How Children and Adolescents Perceive Their Coping With Home Learning in Times of COVID-19: A Mixed Method Approach.

Inga Simm,Thorsten Naab,Ursula Winklhofer,Anja Linberg,Alexandra N Langmeyer

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.733428

Abstract

With the COVID-19 pandemic, children and adolescents confronted a completely new learning situation. Instead of learning in class, they had to cope with home learning to achieve academically. This mixed-method study examines how children and adolescents in Germany perceive their coping success with home learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and how personal, school, family, and peer context factors relate to this self-perceived coping success. Quantitative data from an online survey of n=141 children (mage=10,8y) and n=266 adolescents (mage=15,2y; study 1) were used to analyze the questions with multiple regression analysis. With the qualitative data from 10 interviews with parents and their children (study 2), we examined the process of how school, family, and peer groups interact with students’ way of coping with home learning. Quantitative data show that most children and adolescents perceived their coping with home learning as successful and that school joy before COVID-19, parental support, and available equipment during home learning are still relevant for children, and family climate, calm place to learn, and equipment during home learning are important for adolescents learning at home. Qualitative data show that students apply individual ways of coping with home learning, where family and peers have a vital role, especially when contact with teachers is limited. Quantitative data confirm the importance of family context for students’ self-perceived coping success.

Highlights

Depending on student characteristics and the context of their support, learning already holds challenges for many students in school (Wang et al, 1993; Doll and Prenzel, 2004; Helmke, 2007)
In Germany, face-toface instruction has been replaced by various formats of home learning, in which parents primarily support their children in coping with school obligations
This paper argues that the home learning situation can be described as analogous to parental monitoring of their children’s homework

Summary

Introduction

Depending on student characteristics and the context of their support, learning already holds challenges for many students in school (Wang et al, 1993; Doll and Prenzel, 2004; Helmke, 2007). Due to school closures in spring 2020 related to COVID-19 restrictions in Germany, schools no longer offered a learning environment characterized by students’ interactive and analog learning with peers (Schiepe-Tiska et al, 2016a; Eickelmann et al, 2019) under the guidance and support of the teacher (Hattie, 2010). Student’s Coping With Home Learning learning became the main form of scholastic learning. In Germany, this meant teachers provided exercises, and parents were required to offer learning support, while physical contact with classmates was restricted (Wildemann and Hosenfeld, 2020; Wößmann et al, 2020). Digital devices gain importance to participate in scholastic learning

Methods

Results

Conclusion