Due to low levels of student engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic, elementary school students suffered significant learning losses, which served as the driving force behind this research. Teachers should be the key to solving problems. This research aims to measure how much influence the competence of professional elementary school teachers has…

Research from around the world has shown that COVID-19 emergency remote teaching in schools has generally struggled to maintain student satisfaction and engagement: students lacked social relatedness, a sense of belonging and ownership of school activities. This study examines the idea of using a dialogic teaching approach in synchronous online…

Critical and situated engagement with literacies offers educators an important, documented pedagogical tool that has the potential to increase elementary students' understanding of issues of equity, while developing their empathy, self-awareness, and critical consciousness. What we don't know is how literacies can be used during a global pandemic…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused worldwide educational disruption. This paper addresses a gap in the literature relating to the impact of the pandemic on learning experiences of children in rural communities in the Global South, particularly in earlier years of schooling. Children in these communities are at considerable disadvantage in comparison to…

Despite the enormous impact of COVID-19 on children's education and their families, few studies have examined how families experienced this educational disruption, especially regarding the perceptions of parents of elementary-aged children, and differential experiences as a function of socioeconomic status (SES). Guided by informal media reports,…

Background: Online multiple-text comprehension is a key skill of the 21st Century, yet the study of its relations with boredom in young students has been disregarded. Boredom is an achievement emotion expected to be predicted negatively by antecedents like control and value appraisals and to be associated to a negative performance. Notwithstanding…

Due to COVID-19 lockdowns, Arkansas had to implement virtual instruction into a face-to-face education system for the first time in the 2020-2021 school year. This unique situation is the setting for this dissertation. It explores how adding virtual education to face-to-face education affected student engagement as measured by student attendance.…

The WIRE Youth Development Programs, housed within the Lewis Walker Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnic Relations at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, foster two enrichment programs geared towards strengthening the gap in academic knowledge through STEM/STEAM activities. Since its inception, WIRE has impacted over 1,000 youth…

This study contributes to applied and theoretical research for schools and districts by exploring data-based evidence of the relationships between the COVID-19 pandemic and student engagement with school. The paper features trend data on student orientation to school assessed via the multi-dimensional Student Orientation to School Questionnaire…

Student engagement is more than attentiveness during instruction; it is the bedrock of making sense of knowledge materializing within classrooms. Yet, teachers in Texas are finding it daunting to amass engagement among Black students returning to in-person learning amid COVID-19. Challenges catalyzed by COVID-19 discriminatory practices emerging…

The problem was the decline in executive functioning skills of Grade 5 students in a consolidated independent school district in suburban Austin, Texas since the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this qualitative critical instance case study was to better understand the perceptions of teachers regarding the impact of COVID-19 on the executive…

Questions often heard echoing through classrooms are: 'Why do I need to know this?' and 'When will I use this in real life?'. Working with the Centre for Industry Education Collaboration (CIEC), the authors chose a curriculum segment that aligned with some of their own research -- microorganisms: how they can harm us, help us and how we can use…

How does live instruction relate to student engagement in distance learning? Does the relationship differ across grade levels? This study addresses these questions by examining data from a random sample of families from a large urban school district in southern California. We find a strong correlation between live instruction and student…

School closures during the COVID-19 pandemic presented a threat to student learning and motivation. Suspension of achievement testing created a barrier to understanding the extent of this threat. Leveraging data from a mathematics learning software as a substitute assessment, we found that students had lower engagement with the software during the…

The achievement gap is a historic and pervasive issue of social justice in education. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has further stalled student achievement in reading and math, amplifying the urgency for accelerating student learning to close the gap. The third grade is a critical year for literacy in education; if students have not mastered…