Corona Gaps: Vulnerable students’ mathematics competencies before and after the pandemic and practices of resilience-supporting teachers

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In the German school system, social gaps in mathematics achievement are larger than the OECD average. Many experts have hypothesized that these gaps have further increased during the partial school closures during the pandemic, but so far there has been limited empirical backing. Furthermore, little is known about those vulnerable students who have shown resilience and the teaching practices that support that resilience during the pandemic. In the Corona Gaps project, the hypothesis of increased social gaps will be tested and substantiated by comparing the impact of background factors on mathematics achievement before and after the pandemic (RQ1), identifying background factors and whether home-schooling conditions increase or reduce pandemic-related vulnerability (RQ2), identifying best-practice classes with many resilient students (RQ3), and determining resilience-supporting practices used by teachers in these best-practice classes (RQ4). The project re-analyzes test data that have been or will be gathered from two samples of fifth graders (n = 2 x 500) and two samples of seventh graders (n = 2 x 1 200) before and after the pandemic, many of them vulnerable students in schools in urban areas. For RQ1 and RQ2, the two double samples are compared in coordinated multilevel regression models, with respect to the predictive power of the background factors of socioeconomic status, immigrant status, gender, language proficiency, and the home-schooling conditions for the mathematics achievement. For RQ3, a longitudinal design in one sample will reveal additional insights into the learning gains or losses during the pandemic and the learning opportunities that fostered or hindered them. Covariance analysis with repeated measures will be used to identify the best-practice classes among 95 teachers, so that for RQ4, best-practice teachers can be asked for their resilience-supporting teaching practices in questionnaires and interviews. As the main data gathering was or will be administered within other projects, only additional questionnaire items on students’ home-schooling conditions and teachers’ self-reported practices will be necessary for this supplemental project, which will be followed by an intensive secondary comparative analysis.Expected outcomes of the supplemental project are empirical insights into the increased social gaps hypothesis, providing a unique substantiation that comprises not only fine-grained topic-specific knowledge about students’ pandemic-related vulnerability in different mathematical competencies and potential vulnerability factors, but also insights into highly relevant aspects of resilience: Background factors and home-schooling conditions contributing to resilience will be identified along with teaching practices that can support students’ resilience. Rather than only describing pandemic-related challenges, this focus on resilience can also inform instructional approaches for overcoming challenges in the future.