The impact of the COVID-19 cannot be overstated, and we are only beginning to understand the impacts on the education sector. Alongside widespread interruptions to  schooling, the existing literature has highlighted significant impacts on students and teachers mental wellbeing (Coleman, 2020; Slavin and Storey, 2020). The main research question for the project was: How have educational responses to the COVID-19 pandemic affected the learning and teaching experiences of students and teachers, and their perceptions of their mental wellbeing? With this in mind, the objective of this project was to explore the learning and teaching experiences of students and teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic and examine how they have influenced their mental wellbeing. 

To achieve this I distributed surveys and conducted focus groups and interviews with students and teachers from the UK, the USA and Malaysia. The rationale behind the inclusion of these three countries was to secure a globally diverse breadth of experiences from different teachers’ and students' backgrounds, and help to highlight the strengths and challenges from different ways of doing and knowing. Each country has also had vastly different pandemic responses and this correspondingly led to a variety of different educational responses (Bremmer, 2021; Bolden and Tymms, 2020). 

This concept of valuing different forms of knowledge became a central tenet to the formation of my framework. My theoretical framework was comprised from the work of two theorists, in order to honour the dual focus on education and mental wellbeing. For mental wellbeing I found the application of Hechanova and Waelde’s concepts regarding southeast Asian cultures and mental wellbeing to be particularly insightful due to its origins in examining mental wellbeing in disaster situations and the parallels this drew between the context of the COVID-19 pandemic (Hechanova and Waelde, 2017).

Hechanova and Waelde’s five features of southeast Asian (SEA) cultures in regards to mental wellbeing are identified as:

• Emotional expression 

• Shame

• Power distance

• Collectivism

• Spirituality

To complete the dual focus of this framework I used the work of psychologist Lev Vygotsky for the education strand. Vygotsky’s is useful for an analysis of an  international dataset as it emphasises the importance of culture and the social nature of learning (Aubrey and Riley, 2022). However, by having such a focus on the social aspects of learning, Vygotsky overlooks the more practical and hands-on nature of some learning tasks (Aubrey and Riley, 2022), and this is crucially where the theory application is incomplete. While arguing for the importance of individualised learning, Vygotsky’s theory focuses too heavily on the benefits of the social aspects of learning, to the exclusion of learning via other methods. 

To address this, I decided to supplement Vygotsky’s ideas with the work of Moore (2000), who builds on Vygotsky’s idea of scaffolding to suggest the four modes of differentiation. Where Moore’s work is helpful, is it decentres the focus of learning from the social to consider how the teaching is tailored for the individual via the following four modes: outcome, (same task, different outcomes), by response (teacher varies response to students’ work), by task (set different tasks), by stimulus (teaching style, type of task).

The research design adopted for this project was a mixed-methods methodology, comprising two stages of data collection. The first stage consisted of distributing online surveys followed by a concluding second stage, consisting of focus groups and interviews. The scope of the project was international, gathering data from the UK, USA and Malaysia. As the research question is focused on the experiences of students and teachers, the participants were identified as such, from both primary and secondary schools (note here that for students, that includes the age range of 4-18). This methodology was adopted in response to this question for the following reasons: As the research question is focused on acquiring individuals' subjective perceptions, the research approach necessitated the use of qualitative methods. Focus groups were chosen over other qualitative methods for their ability to foster authentic discussion between participants without being led by the researcher. However due to challenges regarding participant availability, it became necessary to conduct individual interviews with some participants in order to adhere to the completion timeline. Survey questions were formulated based on an extensive review of the relevant academic literature, regarding educational experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and how mental wellbeing was affected during this period. Surveys were an important initial phase as it allowed for themes to be identified from the participants' responses, which could then be discussed further in the focus groups and interviews, ultimately enriching the depth of the data. This meant the research could be more participant centric, and so be more true to the aim of the research question which was to understand teachers’ and students’ perceptions of their pandemic experiences. Another key component of the question is the assumption of the existence of a correlation between the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on individuals’ mental wellbeing and educational experiences. However this assumption is not the focus of the question, as many contemporary studies have shown evidence of an association between the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the mental wellbeing of teachers and students. This being the case, I wanted my research project to go beyond this and consider these aspects (educational experiences, the COVID-19 pandemic and the individual’s mental wellbeing) together, in an effort to consider the impacts of the pandemic without wasting time on an already identified link.

One of the key findings of the project has been the emergence of a new trend of behaviour termed ‘apathetic resilience’. Apathetic resilience can be described as an emerging coping mechanism amongst students, arising from a perceived lack of control and motivation in the face of continued disruption. Teachers noted it as an increase in students disengaging from their studies but through non-disruptive behaviours. Apathetic resilience was noted by teachers who saw an increase (especially in high school-age students) who attended schooling, but failed to contribute to or participate in their learning. This combination of disengagement and non-disruptive behaviour was felt by some teachers to be employed by students as a type of safeguard which they used to preserve their wellbeing. Alongside this, some students referred to ways of coping and behaviours that displayed an engagement with their challenges, which is termed ‘engaged resilience’. In contrast to apathetic resilience, engaged resilience suggests the presence of positive behaviours and patterns where students face their challenges by engaging with them and seeking long-term solutions, for example, organising their own learning, outling routines for study, and proactively contacting teachers for advice or answers etc. Whilst apathetic and engaged resilience were more commonly observed in students, teachers also displayed behaviours in line with these emergent trends. The emergence of these changes to both students’ and teachers’ behaviours is significant, not only because it is an original contribution to the existing literature, but also because it is suggestive of wider trends in how students and teachers approach education and their respective responsibilities within their roles. It is also indicative of wider trends of changes to the student-teacher relationship, and the increasing awareness of students’ and teachers’ perceptions of their own mental wellbeing.

Aubrey, K., and Riley, A. (2022) Understanding and using educational theories (3rd ed) Sage Publications: London. Bolden, D., and Tymms, P. (2020) ‘Standards in education: reforms, stagnation and the need to rethink. Oxford Review of Education, 46(6) pp. 717-733. Bremmer, I. (2021) The Best Global Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic, 1 Year Later. Available at: https://time.com/5851633/best-global-responses-covid-19/ (Accessed 8th May 2021). Coleman, D. (2020) Backtalk: The limits of rapport: What’s lost when we focus on connecting to our students. Phi Delta Kappan, 102(2), pp. 68-69. Hechanova, R., and Waelde, L. (2017) The influence of culture on disaster mental health and psychosocial support interventions in Southeast Asia. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 20(1), pp. 31-44. Doi: 10.1080/13674676.2017.1322048. Moore, A. (2000) Teaching and Learning: Pedagogy, curriculum and culture. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Slavin, R. E. and Storey, N. (2020) The US Educational Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Best Evid Chin Edu, 5(2) pp. 617-633. Doi: 10.15354/bece.20.or027.