Schoolchildren were taught online for months due to the school closings. This has an impact on skills development. One group in particular is affected.
A study gives distance teaching bad marks during the Corona crisis. Researchers at the Frankfurt Goethe University looked at data from all over the world – the result is sobering.
“The average development of skills during school closings in spring 2020 can be described as stagnation with a tendency to decline in skills and is therefore within the range of the effects of summer holidays,” explained Prof. Andreas Frey, who teaches educational psychology at Goethe University, one of the authors of the Study.
In a systematic review using scientific databases, researchers have identified those studies around the world that reported on the effects of corona-related school closings on the performance and skills of schoolchildren. “We have only considered high-quality publications in terms of research methodology, which allow clear conclusions to be drawn about the effect of corona-related school closings on the acquisition of competencies by schoolchildren and which use appropriate tests to measure performance or competency,” explained Frey.
The loss of skills among children and adolescents from socially disadvantaged parental homes is particularly pronounced. “This confirms the previous assumptions made by empirical evidence: the gap between rich and poor widened even further during the first corona-related school closings,” concluded Frey. However, there are also initial indications that the effects of the later school closings from winter do not necessarily have to be just as drastic: In the meantime, online teaching has improved in many places.
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