| Author(s) | Ludger Woessmann, Vera Freundl, Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer, Katharina Werner, and Larissa Zierow |
| Institution(s) | ifo Institute – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich |
| Contact | Poschingerstr. 5
81679 Munich
Tel.: +49(0)89/9224-0
In case of questions about the study: freundl@ifo.de
|
| Maybe further partner(s) | |
| Theoretical framework/approach | |
| Research questions | Various questions about the period of Corona-related school closures (e.g. how many hours school children spent studying and doing other creative and passive activities before and during the closures, how parents assessed the home learning environment and situation during the school closures, and what specific measures schools took to keep schools running).
The exact wording of the questions can be found under the respective figures.
|
| Themes / topics | School closures, Corona crisis, home schooling, distance teaching, educational inequality
|
| Main findings of study / highlights |
- part (parent subsample)
- The time schoolchildren spent on school activities was halved during the coronavirus lockdown, dropping from 7.4 to 3.6 hours a day.
- Just 38% of the students studied for a maximum of two hours a day, 74% for a maximum of four hours.
- At the same time, the amount of time devoted to activities such as television, computer games, and cell phones increased from 4.0 to 5.2 hours a day.
- For children with an academic family background, the decline in school activities was similar to that of children with a non-academic family background, and the increase in passive activities was somewhat smaller. Particularly lower-performing students replaced learning with passive activities.
- More than half of the students (57%) had online classes less often than once a week, only 6% had them daily. Even less frequently did students have individual contact with their teachers. Children with a non-academic family background and lower-performing students were particularly affected.
- Almost all students (96%) received weekly work sheets, and nearly two-thirds (64%) received feedback at least once a week.
- part (whole sample)
- A large majority is in favor of compulsory online instruction when schools are closed (79%), as well as daily contact between teachers and students (78%), and more support for children with difficult social backgrounds (83%).
- Various protection measures at school against the Corona virus are also supported by a majority.
|
| Methods | quantitative |
| Analytic Appraoch | descriptive |
| Desig of data collection | The sampling was done using an online questionnaire via so-called online access panels.
|
| Time(s) of data collection | June 3 - July 1, 2020 |
| Kind of sampling, kind and number of sample | From the total sample of 10 338 respondents, representative for the adult population in Germany, we asked all parents of school-aged children to answer a series of questions on their youngest school-aged child before and during the COVID-19-related school closures. As such, the subsample is a convenience sample of parents with students in all types of primary and secondary schools. However, due to the representativeness of the overall sample, it should provide a very good fit for students in Germany. The subsample comprises 1 099 parents of school-aged children.
|
| Geographical area | Germany |
| Publication(s) |
- Ludger Woessmann, Vera Freundl, Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer, Katharina Werner, and Larissa Zierow, „Bildung in der Coronakrise: Wie haben die Schulkinder die Zeit der Schulschließungen verbracht, und welche Bildungsmaßnahmen befürworten die Deutschen?“, ifo Schnelldienst 73 (9): 25-39, September 2020.
- Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer, Katharina Werner, Ludger Woessmann, and Larissa Zierow, „COVID-19 and Educational Inequality: How School Closures Affect Low- and High-Achieving Students“, CESifo Working Paper 8648, October 2020.
- Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer, Katharina Werner, Ludger Woessmann, and Larissa Zierow, „COVID-19 school closures hit low-achieving students particularly hard“, VoxEU, November 2020.
- Elisabeth Grewenig, Philipp Lergetporer, Katharina Werner, Ludger Woessmann, and Larissa Zierow, „Corona-Schulschließungen treffen leistungsschwächere Schüler*innen besonders hart“, Ökonomenstimme, December 2020.
|
| Project website | https://www.ifo.de/en/publikationen/2020/article-journal/education-coronavirus-crisis-how-did-schoolchildren-spend-their
|
| Further information | |
| Comment | |
| Repository | Factsheet |