Impact of COVID-19 on Students’ Learning

Studies across the world have indicated that school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic have interrupted the learning of more than 1 billion students across the world. [1] A study conducted by McKinsey and Company indicates that students testing in 2021 are nine points behind in reading compared to a matched sample of students in previous years. [2] Research conducted by UNICEF cites that in India, 80 percent of children aged 14-18 years reported lower levels of learning than when physically at school. Forty-two percent of children between 6-13 years reported not using any type of remote learning during school closures. [3]

If nothing is done to compensate for this loss when schools reopen, the impact of learning loss owing to students forgetting what they had learnt previously is likely to be amplified. Children will be pushed toward more complicated learning abilities in the new grade without the needed foundational abilities. This compounding of learning loss is likely to be greater for students from low-income families who attend government (public) schools.

Live English Classes by EnglishHelper

To address the issue of learning loss and to encourage remote learning, EnglishHelper offers Live English Classes aimed mainly towards government school students. The Live English Classes are tutor-facilitated online classes that help students revise and practise what they have learnt in school. Students get to read summarized excerpts from the chapters of their English textbook, engage in vocabulary building and comprehension exercises and develop confidence and the desire to keep learning. Each Live English Class is designed to revise one chapter or unit from students’ school textbooks and lasts for 60 minutes, accommodating an average of 7 students per class.

Students are encouraged by tutors to return to the ReadToMe Student Edition app after attending a Live English Class, to practise from the additional material provided on the chapter or unit in the app, thus reinforcing their learning. The fully curriculum-integrated Live English Class is a pathway through which the student completes the Learning Loop^TM. [4]

Influence of Live English Classes on Student Engagement

In this study, we examine the influence of attendance of Live English Classes on student engagement with the ReadToMe Student Edition app. For this study, we sampled 2,032 students who attended at least one Live English Class. Of these, more than 68% (1,227 out of 1,808 i.e. more than two out of every three students) returned to the ReadToMe Student Edition app after attending a Live English Class. In addition, 41 students who did not engage with the app, began engaging after attending a Live English Class.

We observed that after having attended a Live English Class, students exhibited increased engagement with the app. The increased engagement was observed at two levels:

– The number of students spending time on the ReadToMe Student Edition app was seen to peak significantly on or after the day of attending a Live English Class (Day 0 on the Horizontal axis)

– The time spent per user was seen to peak on or after Day 0.

These observations are depicted in the graph below.

In addition, we examined the quartile bounds of the time spent by students before and after attending a Live English Class. Comparison of quartile bounds helps us identify any changes (higher, lower or unchanged) in the time spent by students in the top 75th percentile, middle 50th and bottom 25th percentile, as well as the maximum time spent by students on the app. An increase in the quartile bounds after attending a Live English Class indicates that students spend more time on the ReadToMe Student Edition app after attending a Class. Increases in all quartile bounds indicate that time spent on the app increases across the entire cross-section of students. Quartile analysis allows for a richer interpretation across the set of samples and is less affected by extreme deviations in observed time spent (unlike an arithmetic mean).

Quartile Distribution (of time spent by students in minutes)	Before attending Live English Classes	After attending Live English Classes
25th Percentile	2.3	3.0
50th Percentile	8.9	13.7
75th Percentile	28.2	51.1
Maximum time spent	1054.8	2376.2

The quartile bounds were examined for the set of 1,227 students who showed engagement before and after attending a Live English Class. We observe that students exhibited higher engagement in the time that they spend on the ReadToMe Student Edition app, across all quartiles and hence across the entire cross-section of the sample studied. It is important to note here that tutors in the Live English Class recommend that students revise their learning by studying the material available on the app. Thus, the increased app engagement among students indicates that tutors’ influence positively impacts students’ engagement with the ReadToMe Student Edition app, thereby helping to complete the Learning Loop^TM.

Conclusion

It is important to acknowledge and reverse the learning loss among students due to school closures in the COVID-19 pandemic. Live English Class offered by EnglishHelper provides an opportunity for students to learn their syllabus in a tutor-led setting. Tutors’ influence is pivotal in increasing students’ engagement on the ReadToMe Student Edition app, encouraging self-learning and completing the Learning Loop^TM.

Reference

[1] “Education: From disruption to recovery”, https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse

[2] Dorn, Emma et. al, July 2021, “COVID-19 and education: The lingering effects of unfinished learning”, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/covid-19-and-education-the-lingering-effects-of-unfinished-learning

[3] September 2021, “Repeated school closures due to COVID-19 leading to learning loss and widening inequities in South Asia”, https://www.unicef.org/india/press-releases/repeated-school-closures-due-covid-19

[4] September 2021, “Teachers Influence Students’ Engagement with ReadToMe Student Edition – an Initial Study”

Teachers Influence Students’ Engagement with ReadToMe Student Edition – an Initial Study