Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on young peoples' learning, motivation, wellbeing, and aspirations using a representative probability panel
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Learning and Leadership
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented challenge for pupils, parents, schools, and policy makers, with many children returning to school in September for the first time after six months at home. Our new project will collect and analyse high quality data on young people (ages 12-19) in England using an existing representative sample to assess the impact of the cancellation of exams, home learning experiences, and returning to school during the COVID-19 pandemic on pupils' learning, motivation, wellbeing, and aspirations. This will be a follow-up of an established stratified random sample, the Science Education Tracker (SET). Data collection will be delivered online by Kantar, who carried out the original fieldwork, with explicit permission from 5,991 respondents for re-contact.
These data, which we will link to the National Pupil Database, will provide a unique opportunity to answer the following pressing research questions separately by SES, gender, and ethnic group:
1) Has the cancellation of examinations had differential impacts on wellbeing and motivations? 2) Has this changed pupils' aspirations for further study and future careers? 3) Has home-schooling affected pupils' transitions into further and higher education? 4) What role do young people's experiences of home learning under lockdown and returning to education play in this?
Led by Professor Lindsey Macmillan, with Professor Patrick Sturgis, Dr Gill Wyness, and Dr Jake Anders, the team combines world-leading expertise in design and analysis of large-scale survey data with disciplinary expertise in educational inequalities. We will partner with the Department for Education and Wellcome to ensure the co-production of policy-relevant evidence. This will fill an important gap in our understanding of the experiences of young people and the impact on their motivations, wellbeing and aspirations during this unprecedented period.
These data, which we will link to the National Pupil Database, will provide a unique opportunity to answer the following pressing research questions separately by SES, gender, and ethnic group:
1) Has the cancellation of examinations had differential impacts on wellbeing and motivations? 2) Has this changed pupils' aspirations for further study and future careers? 3) Has home-schooling affected pupils' transitions into further and higher education? 4) What role do young people's experiences of home learning under lockdown and returning to education play in this?
Led by Professor Lindsey Macmillan, with Professor Patrick Sturgis, Dr Gill Wyness, and Dr Jake Anders, the team combines world-leading expertise in design and analysis of large-scale survey data with disciplinary expertise in educational inequalities. We will partner with the Department for Education and Wellcome to ensure the co-production of policy-relevant evidence. This will fill an important gap in our understanding of the experiences of young people and the impact on their motivations, wellbeing and aspirations during this unprecedented period.
Publications
Anders J
(2022)
Inequalities in late adolescents' educational experiences and wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic
in Oxford Review of Education
| Description | • We find wide inequalities in the experiences of young people during the Covid-19 pandemic across socio-economic status (SES), gender, and ethnicity. • Differences by SES were particularly notable, with young people from poorer families facing disadvantages on multiple fronts throughout the pandemic in comparison to those from more advantaged families. • Disadvantaged young people were more likely to be adversely affected in their lockdown experiences, their returning to school, their mental health and wellbeing, future plans, and their experiences of exam cancellations. • They studied for fewer days per week and hours per day during school closures, had less support at home, and felt more held back by school closures. They were less likely to have private tuition, although they received more in-school tuition in the form of extra classes, one-to-one sessions, or small group tuition. • They reported lower wellbeing and higher levels of anxiety about the future. • They also reported being more likely to take any job after university that came along. • Finally, they were negatively impacted by the government's decision to replace algorithmically-generated calculated grades with Centre Assessed Grades (CAGs), all of which was put in place due to the cancellation of exams in 2020: those without graduate parents were significantly less likely to see their grades improve when the algorithm was abandoned in favour of Centre Assessed Grades (CAGs). • The key difference between male and female experiences related to mental health and wellbeing, with young females reporting lower wellbeing and stronger feelings of loneliness, a lack of motivation, and anxiety about the future. • We find little evidence of discrepancies in time spent studying at home during the school closures by ethnicity. • While young people from Asian backgrounds received less help from their parents relative to White young people, they were more likely to receive help from a paid tutor during the first lockdown. This difference was also apparent on returning to school from September - while ethnic minority groups received similar levels of in-school additional support, young people from Black and Asian families were more likely to receive help from a paid tutor outside of school. • Black and Asian young people were also more likely to report being more likely to go to university as a result of the pandemic, relative to White young people. |
| Exploitation Route | The funding produced an open-access data source for people interested in examining the experiences of young people during the pandemic. It also provided timely evidence to policy makers who were thinking about how to school closures. More broadly, the project provided more evidence on inequalities in experiences of young people from different backgrounds, feeding into our understanding of how inequalities in outcomes widen throughout life. |
| Sectors | Education |
| Description | Our findings fed into very early thinking (March 2021) in the Department for Education around responses to school closures as a result of the pandemic. Our evidence was one of the first using representative large-scale data to answer important questions about the early impact of the pandemic on aspirations, wellbeing, and motivations. We presented answers to direct questions from the Department in areas where they were looking for evidence. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
| Sector | Education |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | Provided rapid advice to Department for Education |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
| Description | Covid Social Mobility and Opportunities study (COSMO): Wave 2 |
| Amount | £1,902,132 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ES/X00015X/1 |
| Organisation | Economic and Social Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2022 |
| End | 07/2023 |
| Description | The Covid Cohort Study |
| Amount | £2,717,648 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ES/W001756/1 |
| Organisation | Economic and Social Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2021 |
| End | 07/2022 |
| Title | UCL CEPEO - LSE COVID-19 Survey of Young People, 2020 |
| Description | The majority of young people faced an unprecedented six-month absence from school, college, and university from March to September 2020 The UCL CEPEO - LSE COVID-19 Survey of Young People, 2020 presents high-quality and timely evidence on the differential impact of the pandemic on the learning experiences, wellbeing, motivations, and future aspirations of young people. The data is from a recontact survey of those who participated in the Wellcome Trust Wellcome Science Education Tracker, 2019 (SET 2019, held under SN 8747), in collaboration with Kantar Public. Further information can be found on the UCL COVID-19 impact on young peoples' learning, motivation, wellbeing, and aspirations webpage The 2019 SET survey was a random sample of 6,409 young people in school years 7 to 13 (aged 11-18) attending state-funded education in England drawn from a combination of the National Pupil Database (NPD) and the Individualised Learner Record (ILR). All young people who participated in SET 2019 and who consented to recontact (93%) were sent a letter inviting them to take part in the recontact survey, with a £10 monetary incentive in the form of a voucher offered, conditional on completion of the questionnaire. In total, 4,255 respondents completed the UCL CEPEO survey between 30 November 2020 and 17 January 2021, representing a response rate of 71% based on all those invited to take part and 66% of all SET 2019 respondents. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Analysis of the data was reported to the Department for Education in April 2021, allowing very early insight of the likely impact of the pandemic on young people's wellbeing, aspirations, and motivation. |
| URL | https://beta.ukdataservice.ac.uk/datacatalogue/studies/study?id=8817 |
| Title | UCL CEPEO - LSE COVID-19 Survey of Young People, 2020 |
| Description | The majority of young people faced an unprecedented six-month absence from school, college, and university from March to September 2020 The UCL CEPEO - LSE COVID-19 Survey of Young People, 2020 presents high-quality and timely evidence on the differential impact of the pandemic on the learning experiences, wellbeing, motivations, and future aspirations of young people. The data is from a recontact survey of those who participated in the Wellcome Trust Wellcome Science Education Tracker, 2019 (SET 2019, held under SN 8747), in collaboration with Kantar Public.Further information can be found on the UCL COVID-19 impact on young peoples' learning, motivation, wellbeing, and aspirations webpage The 2019 SET survey was a random sample of 6,409 young people in school years 7 to 13 (aged 11-18) attending state-funded education in England drawn from a combination of the National Pupil Database (NPD) and the Individualised Learner Record (ILR). All young people who participated in SET 2019 and who consented to recontact (93%) were sent a letter inviting them to take part in the recontact survey, with a £10 monetary incentive in the form of a voucher offered, conditional on completion of the questionnaire. In total, 4,255 respondents completed the UCL CEPEO survey between 30 November 2020 and 17 January 2021, representing a response rate of 71% based on all those invited to take part and 66% of all SET 2019 respondents. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Wave 1 of data collection achieved a representative sample of over 13,000 young people in Year 11 in the academic year 2020-21 across England, with fieldwork beginning in autumn 2021, when the cohort started Year 12 or equivalent, surveying these young people, along with their parents. Briefings have been produced focussing on Lockdown Learning, Education recovery and catch-up, Future plans and aspirations, Mental health and well-being, and Health impacts and behaviours, with further such briefings planned using Wave 1 data (which will also be built on in briefings following the availability of Wave 2 data). The data from Wave 1 are available for researchers to download from the UK Data Service website. Consent was collected to link the data to the Department for Education's National Pupil Database, among other administrative datasets that can enhance the value of the study data. |
| URL | https://beta.ukdataservice.ac.uk/datacatalogue/doi/?id=8817#1 |
| Description | Blog post: Vaccine hesitance |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We wrote a blog post highlighting inequalities in vaccine hesitancy among young people by ethnicity. The intent was to inform the general public and policy makers about possible differences in vaccine take up rates by ethnicity among young people. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/cepeo/2021/03/17/vaccine-hesitancy-in-children-and-young-adults-in-england/ |
| Description | Guardian article on teacher assessment biases |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | We wrote a blog post which was the basis of an article in The Guardian newspaper in June 2021, discussing the potential inequalities arising from teacher assessed grades. This is based on our analysis which showed that young people with graduate parents were more likely to get their grades uplifted in 2020 as a result of the scrapping of the algorithm, relative to young people with non-graduate parents, even conditional on prior achievement. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/08/teachers-face-almost-impossible-task-awarding-a-le... |
| Description | Guardian article on vaccine hesitancy inequalities by ethnicity |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Our analysis of inequalities in vaccine hesitancy by ethnicity, presented in a blog post, formed the basis of an article in The Guardian, warning about potential differences in take-up among young people from different ethnic groups. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/16/survey-says-64-of-young-black-people-in-england-are-... |
| Description | Presentation of early findings to Department for Education to inform Covid response strategy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | We presented our initial findings to DfE in March 2021, shortly after the survey data had been collected and collated. Our analysis plan was co-created with DfE based on their list of questions and interests. Specially they asked for: - Anything around testing and behaviour? Obviously with in schools testing going on and young people getting neg results. How are young people following rules? Strictly? Helps provide context on how they may respond to being told that they are neg but still mix/risky contact behaviour? - Anything about going back to school/attendance/engagement with education i.e. hate school glad to be out - anything we can use to support thinking about supporting transition for some back to school (esp. those who may find it hard as reported thriving in the at home/remote setting). - Anything about reporting direct or indirect impact on mental or physical health? What are they reporting to be the issues that maybe are not necessarily educational or broader than school. Softer fears or concerns that getting back into school or learning loss won't nec. Solve. - Anything about disadvantaged/vulnerable young people that we need to know? - Anything about catch up - fears on what they have fallen behind on? What they have missed? - Transitions - to next stage of education? Anything we can learn from last year exams and this year which may help us support future years to alleviate concerns? Also, have thoughts on next steps in life (education or job) been impacted and how? We built a slide deck to directly answer any questions from this list that we could with our data. There were over 100 DfE colleagues involved in the discussion (either attending the presentation or slides circulated to) who benefited directly from our evidence. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Presentation to DfE Permanent Secretary |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | This work informed my presentation to the Permanent Secretary at DfE about Covid recovery |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Presentation to Scottish Government |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | We hosted a workshop on inequalities in education, inviting policy makers from Department for Education and Scottish Government. The findings from this research project were presented as part of the introduction to the problems that we were discussing throughout the day. We also had a session introducing the COSMO data set. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | blog post: The 'graduate parent' advantage in teacher assessed grades |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | We wrote a blog post highlighting our finding that young people with graduate parents were more likely to report an improvement in their CAGs relative to their original calculated grades in 2020, relative to young people with non-graduate parents. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/cepeo/2021/06/08/thegraduate-parentadvantageinteacherassessedgrades/ |