During the COVID-19 pandemic millions of students worldwide shifted to distance learning or experienced disruptions in learning (OECD, 2020). This has raised a discussion about the extent of learning loss or decrease in what students have learned at schools during the pandemic, as well as other risks, especially for vulnerable groups (e.g., Azevedo et al., 2020). The published reports show mixed results (Donnelly & Patrinos, 2021), as there are tendencies that some groups of students have had lower academic achievement during the pandemic (Kuhfeld et al., 2020), and the data have indicated a possible decrease in students’ academic performance that is due to pandemic (Engzell, Frey & Verhagen, 2021). However, the data analyzed from groups with less days spent on distance learning do not show dramatic decrease of academic results (Birkelund & Karlson, 2021). True dynamic of the mean grades can be estimated if longitudinal data is analyzed with repeated measurements from the same students during several time points. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to assess students’ average grades longitudinally in the period before and during the pandemic to test if there was a decrease in grades and to examine what kind of variables were associated to the stability of the grades. The pandemic and distance learning was a new situation that demanded students to adapt swiftly, to learn individually and to deal with daily problems by themselves, to a large extent (an with the help of their parents). Several studies have indicated that students have faced difficulties during this time, including psychological difficulties and challenges with learning (e.g., Hacatrjana, 2021). This leads to an assumption that self-management skills and problem-solving skills, as well as support from parents might be crucial to maintain the level of one’s academic achievement, thus the second aim of this research was to test this assumption.

1) Problem-solving skills were evaluated with Problem-solving questionnaire, a self-assessment method with 10 items composing two scales: 1) Solution development and evaluation (6 items) and 2) Flexibility to change solution (4 items) (Hacatrjana, 2021b). Each item had to be rated on a scale from "Never" to "Always" (0 to 5 points) based on how often a student performed the mentioned activity. 2) Self-management skills were assessed with the Self-management questionnaire that is used for the purpose of self-assessing students’ skills to manage and organize themselves and their learning. It consists of six items (Hacatrjana, 2021b). 3) Fluid nonverbal reasoning (as measure of cognitive abilities) was measured with short version (10 items) of Sandia Matrices test (see Harris et al., 2020) that assess reasoning abilities with typical figural matrices tasks. 4) Verbal reasoning (as another measure of cognitive abilities) was assessed with a short version of Verbal analogies test (10 items) that has been previously developed and used in the research with students (Kretzschmar, Hacatrjana & Rascevska, 2017). In the test one pair of words and the first word of the second pair is given (for example, “snow – to ski” and “ice - …”) and the participant has to understand the type of relationship for these words and write an answer to the second pair of words. 5) Academic achievement was measured by gathering average grades in the last four semesters (Fall 2019 to Spring 2021) in all study subjects that were taught in the school. It has to noted that the main subjects (e.g., Mathematics, Latvian, English) are the same for all students, therefore data from comparable subjects were analyzed. In Latvia, the average mean grade can vary between 1 to 10. 6) Additional questions on the subjective experience during distance learning were asked to students. They were asked to rate their perceived difficulty to deal with the distance learning situation, to rate if the technological means available to them were sufficient for studying during the distance learning. 7) Demographic questions were asked to students: gender, age, number of students in class, the language they mostly speak at home, the level of parental education (from “1-Finished primary school” to “6-Doctoral degree”).

The results from a sample of n=420 students in the 11th grade from Latvia (age M=17.41, SD=0.52) show that, when analyzing the longitudinal data of students’ mean grades before and during the pandemic in four semesters, the tendency is that grades decreased only in the “second wave” of the pandemic at the end of 2020 for some study subjects, but in general there is a tendency that grades increased again significantly in Spring 2021 for most subjects, indicating an inflation of grades. Nevertheless, students themselves have reported difficulties to deal with the distance learning, raising questions of what reasons might have attributed to such results (e.g., less amount of curriculum or cheating online). The results also show that students who had managed to maintain or raise their mean grade comparing grades in May 2021 to December 2019 had higher self-management skills and higher problem-solving skills. The results also indicate the importance of family, as parental education level was strongly related to students’ grades. The research reported here is supported by European Regional Development Fund under the activity “Post-doctoral Research Aid” project No. 1.1.1.2/VIAA/4/20/697.

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