Remote-learning, time-use, and mental health of Ecuadorian high-school students during the COVID-19 quarantine

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has closed schools around the world, forcing school systems and students to quickly attempt remote learning. We conducted a rapid response phone survey of over 1500 high school students aged 14 to 18 in Ecuador to learn how students spend their time during the period of quarantine, examine their access to remote learning, and measure their mental health status. We find 59 percent of students have both an internet connection at home and a computer or tablet, 74 percent are engaging in some online or telelearning, and 86 percent have done some schoolwork on the last weekday. Detailed time-use data show most students have established similar daily routines around education, although gender and wealth differences emerge in time spent working and on household tasks. Closure of schools and social isolation are the two main problems students say they face, and while the majority are mostly happy, 16 percent have mental health scores that indicate depression.

Keywords: COVID-19; Remote-learning; Time-use.

Fig. 1

Histograms showing Heterogeneity in Amount of Time Spent Doing Schoolwork in Past Day by Technology Access. Histograms show the distribution of the proportion of students spending different amounts of time doing schoolwork, and exclude weekends.

Fig. 2

Time-Use by Socioeconomic Status and Time of Day. Notes: Socioeconomic Status is measured in terms of wealth quartiles, defined from the first principal component of ownership of seven assets. Time-use includes weekends.

Fig. 3

Time-Use by Gender and Time of Day. Notes: Time-use includes weekends.

Fig. 4

Time-Use by Internet Access and Time of Day. Notes: Internet denotes student has access to internet in their home, no internet denotes they do not. Time-use includes weekends.

Fig. 5

Time-use on education does not fall off dramatically over time. Notes: graph shows time-use on weekdays only, by survey week. Students were interviewed in random order, although the last week (April 21-April 25) includes fewer students and some students who it took more effort to reach.

Fig. 6

. Mental health of students does not change much over the month of April. Notes: Depression denotes MHI-5 mental health index below 17; Happy all or most of the time denotes the student reporting they had been happy most or all of the time in the last month. Figure shows the proportion of students interviewed on a given day who report being depressed, and who report being happy all or most of the time.