Adaptability and High School Students' Online Learning During COVID-19: A Job Demands-Resources Perspective.

Andrew J Martin,Robin P Nagy,Rebecca J Collie

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.702163

Abstract

The present study investigated the role of adaptability in helping high school students navigate their online learning during a period of COVID-19 that entailed fully or partially remote online learning. Drawing on Job Demands-Resources theory and data from a sample of 1,548 Australian high school students in nine schools, we examined the role of adaptability in predicting students’ online learning self-efficacy in mathematics and their end of year mathematics achievement. It was found that beyond the effects of online learning demands, online and parental learning support, and background attributes, adaptability was significantly associated with higher levels of online learning self-efficacy and with gains in later achievement; online learning self-efficacy was also significantly associated with gains in achievement—and significantly mediated the relationship between adaptability and achievement. These findings confirm the role of adaptability as an important personal resource that can help students in their online learning, including through periods of remote instruction, such as during COVID-19.

Highlights

The COVID-19 pandemic led to an unexpected and rapid shift to remote learning for students around the world
Drawing on Job Demands-Resources theory (JD-R theory; Bakker and Demerouti, 2017, 2018) and focusing on learning and instruction in mathematics, we examined the role of adaptability in predicting students’ online learning self-efficacy and their end of year achievement
This confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) yielded an acceptable fit to the data, χ2 (152) = 453.25, p < 0.001, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.956, Tucker Lewis Index (TLI) = 0.933, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.036, and SRMR = 0.033

Summary

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic led to an unexpected and rapid shift to remote learning for students around the world. The extent to which students have successfully responded and adjusted to these disruptions has been key to how they have coped academically (Australian Academy of Science, 2020) This being the case, adaptability may be a personal attribute that is highly relevant through times of online remote learning and instruction, such as during COVID-19 and any other future periods of disrupted learning. Attributes In assessing the unique effects of demands and resources, it is important to account for numerous background attributes in modeling For these background attributes, participants reported age (a continuous measure), gender (0 = male and 1 = female), language background (0 = English speaking and 1 = non-English speaking), and parent education (scale from 1 = no formal education to 6 = university education).

Methods

Results

Conclusion