During remote learning, students mostly faced difficulties in motivating themselves to learn or understanding school tasks, but less often – learning remotely and independently, according to the first results of the International Student Assessment Program “PISA 2022” of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published this week.
Students were asked to rate their self-directed learning abilities. Latvian students rated their skills in using learning management systems or school learning platforms as well as using video communication programs the highest – 80% and 79% of students feel confident, respectively.
Three-quarters of students did not have problems finding learning resources online, 67% of students know how to plan school work independently, and 65% of students felt confident about their ability to assess their learning progress.
Fewer students felt confident about self-motivation and willingness to study without reminders – 51% and 59%, respectively.
In general, 57% of students felt prepared for independent studies. An equally large proportion of students answered that they liked to learn independently, while only 35% of students were motivated to learn during distance learning.
A little more than half or 53% of the students admitted that they were worried because of their studies, while 48% of the students missed their studies.
Students from Austria, Italy and Spain are the most confident about their self-directed learning abilities, while students from Japan, South Korea and Poland are the least confident.
Students from families with a higher socio-economic status are more confident in their abilities. In Latvia, urban school students also have more confidence in their abilities than rural school students.
In the survey, every fifth student in Latvia admitted that they encountered difficulties accessing a digital device or the Internet during distance learning. A similar number of students had problems with lack of time or finding a quiet place to study.
During remote learning, Latvian students felt less lonely than in other OECD countries – 38% of Latvian students felt lonely, while on average in OECD countries 62% of students felt lonely.
According to the answers given by students and school principals, schools in Latvia were closed for an average of four to six months due to the pandemic. This is the fourth highest indicator among OECD countries and the highest among European countries – the average duration of school closures in OECD countries was 4.4 months. Only South Korea, Japan, Sweden and Iceland had schools closed for less than two months.
At the same time, the responses show that the duration of school closures varied greatly from country to country. On average, 16% of students in OECD countries indicated that schools were not closed due to Covid-19. About the same or 14% of students admitted that the school building was closed for a period of up to one month, 20% – from one to three months, and 50% of students said that schools were closed for more than three months due to the pandemic.
The researchers point out that depending on the development of the pandemic, the duration of the closure of individual schools and classes could have been different, and students were more likely to indicate the time when the school was closed for them, while school principals mentioned the time when the school was completely closed.
The study was carried out in 2022 in 37 OECD countries and 44 partner countries. In total, approximately 690,000 students aged 15 participated, representing approximately 29 million of their peers in 81 public schools.
From Latvia, 5,373 students from 225 schools participated in the study, which, as a result of the statistical sampling, represented approximately 16,800 students who were born in 2006 and study in various Latvian educational institutions, excluding special educational institutions, no lower than the 7th grade. 86% of the research participants were ninth graders.
2023-12-10 11:02:13
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