Parents and teachers’ compensatory strategies during COVID-19 school closures: A scoping review

Abstract

After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, most countries decided to close schools in 2020 to slow down the spread of the virus. The abrupt closure of schools required teachers and families to adapt quickly to an online setting for school activities. The literature review presented here focuses on this adaptive process, summarising research on how parents and teachers tried to curtail the potentially detrimental effects of school closure and remote schooling on students’ learning, identifying the compensatory strategies adopted and analysing their impact on students’ learning experience and performance. The review highlights that the shift from in-person to remote learning led to significant learning losses, as well as to the emergence of new inequalities and the exacerbation of old ones. Teachers and parents played a pivotal role in minimising learning loss due to emergency remote teaching (ERT). Concerning parents, the three main types of strategies were related to: (1) parental socioeconomic and/or demographic factors; (2) parental involvement and support in learning activities; and (3) the family environment. Concerning teachers, two strategies emerged: (1) the implementation of activities favouring interaction between teachers and students and/or among students; and (2) ad-hoc teaching activities. In almost all cases, the compensatory strategies identified were positively associated with students’ learning experience, with a few exceptions.