg senior research associate, center on education data and policy - urban institute @ericahgreenberg daphna bassok , daphna bassok nonresident senior fellow - governance studies , brown center on education policy @daphnabassok anna j. markowitz , anna j. markowitz assistant professor, graduate school of education and information studies - ucla @ajmarkowitz paola guerrero rosada , and paola guerrero rosada doctoral candidate, school of education - university of michigan @paolaguerreror grace luetmer grace luetmer research analyst, center on education data and policy - urban institute @graceluetmer.

July 20, 2021

Since March 2020, researchers have produced more than 300 reports on the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on young children’s learning and on the early care and education (ECE) programs that serve them. Very quickly, ECE leaders facing the urgent day-to-day demands of COVID-19 response also faced a deluge of evidence—far more than they could efficiently find, sort, and use.

To help provide policymakers with a clear understanding of the pandemic’s effects on young children’s learning and ECE programs, our team of 16 early childhood experts and 10 early childhood policy leaders recently released a summary of this evidence base. We reviewed 76 high-quality studies in depth, spanning 16 national studies, 45 studies in 31 states, and 15 local studies. Our work illuminated a national story of learning setbacks and unmet needs, for which we offered evidence-backed, equity-centered policy solutions.

But another advantage of taking stock of what we know was discovering what we don’t know. Our in-depth review revealed six takeaways about where research in this area should go next. Especially given that American Rescue Plan funds can be used to build research capacity in state and local agencies, our hope is that a clear statement of what stakeholders need to know next is helpful for producing new evidence to guide investments going forward.

Here are six priorities for future research going forward:

• Continue to track recovery for children, families, teachers, and programs. We likely have just scratched the surface of the effects of this fluid, complex crisis. The Delta variant raises new questions about health and safety, and young children have yet to be vaccinated . Extending studies of the effects of the crisis on children’s learning, the supply of ECE programs, and early educators’ experiences is essential for targeting supports and ensuring equitable solutions.
• Document changes to ECE programs and children’s experiences that are not captured in existing data. We have lots of evidence that shows the many changes ECE programs made to enhance health and safety, but we have only crude teacher reports on the effects of these changes on children’s classroom experiences. As vaccination rates increase, a return to direct observations of ECE classrooms—commonly done at large scale prior to the crisis—should be used to support both children and teachers. How are young children spending their time? Has instructional quality declined as teacher reports indicate? In what areas do teachers need support? Widely used and newer measures can answer these questions and inform instructional and policy decisions in the new normal.
• Measure learning outcomes for the youngest learners directly and across multiple domains. We found no data from direct assessments of children’s skills prior to kindergarten, and very little data outside of the literacy domain for kindergarten through second grade. We have parent and teacher reports on the youngest children that paint a worrisome picture, but the psychometrics of such measures can be questionable. The K-2 direct assessments we have show consistent and large learning setbacks, particularly for children typically marginalized in the U.S. education system. And many children, especially children from households with low incomes and children of color, are missing from recent data. Direct assessments are critical for meeting young children where they are, targeting resources effectively, and guiding investment decisions.
• Collect systematic data on the ECE workforce. Many studies have detailed how the ECE workforce suffered in the crisis, with the pandemic magnifying longstanding issues like very low pay, limited benefits, and few professional supports, particularly among teachers in child care and family child care settings. In the face of new challenges, early educators also reported new professional-development needs, including training on health and safety, remote learning, and meeting the needs of dual language learners (DLLs). Unlike in K-12, where extensive data is collected about the teaching workforce, few states systematically collect data about early educators. Collecting such data across sectors will be essential as new investments are made. ECE workforce issues commonly undercut investments and early educators are at the heart of ensuring the high-quality experiences that help young children thrive.
• Prioritize research on groups hit hardest. We know the effects of the pandemic have not been borne equally , but we found no data on some key populations such as young children from homeless families, children experiencing bereavement, children from migrant families, and Asian-American children amid the spike in Asian-American hate. Data on other critical populations like DLLs, children with disabilities, and Native-American children are sparse. Equity-centered, evidence-backed decision-making requires more data on young children who belong to groups that have suffered more in the crisis.
• Evaluate the impacts of new investments. We will need additional rigorous, fast-turnaround research as states and localities make high-stakes policy and spending decisions and families make decisions about their children’s care and education in the next chapter of the crisis. Decisions on a set of wide-ranging topics (e.g., program eligibility, teacher compensation and professional supports, and interventions for students needing help) both provide unique opportunities to study bold policy and have the potential to make lasting impacts. As an example, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan—a state hit particularly hard by the crisis—recently announced historic investments in both child care and preschool , including expanding access and improving teacher pay. Maine and Washington state also announced important new investments. Documenting state and local policy choices and their impacts is essential. Doing so will help legislartors make decisions about how best to allocate recovery dollars, and will ensure that what we learn from these historic investments will inform longer-term efforts to build truly high-quality ECE systems.

We titled our summary : “Historic crisis, historic opportunity.” The March 2021 American Rescue Plan was the largest public investment in early care and education in U.S. history. Smart and rigorous research, especially in partnership with decision-makers, has a critical role to play in pivoting from crisis to opportunity in ECE. Our young children and early educators deserve no less.

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