Research Article Review:

Projecting the Potential Impact of COVID-19 School Closures on Academic Achievement

Jessica Smith

Towson University

ISTC 603: Foundations of Distance Education

Dr. McGinn

December 7, 2021
Introduction:

When deciding what type of article to complete a review upon for this project I knew that

I wanted to take a closer look at research that has been recently conducted which involve studies

directly related to the COVID-19 Pandemic and student achievement. While reviewing the list of

articles that Dr. McGinn suggested to us, I was happy to see that a group of authors (Kuhfeld et

al) had published an article in November of 2020 which was comparing achievement gaps to the

extend closures of schools in correspondence to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The title of my

selected article is: Projecting the potential impact of COVID-19 school closures on academic

achievement. I chose to focus on this topic because as educators, including myself, we are living

this reality daily, and I wanted to take a closer look at the findings and conclusions being drawn

by distinguished authors. While I am witnessing first-hand in my 5th classroom the “COVID-19

Slide” I continue to be interested in the findings that researchers have taken the time to closely

dissect and interpret using mathematical statistics. Thus, making the article recent, relatable, and

reputable.

Research Background:

The COVID-19 Pandemic suddenly changed education as we knew it abruptly on March

13, 2020. On this day, students were sent home from school and told they would return after two

weeks, however students never returned to their classrooms in the 2019-2020 school year,

instead March became the new June: the end of the school year. Families were forced to “stop

the spread” and remain indoors, students were receiving instruction through digital devices, and

teachers and school staff were scrambling to activate emergency teaching strategies.
 Kuhfeld et. al conducted a study to analyze how productive the three months of virtual

teaching were during these unprecedented times, where learning has gone from there, and how it

will be changed in the future school years to come. In their study, they selected four major areas

to explore: 1. Possible learning scenarios and patterns that evolved as a result from the abnormal

ending of the 2019-2020 school year, 2. The amount of variability in student learning rates

during that time, 3. Predictions of the correlations between out-of-school time and these learning

rates, and 4. Did the COVID-19 school closures affect achievement gaps in student groups.

Since a pandemic of this nature had never affected schools to this degree, researchers

chose to find patterns in instances that they could use for their research. These patterns included:

Summer slides, weather-related school closures, and absenteeism. In the article it was stated that

the reason this study was conducted was so that, “Teachers and schools [could] benefit from

knowing…how much lower achievement might [have been] when student[s] returned[ed] in

person, but also the number of variables there could be” (Kuhfeld et al, pp. 549-550).

Participants and Procedure:

The study under review was conducted using a sample of ~5 million students ranging

from grades 3-8, coming from ~19,000 U.S. schools. The sample includes 51% males, 47%

White, 17% Black, 4% Asian, and 18% Hispanic students. Also, these students completed

diagnostic testing in both Reading and Math using the MAP Growth Assessments during the

2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years. All trends were studied and labeled using standard

deviations (SD).

To begin, seasonal learning, or summer vacation evaluations (or lack thereof) were

analyzed. The purpose of this group studying these seasonal patterns was to compare the
conclusions found between students and extensions of breaks. Thus, the closest extension of time

to compare the sudden extended COVID-19 Pandemic closures to was the school summer

vacation months. Previous educational studies have determined that, “achievement typically

slows/declines over the summer months; with math regression being steeper than those in

literacy.” However, during this study it was also found that “some students actually show

learning gains during the summer” (Kuhfeld et al, p. 550).

Inclement weather was the next factor to be closely identified. Here, a close focus was

placed upon snow days and an example was also made from the extended closure of schools that

were affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Weather was the closest example that authors had to

explaining and showing trends between “unexpected, disrupted instruction”. In fact, Maryland’s

snow days were used as an example in the article, noting that MD snow days effect student

achievement between 0.013-0.016% per missed day.

Absenteeism was next in the sequence. A comparison was made between low-income

students and their peers, noting that low-income students generally tend to miss <10% of

instructional days each school year. Multiple grade-levels, schools, and demographic groups

were examined, each displaying trends in their impacts.

All in all, a distinct assessment was conducted to detect the similarities and differences

between “regular” out-or-school time and the specific school closure days because of the

unexpected COVID-19 Pandemic.

Importance and Potential Impact:

The biggest take away from this article’s findings is that there are a variety of external

factors that contributed to student success during the start of the COVID-19 educational recess,
where many continue to impact students during the 2021-2022 school year, daily. Some of these

factors include socioeconomic status (SES), race, cultural, community-based situations, and

other various social impacts.

Kuhlfeld et al helped to conclude that, “…only one in five school districts met the

American Enterprises Institute’s standards for ‘rigorous’ remote learning” (p. 552). This was due

to the fact that only 50% of low-income families were found to have a sufficient device at home

to access the distance learning tools. Furthermore, 73% of high-SES schools reported that

students were expected to receive remote learning to end the 2019-2020 school year, whereas

only 34% of low-SES schools reported the same expectations.

Educators and school staff need to continue to consider that economic and social impacts

continue to impact students and their families, even as we are moving closer to the ‘end’ of the

pandemic. Fears, job-loss, elevated stress, daily life disruptions, and isolation continue to be

daily realities for some families within our very own classrooms.

While this article seems as though it was written based many assumptions established

from the collection of authors, all their points continue to be valid and reputable. These authors

found that “student learning gains for the end of the 2019-2020 school year were projected to be

lower than typical predictions. Thus, students would be beginning the next school year (2020-

2021) with only 60-87% of their previous school year’s gains” (p. 556). Again, math

comprehension displayed evidence of larger impacts with an average of 37-50% gain, while

reading comprehension showed between 63-68% of gains. While this shouldn’t be a surprise to

educators that have been fluently teaching since pre-pandemic days, it is still refreshing to have

concrete statistics to show the “COVID Slide” on paper, the actions, complications, and

misunderstandings we are witnessing daily with our students.

 Though the authors used four major categories to classify their findings (typical

growth, partial absenteeism, COVID slide, and full absenteeism) many findings were

discovered. Some groups had an advantage during the virtual and hybrid learning models,

while other groups had clear disadvantages. See Figure C1 below for a visual

representation of the authors’ findings.

Application:
The article Projecting the potential impact of COVID-19 school closures on academic

achievement was beneficial in validating my personal classroom struggles, as I continue to

educate my fifth grades during the 2021-2022 school year. I know that students have experienced

loss in their curriculums, have larger achievement gaps, and that they have experienced outside

trauma(s). However, as large as the educational gaps may present themselves, they may just not

be as large as they are perceived to be. In fact, the classroom struggles may be presenting

themselves because they are more related to expected routines and procedures. With 60-87% of

learning gains presenting themselves between school years, students should have foundations to

help them build and digress throughout the course of the school year. While we know that we are

currently not back to “business as usual”, we are still educating with the hands we have all been

dealt, as we continue to cope, grieve, and change in our new post-pandemic lifestyles. Assessing

students early and frequently is what is going to best explain to educators where their students’

achievement gaps lie.

 References:

Kuhfeld, M., Soland, J., Tarasawa, B., Johnson, A., Ruzek, E., & Liu, J. (2020). Projecting the

Potential Impact of COVID-19 School Closures on Academic Achievement. Educational

Researcher, 49(8), 549–565. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X20965918