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Children and COVID-19 Research Library

UNICEF Innocenti's curated library of COVID-19 + Children research

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31 - 45 of 276
Change in weight category among youth early in the COVID-19 pandemic

AUTHOR(S)
Ihuoma Eneli; Jinyu Xu; Keeley Pratt

Published: April 2022   Journal: Clinical Obesity
Remote learning and shelter-in-place orders during the COVID-19 pandemic are associated with obesity risk factors such as decreased physical activity, altered routines and sleep schedules, increased screen time, and non-nutritious food choices. The objective of this brief report is to describe change in weight category 3–6 months after the onset of the pandemic in a cohort of 4509 low-income youth. Inclusion criteria were youth aged 2–17 years with weight and height measure in a large primary care network between 1 January and 30 March 2020 (Q1), designated as pre-COVID period; and 1 June–30 September 2020, (Q3), as early-COVID period. Change in weight category was assessed between Q1 and Q3. Adjusting for visit type and time lapse, logistic regression was conducted to examine the association between weight category change and age, sex, and race/ethnicity.
Child development and distance learning in the age of COVID-19

AUTHOR(S)
Hugues Champeaux; Lucia Mangiavacchi; Francesca Marchetta (et al.)

Published: April 2022   Journal: Review of Economics of the Household
School closures, forcibly brought about by the COVID-19 crisis in many countries, have impacted children’s lives and their learning processes. The heterogeneous implementation of distance learning solutions is likely to bring a substantial increase in education inequality, with long term consequences. The present study uses data from a survey collected during Spring 2020 lockdown in France and Italy to analyze parents’ evaluations of their children’s home schooling process and emotional well-being at time of school closure, and the role played by different distance learning methods in shaping these perceptions.
Early childhood education during the COVID-19 outbreak: the perceived changing roles of preschool administrators, teachers, and parents

AUTHOR(S)
Süleyman Yildiz; Gulenay Nagihan Kilic; Ibrahim H. Acar (et al.)

Published: April 2022   Journal: Early Childhood Education Journal
Stakeholders (teachers, preschool administrators, and parents) in early childhood education have struggled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The present study explores the experiences and perceptions reflecting the perceived changes in the roles of stakeholders in early childhood education as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey. A criterion sample of two administrators, nine teachers, and seven parents in early childhood education institutions was interviewed.
The developmental appropriateness of digital games and its impact on young children’s enjoyment and playtime

AUTHOR(S)
Lucrezia Crescenzi-Lanna

Published: April 2022   Journal: International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the provision and downloading of educational apps for children have both increased. This paper reports the results of an extensive literature review of the age-rating systems of digital content (audiovisual and games) used around the world and demonstrates the weakness of those instruments that prove ineffective in choosing digital content for children. Age-rating systems are arbitrary and only focus on explicit content that is considered harmful to preschool children. The paper proposes an alternative model of app analysis based on child development. The main objective of the research is to determine the developmental appropriateness of apps for young children and its effects on children’s responses through a content analysis of 318 apps and a test of a subset of them (N=25) with a sample of 53 children aged 3–5. To this end, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis is used to extract a composite index of the apps’ developmental appropriateness, which was used to specify a path analysis. The results show that developmental appropriateness is associated with the highest positive ratings by children and, indirectly, with play time.
Lessons from online learning during Covid-19 pandemic for building education resilience in secondary schools in Kenya: a case study

AUTHOR(S)
Florence Kisirkoi; Angela Kamanga

Published: March 2022   Journal: International Journal of Educational Policy Research and Review

Online learning was the preferred avenue to sustain learning during the COVID - 19 pandemic when all learning institutions closed globally. Lessons learnt could be used to build education resilience in times of education disruptions in Kenya. A case study of two public secondary schools was conducted anchored on connectivism theory and Technological Pedagogic Content Knowledge. The participants were 15 teachers and 154 form four candidates from two secondary schools, purposively selected as the candidate classes. The objectives were to find out: the technology devices used by teachers and students to learn; whether the teachers and the students had knowledge, skills and attitudes to engage in online learning; how teachers and students acquired knowledge and skills to use the technology devices and whether there were any interventions provided to support them. A questionnaire for teachers and another for students collected quantitative and qualitative data which was analysed and established that few students managed to engage in online learning without adequate support and other technology devices were used for learning.

Reopening with Resilience: lessons from remote learning during COVID-19 – Eastern and Southern Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Rafael Pontuschka; Sophia Kan; Thomas Dreesen

Institution: *UNICEF
Published: March 2022
The widespread school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic have exacerbated the learning crisis for children living in Eastern and Southern Africa. The crisis has also shown the great need to develop resilient education systems that can provide learning when schools are forced to close. Understanding how to provide remote learning equitably utilizing multiple modalities and emphasizing low-tech solutions in Eastern and Southern Africa is critical given the great challenges facing the region in terms of electricity and connectivity access. This report provides a summary of lessons learned in the East and Southern Africa region from remote learning during COVID-19 and provides concrete recommendations on how to increase the resilience of education systems
Young children’s perceptions of emergency online English learning during the Covid-19 pandemic: evidence from Kazakhstan

AUTHOR(S)
Anas Hajar; Syed Abdul Manan

Published: March 2022   Journal: Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching
This qualitative study explores the English learning experiences of 30 Grade 5 students from three mainstream schools in Kazakhstan during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was informed by Benson et al.'s (2011) four-dimensional model of language learning beyond the classroom: (a) location (physical vs. virtual), (b) formality (formal vs. informal agents), (c) locus of control (other-directed vs. self-directed goals) and (d) pedagogy. Data were collected through online individual interviews and students' drawings. The data suggest that the participants' English teachers used mainly Zoom and WhatsApp platforms for delivering the online classes. The participants were critical of their English teachers' practices, particularly, the overuse of WhatsApp, the scarcity of co-operative activities and delays in responding to inquiries. Consequently, 16 participants (53%) were receiving face-to-face and virtual private tutoring in English (PT-E). Although face-to-face PT-E may be unsafe during the pandemic, PT-E was a parental strategy to free themselves from the burden of tracking their children's progress. The participants acted agentively, not only reflecting on the disadvantages of online education but also on its benefits, including its being more convenient and able to help them improve their self-reliance and technology skills.
Risks of digital screen time and recommendations for mitigating adverse outcomes in children and adolescents

AUTHOR(S)
Shahina Pardhan; John Parkin; Mike Trott (et al.)

Published: March 2022   Journal: Journal of School Health

The COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented move to emergency remote learning around the world, leading to increased digital screen time for children and adolescents. This review highlights the potential risk of increased screen time to the eye and general health and makes recommendations to mitigate the risks posed. A narrative review of evidence of increased digital time during the COVID-19 pandemic, the risks linked to increased screen time and offer possible steps to mitigate these in students.

Coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak and associated public health measures increase the progression of myopia among children and adolescents: evidence synthesis

AUTHOR(S)
Akarapon Watcharapalakorn; Teera Poyomtip; Patarakorn Tawonkasiwattanakun

Published: March 2022

Although studies have suggested that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak increased myopia progression, they had different settings and analysis methods. This study compared myopia progression before and during the COVID-19 outbreak using meta-analysis. Relevant literature was searched on EMBASE, PubMed, ClinEpiDB and Web of Science and reviewed until 8 October 2021. The Newcastle–Ottawa Scale was used to evaluate the quality of the original studies. The mean difference of change in spherical equivalent refraction (SER) was used for evaluation before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

E-book-based learning activity during COVID-19: engagement behaviors and perceptions of Japanese junior-high school students

AUTHOR(S)
Hiroyuki Kuromiya; Rwitajit Majumdar; Gou Miyabe (et al.)

Published: March 2022   Journal: Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning
Recent spread of the COVID-19 forces governments around the world to temporarily close educational institutions. This paper evaluated learning engagement, level of satisfaction and anxiety of e-book based remote teaching strategy on an online learning platform. The research involves 358 students at an urban junior-high school in Japan. Learning logs were analyzed to measure student engagement, whereas survey responses indicated their perception regarding the remote learning experience. Log analysis revealed that the average completion rate over 267 learning materials was 67%.
Looking back on Nigeria’s COVID-19 school closures: effects of parental investments on learning outcomes and avoidance of hysteresis in education

AUTHOR(S)
Moses Ogenyi

Institution: Research on Improving Systems of Education
Published: March 2022

This insight note explores how COVID-19 and related school closures impacted Nigerian schools, parents, and students. National data collected by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2020 through a monthly phone survey show that children had extremely limited contact with the education system during this time, and that families preferred low-cost alternatives such as in-home tutoring and increased parental involvement in education to e-learning tools. Additional data collected by the RISE Nigeria Team in a survey of 73 low-cost private schools in Abuja suggest that some schools did maintain contact with students during mandated school closures, that students experienced absolute learning losses equivalent to about 5-6 months of school missed in other contexts (Cooper et al, 1996), despite participation in alternative learning activities, and that the pandemic led to severe financial hardships for schools and teachers.

Classroom discussion practices in online remote secondary school settings during COVID-19

AUTHOR(S)
Tony Gutentag; Aviv Orner; Christa S. C. Asterhan (et al.)

Published: March 2022   Journal: Computers in Human Behavior
Academically productive talk (APT) in classrooms has long been associated with significant gains in student learning and development. Yet, due to COVID-19 related restrictions, teachers around the world were forced to adapt their teaching to online, remote settings during the pandemic. This investigation studied APT in junior high school during extended online, remote teaching spells. Specifically, it focused on the extent APT was a part of online teaching practices, what characterized teachers who tended to promote APT more in online, remote teaching, and associations between APT and teacher well-being, as well as student motivation and engagement.
Learning in a pandemic: primary school children’s emotional engagement with remote schooling during the spring 2020 Covid-19 lockdown in Ireland

AUTHOR(S)
Yekaterina Chzhen; Jennifer Symonds; Dympna Devine (et al.)

Published: February 2022   Journal: Child Indicators Research
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the greatest disruption to children’s schooling in generations. This study analyses primary school children’s emotional engagement with remote schooling during the Spring 2020 lockdown in the Republic of Ireland, which involved one of the longest school closures among rich countries at the time. It investigates whether children’s engagement with their remote schooling varied by personal and family characteristics, using data from the Children’s School Lives (CSL) surveys. CSL is a nationally representative study of primary schools in Ireland, which collected information from children aged 8–9 years in May – August 2019 and in May – July 2020. Linear regression estimates with school fixed effects are based on the analytic sample of nearly 400 children (from across 71 schools) who took part in both waves and have complete data on all the key variables.
School readiness losses during the COVID-19 outbreak: a comparison of two cohorts of young children

AUTHOR(S)
Meliza González; Tianna Loose; Maite Liz (et al.)

Published: February 2022   Journal: Child Development
The COVID-19 context has created the most severe disruption to education systems in recent history. Its impact on child development was estimated comparing two cohorts of 4- to 6-year-old Uruguayan children: control (n = 34,355, 48.87% girls) and COVID cohort (n = 30,158, 48.95% girls) assessed between 2018 and 2020 in three waves, by a routinely administered school readiness instrument in public preschools. Ethnicity information is not available. For the COVID cohort, losses were observed in Motor and Cognitive development, Attitudes towards learning, and Internalizing behavior (range 0.13 – 0.27 SD). Losses were less pronounced among children from higher socioeconomic schools. These results extend the literature on the consequences of the pandemic on learning and early child development.
Students’ perception of online learning amidst the Covid-19 pandemic: a study of junior, senior high school and college students in a remote area

AUTHOR(S)
Senida Harefa; Grace Lamudur Arta Sihombing

Published: February 2022   Journal: F1000Research
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about many changes in all sectors of life, especially in the field of education. These changes aim to make the learning process more effective in the pandemic environment. However, it can be challenging, as some students do not give positive responses to these changes, especially those in remote areas. This article aims to identify and report students' perceptions about the effectiveness of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in the remote North Tapanuli region of Indonesia.
31 - 45 of 276

UNICEF Innocenti's Children and COVID-19 Library is a database collecting research from around the world on COVID-19 and its impacts on children and adolescents.

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COVID-19 & Children: Rapid Research Response

UNICEF Innocenti is mobilizing a rapid research response in line with UNICEF’s global response to the COVID-19 crisis. The initiatives we’ve begun will provide the broad range of evidence needed to inform our work to scale up rapid assessment, develop urgent mitigating strategies in programming and advocacy, and preparation of interventions to respond to the medium and longer-term consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. The research projects cover a rapid review of evidence, education analysis, and social and economic policies.