Individual and classroom level factors shaping the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on learning in mathematics

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As a measure to contain the COVID 19 pandemic, regular face-to-face teaching in schools was suspended for longer periods in the 19/20 and 20/21 school years. The distance learning introduced unfamiliar challenges for schools, students and parents. Moreover, during this period, students’ learning was impaired due to higher demands on self-directed learning. Nevertheless, researchers have asserted that high teaching quality may help for compensating negative consequences of the pandemic. Taken together, this draws attention to potentially still-increasing detrimental effects of educational inequality during the pandemic and to the question of how to counter these developments. The aim of the proposed project is to investigate the mid-term effects of the pandemic-related teaching restrictions in the 20/21 school year on learning success in the 21/22 school year. The proposed study is a supplement to the DFG-project “Contruction of Instructionally Sensitive Test Items”. The COINS-project aims at two main objectives, the investigation of item properties that enhance instructional sensitivity and a closer examination of instructional variables that link classroom instruction and student achievement in standardized tests. The proposed study makes use of data collected in COINS to assess learning progress in mathematics in eighth grade in Hessian grammar schools (Gymnasien). Additionally, pandemic-related factors on classroom and individual level will be assessed retrospectively. Pandemic-related factors on classroom and individual level will be used to investigate different pathways of the effects of teaching restrictions on learning progress. Among others, we analyze interactions between classroom and family resources, the mediation of socioeconomic status by individual pandemic-related factors, and compensating effects of teaching quality. Overall, the proposed project will provide beneficial insights on the pandemic’s effects on post-pandemic learning.