Abstract
On March 16, 2020, French schools suddenly closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and middle school students were asked to study from home with no direct interactions with teachers or classmates. However, school plays an important role in the development of social, intellectual, and mental competencies and can counteract the negative effects of adverse life events on learning and early school dropout. In this study, we investigated how the unusual context of school closure during the COVID-19 pandemic affected school engagement. Specifically, we focused on inter-individual differences in the motivational determinants of school engagement. We thus performed an online survey of 170 students focusing on the time spent on mathematics assignments, motivation regulation, implicit theories of intelligence, such as adopting a growth or a fixed mindset about his/her intellectual abilities, and optimism. Importantly, the students participated in the online survey during the first lockdown period, with schools closed (T1), and the second lockdown period, with schools remaining open (T2). During T1, identified motivation positively predicted the time spent on math homework assignments: the more the students thought that working on math exercises was useful for their future life, the more time they spent studying. Importantly, the link between identified motivation and school engagement was specific to T1, when schools were closed, as indicated by a significant interaction between identified motivations by type of lockdown. These results suggest that having self-determined motivation is of particular importance when students are deprived of social and intellectual interactions with classmates and teachers. This finding paves the way toward the development of wise rational interventions that target identified motivation and can be applied during challenging societal times and adverse, common life events to keep students engaged with school.
Highlights
On January 30, 2020, the WHO declared the spread of the acute respiratory syndrome-causing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) across the world to be a public health emergency and warned of a global pandemic (World Health Organization, 2020)
We explored how (1) motivation regulation, (2) intelligence mindset, and (3) optimism impacted the personal time students engaged in mathematical exercises with the aim to assess how inter-individual differences may have contributed to school engagement during the pandemic-related lockdown
We focused on time spent on mathematics homework assignments because helping middle school students to achieve a good level in mathematics is a daily and complex mission, especially when schools are closed
Summary
On January 30, 2020, the WHO declared the spread of the acute respiratory syndrome-causing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) across the world to be a public health emergency and warned of a global pandemic (World Health Organization, 2020). Studies from education and social psychology have shown that experiencing long periods of school closure has negative effects on learning, motivation, and psychosocial well-being of the students (Sprang and Silman, 2013; Benke et al, 2020a,b; Dorn et al, 2020; Guessoum et al, 2020; Magklara et al, 2020; UNESCO, 2020; Bernabe-Valero et al, 2021; Garcia-Esquinas et al, 2021; Rajmil et al, 2021) Their direct interaction with friends and teachers at school has been shown to counteract the negative effects of stressful life events on the well-being and mental health of the students (Shahar et al, 2009). It is critical to identify the individual factors that contribute to school engagement when schools are closed during adverse life events This is important because it would make it possible to detect those students who are at risk of the negative consequences of pandemic-related lockdowns on health or school dropout and to design interventions that could help in keeping such students engaged. It is still unknown how inter-individual differences may contribute to school engagement during the pandemic-related lockdown, we tested three main individual characteristics that are associated with school engagement, namely, motivation regulation, intelligence mindset, and optimism
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