Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Face-to-face classes were temporarily suspended and shifted to modular print learning modality due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study aimed to determine if there significant difference and relationship between parents’ involvement in modular distance learning and the academic performance of the Grade 6 learners in a public elementary school.

The COVID-19 measures have unfavourably affected the movement behaviours of youth. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of online-schooling during COVID-19 on device-measured sleep (SL), sedentary behaviour (SB), light physical activity (LPA), and moderate–vigorous physical activity (MVPA) among high school students. A total of 51 students (26 female) from Slovenia wore an activity monitor activPAL4 during the weekdays of onsite-schooling and during the weekdays of online-schooling. Data on movement behaviours were analysed using compositional data analysis. During the onsite-schooling (and online-schooling), students spent on average 432 min/day (469 min/day) in SL, 731 (755) in SB, 253 (202) in LPA, and 25 (15) in MVPA.

This study investigates the effectiveness of techno-pedagogical skills of secondary school teachers in their online teaching. A sample consists of 42 CBSE and ICSE secondary school teachers. The research adopts a descriptive survey design for collecting data using the “Techno-Pedagogical Skill Assessment Scale” developed by Sibichen (2011). Structured interviews also formed a part of data collection. The results reveal a moderately positive correlation between techno-pedagogical skills and effective online teaching. There is a significant difference between the high level and low level of techno-pedagogical skills of secondary school teachers with their effective online teaching. The positive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the techno-pedagogical skill of secondary school teachers is reported in the study.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, schools in many countries were forced to stop face-to-face teaching and switch to emergency remote teaching (ERT). The aim of this study, based on semi-structured interviews with upper secondary-school pupils in Stockholm, was to explore how Swedish pupils perceive their ERT and to understand their preconditions for learning. We found variations among pupils with regard to how they perceived their new morning routine, the increased flexibility in structuring their day, the flexibility to choose their workplace at home, and the decreased control by their teachers. While some perceived the increased flexibility as challenging, others appraised it as a possibility to be more independent. With regard to their classmates, all participants perceived difficulties learning from each other in ERT. Identified difficulties involved comparing one's performance to that of classmates, having deep discussions, encouraging each other, and organizing themselves in a group.

Teacher professional development programs, including mid- and long-term Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math (STEAM) courses, have recently moved from in person learning at university premises to an online environment. Whether it is a temporary change in learning methods caused by the COVID-19 restrictions or whether it will become a new normal is currently under discussion in many teacher training institutions around the world. The aim of this study was to design and implement time- and money-saving synchronous online teacher training format for conducting co-design courses for early childhood teachers in the theme of STEAM integrated learning activities. Based on Tallinn University’s curriculum of in-person training courses on the same topic, with the volume of 40 contact hours, we delivered the content in two different formats: in 11-months (as it used to be in pre-COVID period) and in 4-months, adapted to participants’ needs.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools and preschools worldwide have been suspended, causing many challenges for students, parents, and teachers. Through home-schooling, preschool children struggle to accept new (online) learning modes. Teachers need to acquire digital skills quickly to deliver online teaching, while parents need to take on the role of a tutor at home to facilitate their children’s learning. This study aims to gauge the global trends in the research on early childhood education (ECE) during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly considering the need for a swift response to the impact of the pandemic. It employed the bibliometric approach to studying ECE studies during the pandemic by identifying the countries of most-cited publications, most-cited categories of studies, and research methodologies used in the eligible studies (N = 507).

The COVID-19 pandemic illuminated the vulnerabilities of our education systems, worsening existing inequalities and digital divides even as it highlighted the essential value of accessible, inclusive and quality education. Learning communities, expected to make rapid, sweeping changes, were caught unprepared, causing learning losses that will reverberate for years to come. This was particularly true for many countries in Africa, where further infrastructural development, training, domestic resources and funding were – and are – needed to mitigate the effects of pandemic-related education disruptions that exacerbated the pre-COVID-19 learning crisis. Unprecedented change has followed, involving new collaborations and innovations that engaged the regional community at every level, from policy-makers to school leaders, teachers and learners, through original examples of ingenuity and transformation.

In March 2020, after the coronavirus cases in Bangladesh were confirmed, both Humanitarian Play Labs (HPL) and mainstream Play Labs temporarily stopped their face-to-face operations according to the government mandate. The pandemic endangered people’s physical health and highly impacted their socio-economic and mental health conditions. Hence, BRAC explored alternative approaches and designed a telecommunication model, Pashe Achhi, to support all the direct beneficiaries during the pandemic. The objective of the intervention was to be connected with the beneficiaries and promote children’s wellbeing and development through play-based learning, positive parenting, and self-care practices of caregivers. Since caregivers are the core agent for children’s learning and development during the pandemic, the model provides psychosocial support and learning support to them. To facilitate the calls, the model trained facilitators on ECD, learning through play, playfulness, and mental health. Pashe Achhi is a telecommunication model consisting of tele-counseling and tele-learning components. After receiving the training, the Play Leaders started to call the families every week to conduct a 20 minutes phone session (10 minutes with the mother and 10 minutes with the child) based on the scripts delivered. In the first 10 minutes, Play Leaders give mothers and caregivers basic psychosocial support, tips on engaging with children and discuss health and hygiene issues.

The Covid-19 pandemic provokes a pedagogic crisis: education is ill-adapted to accommodate multiple uncertainties in students' lives. This study examines how pandemic uncertainty is registered in a global collection of writing and drawing from 4 to 17-years-old, during the 2020 lockdowns. The study engages with Biesta's (2021) philosophical work on 'world-centred education', offering empirical examples from the collection that goes beyond the immediacy of everyday lives. It identifies educational implications: acknowledging students' present experiences of the world; a slowing of pedagogical tempo; supporting students to navigate desires and fears; a language for expressing uncertainty; and engaging students in ethical and existential difficulty.

Online learning causes children's stress symptoms, specifically for the preschoolers during COVID-19. This makes parents seek a method in overcoming the difficulties that are faced by students while studying. Therefore, this study aims to examine the parents' strategy in dealing with children's stress symptoms during online learning. A total of 27 respondents were selected using a purposive sampling technique with the criteria of parents and children that are involved in e-learning during COVID-19 in the Batulayar group B kindergarten, Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Furthermore data were collected using a survey method.

Usage of YouTube for educational purposes became particularly relevant for teenagers as a support for their home-schooling. This study aimed to find out what strategies teenagers use to find relevant educational content on the service and how important this content was for their everyday learning practices before and during the COVID pandemic. It analyzed online behavior of 34, 14 to 15-year old teenagers (47% male) who took part in a long-term adventure trip with digital media left aside. It gathered quantitative data seven months before the trip (March 2019), just before the trip (October 2019), on the last day of the trip (April 2020), and five months after the trip (September 2020). It also conducted in-depth interviews with nine teenagers, who named YouTube as their favourite online service. Our intention is now to conduct nine additional interviews with the same teenagers to see whether their everyday learning practices changed within the last year. Implications drawn from this study, further research perspectives, and limitations will be presented and discussed.

Covid-19 pandemic is a situation that has impacted people’s life and all sectors especially Education. This pandemic situation forced the restrictions to do online learning in the teaching activities, including English learning. It raises pro contra between the implementation of online learning. The study aimed at analyzing the students’ and parents’ perception on English learning via online during pandemic situation. The study employed quantitative approach with survey design. The instrument was questionnaire. The sample involves 102 eighth graders and 101 parents.

The DESECE Children’s Festival was launched in 2010 at the Department of Educational Sciences and Early Childhood Education (DESECE) of the University of Patras. It is organised annually by the DESECE students in collaboration with their professors and comprises a variety of educational and creative workshops for children of a preschool age. To date, it has hosted over 10,000 children, and 300 institutions and schools, and has expanded its activities into other areas as well, such as teacher training. In 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and in order to support the children, parents and teachers, the Children’s Festival sought alternative ways of carrying out the event, creating online activities and a thirty-hour virtual festival over five days. This unprecedented experience offered great satisfaction to the Festival’s Organising Committee, which managed the crisis, and to the volunteer students, who improved their digital skills and gained experience in e‑learning. At the same time, it offered the possibility to people, both in Greece and abroad, to participate in the event, which until then had been limited to local society.

This research examines the implementation of technology-based learning, such as the use of android, personal computers, and IPads. The action of this research is the use of digital technology for early childhood on the role of parents during the COVID-19 pandemic. This method was chosen because the researcher wanted to identify the parents' responses through a questionnaire on the use of technology as well as some of the roles of parents towards their children during taking advantage of this technology. That way, the survey method is considered very suitable to be used and in line with the function of survey research, namely to collect and explain opinions or opinions from a group of people (samples) on a particular topic. The number of samples in this study was 385 respondents (parents). The simple random technique is the sampling technique of choice used by researchers in sampling. Location research is Bahawalpur City. This research data was obtained online through the google forms platform. The instrument used is a questionnaire regarding the use of technology through the role of parents. The statements in this research questionnaire are 10 statements. There are five Likert scales used, namely very often (5), often (4), sometimes (3), never (2), and never (1).

The growing digital divide issues due to the COVID-19 pandemic are critical to widening disparities and inequalities. Yet, only a few studies have explored the impacts of the digital divide on the education sector. In particular, there is a research gap related to younger students of primary and secondary schools. This study addresses this research gap by providing an overview of the digital divide’s impacts on social exclusion and education equality issues. In doing so, the study argues the effects of COVID-19 on the growing digital divide. Such influence is then studied based on the increasing education inequalities due to the digital divide and the eventual social exclusion increase among primary and secondary school children. The study explores the nexus between social exclusion and the digital divide before reflecting on EI as a type of social exclusion.