Learning loss due to school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Learning loss due to school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.2022376118
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发表时间：
2021-04-27
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Verhagen MD
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Engzell P;Frey A;Verhagen MD
在与新冠肺炎的战斗中，关闭学校一直是一个常见的工具。然而，人们对它们的成本和好处仍然知之甚少。我们使用一项自然实验来评估学校关闭对学生学习的影响，该实验发生在封锁前后的荷兰国家考试期间。有趣的是，荷兰是一个“最好的”情况，它的封锁时间短，教育经费公平，宽带接入率世界领先。尽管条件有利，但我们发现，学生在家里学习时进步很小，甚至没有进步。学习损失在来自贫困家庭的学生中最为明显。新冠肺炎疫情期间，学校暂停面授教学，引发了人们对学生学习后果的担忧。到目前为止，研究这个问题的数据还很有限。在这里，我们使用来自荷兰(n 350,000)的特别丰富的数据来评估学校关闭对小学成绩的影响。我们利用国家考试在封锁之前和之后进行的事实，并将这一时期的进展与前三年的同期进行比较。荷兰只经历了相对较短的封锁(8周)，并且拥有公平的学校资助体系和世界上最高的宽带接入率。尽管如此，我们的结果显示，学习能力的损失约为3%，即0.08标准差。这一影响相当于一个学年的五分之一，与学校停课的时间相同。来自受教育程度较低家庭的学生的损失高达60%，证实了人们对大流行对儿童和家庭造成的不均衡死亡人数的担忧。考察机制，我们发现大部分效应反映的是所学知识对考试当天的累积影响，而不是短暂的影响。当平衡估计的治疗倾向并使用最大熵权重或与比较同一学校和家庭内的学生的固定效果规格时，结果仍然稳健。研究结果表明，学生在家学习时几乎没有进步，在基础设施较弱或学校停课时间较长的国家，损失甚至更大。
School closures have been a common tool in the battle against COVID-19. Yet, their costs and benefits remain insufficiently known. We use a natural experiment that occurred as national examinations in The Netherlands took place before and after lockdown to evaluate the impact of school closures on students’ learning. The Netherlands is interesting as a “best-case” scenario, with a short lockdown, equitable school funding, and world-leading rates of broadband access. Despite favorable conditions, we find that students made little or no progress while learning from home. Learning loss was most pronounced among students from disadvantaged homes. Suspension of face-to-face instruction in schools during the COVID-19 pandemic has led to concerns about consequences for students’ learning. So far, data to study this question have been limited. Here we evaluate the effect of school closures on primary school performance using exceptionally rich data from The Netherlands (n 350,000). We use the fact that national examinations took place before and after lockdown and compare progress during this period to the same period in the 3 previous years. The Netherlands underwent only a relatively short lockdown (8 wk) and features an equitable system of school funding and the world’s highest rate of broadband access. Still, our results reveal a learning loss of about 3 percentile points or 0.08 standard deviations. The effect is equivalent to one-fifth of a school year, the same period that schools remained closed. Losses are up to 60% larger among students from less-educated homes, confirming worries about the uneven toll of the pandemic on children and families. Investigating mechanisms, we find that most of the effect reflects the cumulative impact of knowledge learned rather than transitory influences on the day of testing. Results remain robust when balancing on the estimated propensity of treatment and using maximum-entropy weights or with fixed-effects specifications that compare students within the same school and family. The findings imply that students made little or no progress while learning from home and suggest losses even larger in countries with weaker infrastructure or longer school closures.
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