Learning with technology during emergencies: A systematic review of K‐12 education

Abstract

AbstractEmergency situations that cause damage to educational buildings or require the closure of schools due to unsafe health, environmental, or political conditions can be an unwelcomed interruption to education. Indeed, the recent COVID‐19 pandemic created the largest disruption of education in history, affecting 94% of the world's student population. In emergencies, technology is often utilised as part of a crisis response protocol by continuing education using emergency remote education (ERE). The purpose of this study is to determine how technology has been used to continue K‐12 learning remotely during an emergency. This systematic review included an aggregated and configurative synthesis to examine extant empirical work over eleven years, from January 2010 to December 2020. Following a rigorous, PRISMA selection process, 60 articles were included in the final analysis from 48 countries. Grounded coding of the strategies used for learning revealed the following categories: communication, delivery systems, student ERE readiness, partnerships, promoting student learning and engagement, and resources. Grounded coding of the technologies revealed that types of technologies used were divided into two major categories: Internet‐based and non‐Internet based, with the majority using Internet‐based technologies. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic The COVID‐19 pandemic has caused school closures across the globe and prevented in‐person school teaching. The rapid shift to distance education in schools can be conceptualised as ‘emergency remote education’ (ERE). Prior ERE research focused on bounded geographic locations where localised emergencies occurred. What this paper adds This provides the scholarly community with a unique systematic review of existing academic research on K‐12 ERE implementation in emergencies. This provides aggregated data and analysis on the past 11 years of the types of emergencies, participants, subject domain, technologies used, and location information. This provides findings of the types of remote teaching strategies involving technology used to continue K‐12 learning in emergency situations. This provides a set of recommendations on ERE for teachers, school leaders, policy makers, and funders. This provides researchers with a review of the field with identification of gaps and future research opportunities. Implications for practice and/or policy Recommendations regarding ERE are provided in this paper that will be of benefit to K‐12 teachers, school leaders policymakers, and funders in the continuing COVID‐19 pandemic and future emergencies. The research gaps highlighted in this paper, such as the lack of studies conducted in low and low middle‐income countries, are presented with suggestions for much needed future research. This can lead to changes in practice and policy.