The High Cost of Remote Learning

We have, on this blog, been looking for evidence about how remote learning has affected children. At a time when the American teachers’ unions have shut down many American schools-- to the detriment of both children and parents-- we need to have some evidence of how much damage this practice has inflicted on children. 

I will mention, again, in passing, that some states, like Florida, have kept the schools open. And many countries in Europe have done the same.

As for the negative impact of remote learning, Beth Ellwood reports on Psypost about a recent study, performed by Angela Duckworth and colleagues. It paints a grim picture, of systematic child abuse:

A recent study published in Educational Researcher sheds light on how students were impacted by the transition to remote schooling during the COVID-19 crisis. A survey of high school students revealed that those who attended school remotely during the pandemic fared worse emotionally, academically, and socially than those who attended in person.

One of the most notable consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the widespread school closures that sent millions of students home from the classroom and into remote learning. Researchers have suggested that this abrupt move to online schooling will be followed by widespread declines in academic performance, especially among students from lower-income families.

Study authors Angela L. Duckworth and her team wanted to investigate how remote schooling may have impacted students beyond their test scores, specifically from the students’ perspectives. Using a self-report questionnaire, they examined how the switch to learning at home affected students’ emotions, social experiences, and academic engagement.

“Many news stories have reported on individual stories of teenagers who have suffered from anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges during the pandemic,” said Duckworth in a news release. “This study gives some of the first empirical evidence of how learning remotely has affected adolescent well-being.”

The information does not require very much commentary from me. Ellwood continues:

Students studying from home felt less like they fit in with peers and perceived less support from adults in the school. Where emotions were concerned, they experienced more negative emotions (i.e., sad) and less positive emotions (i.e., happy, relaxed). Their academic well-being also suffered — those learning remotely found their classes less interesting and felt less able to succeed in school.

Notably, the researchers found that these differences in well-being were concentrated among older students in grades 10 to 12. Among ninth-graders, those learning from home had comparable well-being scores to those at school. The study authors theorize that older students may have been more affected by the social isolation of remote schooling since maintaining close relationships with peers becomes more important in later adolescence. They also note that ninth-graders were likely already facing social, emotional, and academic adjustments due to entering high school for the first time, and these difficulties may have masked any hardships associated with remote learning.

“As policymakers gear up for national tutoring and remediation programs–which we agree are urgent priorities–we must recognize that our nation’s students are not just lagging as performers, they are suffering as people,” Duckworth said. “Meeting their intrinsic psychological needs–for social connection, for positive emotion, and authentic intellectual engagement–is a challenge that cannot wait.”

This ought to be a bigger scandal than it is. It lends credence to the views of those who labeled the practice child abuse and who proposed prosecuting the heads of the teachers’ unions.