Effect of COVID-19 Closures and Distance-Learning on Biology Research Projects of High School Students in Israel

Reuven Yosef,Irit Sadeh,Sigal Talker

doi:10.3390/educsci11110716

Reuven Yosef, Irit Sadeh + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11110716

Copy DOI

Journal: Education sciences	Publication Date: Nov 8, 2021
Citations: 4	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a situation, the “anthropopause”, of lockdowns and distancing among individuals to reduce the spread of the disease. One of the major problems to surface is the inequality of the educational process in schools. We present a study of high school students who conduct a year-long research project with an academic. We hypothesized that the projects would not be impacted because of the individual manner of study involved. We analyzed the number of research proposals submitted in the years 2015–2021. We compared the data of the pre-epidemic period with the two pandemic years, 2020 and 2021. Our data show that in the years of the pandemic, significantly less research proposals were submitted, and the number of research proposals rejected was lower, but the total number of research proposals approved, or the number of theses submitted, was not significantly different. The research areas in which Israeli high school students conducted research were mostly in the laboratory (63.2%) and agriculture (27.5%), while ecology was relatively insignificant—whether in captivity (3.1%) or the field (5.1%). A new field that is fast becoming of interest is bioinformatics. Research in agriculture was significantly lower during the pandemic period, while there were no differences in the other subjects between the two periods. We conclude that the fewer research proposals submitted suggest that those that did not take the subject seriously enough did not begin the process. This resulted in a lower number of rejections and is substantiated by the fact that an equal number of students that submitted their final theses did not differ from the years before the pandemic. We are optimistic that the truly motivated students will continue to make the effort to be involved in biology science projects over and above their regular school curriculum and in spite of the COVID-19 restrictions and limitations.

Highlights

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19, or 2019-nCoV), coupled with the Delta variant recognized as the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) since May 2021, has in the past two years created a situation where humans have had to readjust their lifestyles and minimize exposure to conspecifics [1,2]
Our data showed that fewer high school students opted for individual study science projects in biology during the pandemic, and this is evident in the decrease in the number of research proposals submitted in the years 2020 and 2021
This resulted in fewer proposals being rejected, suggesting that only the sincere students applied and committed to the rigorous process. This is further substantiated by the fact that, despite the decrease in the number of research proposals submitted for evaluation, the number of proposals approved was not significantly different between the two periods, and further, the number of students who submitted their final thesis was not significantly affected

Summary

Introduction

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19, or 2019-nCoV), coupled with the Delta variant recognized as the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) since May 2021, has in the past two years created a situation where humans have had to readjust their lifestyles and minimize exposure to conspecifics [1,2]. Because it was found that the disease spread following close contact between individuals, one of the containment measures recommended, which was adopted by most countries, was to resort to voluntary/mandatory distancing and isolation, resulting in mass quarantines [3]. This distancing between individuals, termed the “anthropopause” [4,5], has resulted in the disruption of almost all daily practices of individuals, their family units, and the communal life as known before the onset of the pandemic. In countries where electronic hardware and technology are not readily available to the poor or because of geographic barriers, education was either truncated for extended periods or continued despite the dangers [9,11,12,13]

Methods

Results

Conclusion