The Pandemic Impact: Academic Achievement [Berkeley ANova]

The COVID pandemic has severely disrupted the world in a variety of ways — unsurprisingly, its impact has included detrimental effects towards education, students’ mental health, and student achievement for elementary and secondary school students.

During Berkeley ANova’s General Meeting on March 1st, 2022, we specifically discussed the pandemic’s impact on academic achievement. In general, disparities in academic performance across student demographics existed prior to the pandemic; studies (Harvard Gazette via McKinsey) show that the pandemic negatively affected student performance. Disparities are exacerbated as students of color have fallen behind more than other students, especially in math.

We then posed the question: “Why do you think this is occurring?” Our members discussed potential drivers and causes to this problem as a whole.

This graph primarily shows the differences in how the pandemic affects groups of students, specifically historically disadvantaged students such as underrepresented minorities and low income students

The Achievement Gap

One major consequence of the points mentioned previously is the widening of pre-pandemic achievement gaps across demographics. The online learning environment is not nearly as forgiving as a regular school environment. The achievement gap exists across other demographic divides as well (ie. geographic location).

We discussed many of the common pitfalls of online school. This includes:

• Students falling asleep in class.
• More background distractions.
• Less incentive to complete assignments.
• Little to no 1:1 time with teachers.
• Large classes that turn into “self-study” of the material.

It is important that teachers try their best to mitigate these problems. However many of these issues cannot be easily solved with just effort.

A graph indicating the widening pre-pandemic achievement gaps across demographics

The Digital Divide

Under-resourced schools are struggling to adapt to remote learning due to the digital divide:

• Black and Hispanic households with school-aged children are 1.3–1.4x more likely to lack adequate access to technology
• Under-resourced schools are becoming more underfunded due to inadequate funding from lower property taxes

On this topic, we asked our members several follow up questions:

• What are some technological limitations that can inhibit a student from online learning?
• In what ways can our data be affected by unequal access to technology?
• How can we mitigate the divide between those who have access to technology and those who do not?

Benefits of Online + Hybrid Learning

Is online learning all that bad? We considered several of the benefits of virtual learning models:

• Access to a wider range of classes
• No commute to school -> removes transportation barriers
• Asynchronous classes allow for self-pacing and flexibility
• Reduces geographical disparity in quality of education:
• Students anywhere can access the same quality of online education

Reflection Question: What role do you think online/hybrid learning will play in the future?

Thanks for reading! ❤

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