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. 2021 Aug:68:101629.
doi: 10.1016/j.chieco.2021.101629. Epub 2021 May 2.

Compensating for academic loss: Online learning and student performance during the COVID-19 pandemic

Andrew E Clark  1 , Huifu Nong  2 , Hongjia Zhu  3 , Rong Zhu  4
Affiliations

Compensating for academic loss: Online learning and student performance during the COVID-19 pandemic

Andrew E Clark et al. China Econ Rev. 2021 Aug.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to widespread school shutdowns, with many continuing distance education via online-learning platforms. We here estimate the causal effects of online education on student exam performance using administrative data from Chinese Middle Schools. Taking a difference-in-differences approach, we find that receiving online education during the COVID-19 lockdown improved student academic results by 0.22 of a standard deviation, relative to pupils without learning support from their school. Not all online education was equal: students who were given recorded online lessons from external higher-quality teachers had higher exam scores than those whose lessons were recorded by teachers from their own school. The educational benefits of distance learning were the same for rural and urban students, but the exam performance of students who used a computer for online education was better than those who used a smartphone. Last, while everyone except the very-best students performed better with online learning, it was low achievers who benefited from teacher quality.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Online education; Student performance; Teacher quality.

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Conflict of interest statement

None.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Parallel trends in pre-lockdown exam scores in Schools A, B and C.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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