Session Information
05 ONLINE 40 A, Risk, Wellbeing and Mental Health
Paper Session
MeetingID: 869 9747 3170 Code: 74UCWb
Contribution
Due to the rapid and global spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions were closed at experts' suggestion. According to UNESCO data, the new digital agenda has been introduced, with which from April 1st to April 5th, exactly 1,598,099,008 students were affected. To deal with this new challenge, UNESCO offered several methodological tricks, tools, and educational software for educators, but this was not sufficient to ensure success. In Hungary, the provisions were introduced on March 16th, 2020. The institutions primarily preferred the Public Education Electronic Administration System, but it has been overloaded in the first few days. Thus, teachers had to seek other ways to find solutions. Overall, in Hungary, primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary education have been executed with online platforms, take-home packages, and television. In the spring of 2020, the schools were fully closed because of the pandemic situation in Hungary. No adjustments had been made to the school calendar dates and curriculum due to the pandemic in the previous and current school years. Despite the quick response, the online teaching was not smooth (Prohánczik, 2020; OECD, 2021).
Previous researchers highlighted a strong relationship between a child's overall health, resilience, and academic performance (WestEd 2003). The impact of perceived and self-assessed health is positive, which can be seen in the completion and intentions for completion of studies and the resistance to dropout across all educational settings. Mental health is also a protective factor against dropout. It includes an optimised level of anxiety since Students with high levels of internalised tension (sadness, anxiety, depression, i.e. distress) show reduced academic functioning. In contrast, those who externalise tension (anger, frustration, fear) also report learning difficulties and poor performance (Roeser et al., 1998). This is, of course, also related to the learner's coping strategies and resilience (Nagy & Kovács 2017, Dinca & Rosnet 2007). Students who are able to cope more effectively with existing or emerging problems and obstacles, or who are able to recognise them and change their problem-solving skills by creating coping alternatives, achieve better academic results and thus have lower dropout rates. Academic achievement and attitudes toward school participation is, therefore, a factor determined by intrapersonal factors; however, the influence of interpersonal factors, i.e. the influence of interpersonal factors, such as peer support, family, friends, and the environment itself: the institution, peers and teachers, the institutional climate and its values, and different attitudes (Pusztai et al., 2015; Kovács, 2020).
Due to the rapid spread of the coronavirus and the lockdowns, both teachers and students had to adapt to the new situation, and the digital skills of the teachers and instructors had to develop. The students also had to adapt; however, unfortunately, in some families, the barriers present in digital learning were not just the lack of digital skills but also the lack of an internet connection, digital tools, and an appropriate space for learning. In conclusion, it can be clearly stated that social disadvantages could cause social exclusion. Beyond that, the lack of digital tools and competencies made it difficult to access education. It was also a significant challenge for lower socio-economic families to adapt to the new situation caused by COVID-19 (Walawender, 2021). Also, returning to school after the lockdown can create anxiety, stress, fear of the increased academic burden and social relationships (Dlugosz, 2021). Therefore, the relationship between distance education and mental health must be investigated based on the students' perceptions.
Method
The study aimed to investigate factors influencing subjective academic achievement in the light of the sociodemographic, psychological and distance education-related factors. The research was carried out in four Visegrad countries. Project No. 22110213 (Strategic Grant) is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe. Our research used a survey method, focusing on students learning and living in peripheral areas. The international team from all four Visegrad countries developed the questionnaire comprised of 31 groups of questions related to the sociodemographic background, mental health and attitudes toward distance education. Mental health was measured by well-being (WHO Well-being Inventory, Susánszky et al., 2006), perceived stress (Perceived Stress Scale, White, 2014), satisfaction with life (If you could evaluate your life so far, overall are you rather satisfied or not satisfied with your life?,) and social support (Short scale of Youth's social support, Pluta et al., 2020; Who helped you with your remote learning problems?) Attitudes toward distance education were measured with a questionnaire containing 16 questions that must have been evaluated on a 5-pint Likert scale. With factor analysis (Maximum likelihood, Varimax rotation), four dimensions could have been detected (learning difficulties, decreased health status, time management and safety, preference of distance education). The total explained variance was 37.990%. The Hungarian subsample involved 305 students living and learning in the peripheral areas of Hajdú-Bihar county. The gender distribution of the sample is almost equal (boys: 51.5%, girls: 48,5%). Since 7th and 8th-graders were involved in the study, the mean age of the sample was 13,4 years (SD=1,096). Concerning the place of residence, 56,8% lives in settlements of up to 5,000 inhabitants, and 43,2% lives in urban areas with more than 5,000 but less than 20,000 inhabitants. We hypothesised that positive mental health indicators (well-being and social support) are in positive connection with attitudes toward distance education. In contrast, the relationship between negative mental health indicators (perceived stress) and attitudes toward distance education is negative. Parents were informed, and they gave their consent in accordance with research ethics. The questionnaire data were typed into Excel and then analysed in SPSS for Windows, version 22.
Expected Outcomes
The results of the correlation analysis partly confirmed our hypothesis. Among the dimensions of attitudes toward distance education, well-being showed a weak positive relationship with decreased health status (r=-0.150; p=0.013) and a weak positive relationship with time management and safety (r=0.148; p=0.015). Concerning social support, we could have seen that peer social support showed a negative relationship with decreased health status (r=-0.130; p=0.030) and a weak positive relationship with time management and safety (r=0.263; p<0.001), which was true for parental support too (decrease of health status: r=-0.263; p=0.030; time management and safety (r=0.263; p<0.001). The relationship patterns of teacher support highlight a negative connection with attitudes toward distance education (decrease of health status: r=-0.179; p=0.030; time management and safety (r=0.179; p=0.003; learning difficulties: r=-0.128; preference of distance education: r=-0.261, p<0.001). Perceived mental health is in a negative connection with learning difficulties (r=0.168; p=0.005) and decrease of health status (r=0.229; p<0.001). This pattern can be seen in the case of perceived physical health (learning difficulties: r=0.248; p<0.001; decrease of health status: r=0.289; p<0.001) and time-related stress (learning difficulties: r=0.216; p<0.001; decrease of health status: r=0.308; p<0.001). Therefore, we could have seen that well-being and the dimensions of social support are positively connected to positive dimensions of distance education-related assessment; therefore, the better the well-being and social support of the student is, the better perception of time management of student is and the lower the level of learning difficulties. Also, along with better mental health and social support, the perception of health-related issues is lower. The preference for distance education is not typical; a higher level of teacher support negatively connects with distance education preference.
References
Dinca, A., & Rosnet, E. (2007). Motivation, réponses de coping et performances sportives des escrimeurs: Une analyse qualitative exploratoire [Motivation, coping responses and fencers' performance: An exploratory qualitative analysis]. European Review of Applied Psychology / Revue Européenne de Psychologie Appliquée, 57(4), 201–211. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2006.09.004 Długosz, P. (2022). Kondycja uczniów powracających do szkół po zdalnej edukacji. Przypadek Polski i Ukrainy. Youth in Central and Eastern Europe, 8(12), 34–42. https://doi.org/10.24917/ycee.2021.12.34-42 Kovács, K. E. (2020). Egészség és tanulás a köznevelési típusú sportiskolákban. [Health and learning in educational sports schools]. CHERD. Kovács, K. E., Szabó, F., Győri, K., & Godó, K. (2021). Desk research report in the project "Preventing post-COVID Social Exclusion Together" Partial report on education systems during the COVID-19 pandemic in Hungary. Retrieved from: https://pcset.up.krakow.pl/wp-content/uploads/sites/79/2021/12/Desk-research-report-PCSET-Hungary.pdf Nagy B. E., & Kovács K. E. (2017a). Egészség-magatartással kapcsolatos attitűdök vizsgálata középiskolás és egyetemista fiatalok körében. Orvosi Hetilap, 158(44), 1754–1760. https://doi.org/10.1556/650.2017.30839 OECD (2021). The state of school education: One year into the COVID pandemic. Preliminary results - March 2021. Retrieved from: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/the-state-of-school-education_201dde84-en Pluta, B., Korcz, A., Krzysztoszek, J., Bronikowski, M., & Bronikowska, M. (2020). Associations between adolescents’ physical activity behavior and their perceptions of parental, peer and teacher support. Archives of Public Health, 78(1), 106. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13690-020-00490-3 Proháczik, Á. (2020). A tantermi és online oktatás összehasonlító elemzése [Comparative analysis of classroom and online education]. Opus et Educatio, 7(3), 208-219. Pusztai, G., Kovács, K. E., Kovács, K., & Nagy, B. E. (2018). The effect of campus environment on students’ health behaviour in four Central European countries. Journal of Social Research and Policy, 8(2), 1-14. Roeser, R. W., Eccles, J. S., & Strobel, K. R. (1998). Linking the study of schooling and mental health: Selected issues and empirical illustrations at the level of the individual. Educational Psychologist, 33(4), 153–176. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep3304_2 UNESCO (2020). Global education monitoring report, 2020: Inclusion and education: all means all. Retrieved from: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373718 Walawender, P. (2021). Desk research report in the project "Preventing post-COVID Social Exclusion Together" Partial report on education systems during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland. Retrieved from: https://pcset.up.krakow.pl/wp-content/uploads/sites/79/2021/12/Desk-research-report-PCSET-Poland.pdf WestEd (2003). Student well-being: Essential to academic success. R&D Alert, 5, 1, 8-9. White, B.P. (2014). The Perceived Stress Scale for Children: A Pilot Study in a Sample of 153 Children. International Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health, 2, 000-000
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