This brief is the third annual examination of how state attendance policies and practices have evolved since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. States can play an essential guiding role in the collection, use and public availability of attendance and chronic absence data. While reporting chronic absence on state report cards is required by the…

The return to school following the significant disruption to education during the COVID-19 pandemic presents challenges for students, teachers, and parents. In the English context, education leaders have expressed serious concerns about the significantly increased levels of anxiety and school absenteeism among students of all ages, particularly…

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.…

Tonia Hap Murphy is a Teaching Professor at the Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame. For her, the biggest shock was moving from in-person teaching to online teaching. Notre Dame announced on March 11, 2020, that students, then on spring break, should not return to campus and would finish the semester online. Online classes would…

At a public, 4-year, open access university, students were given the choice of how they would attend class: face-to-face, online, or livestream (synchronous session in Microsoft Teams®). The 876 students in this study registered in course sections designated as face-to-face delivery yet were provided attendance flexibility due to the pandemic.…

Background: Disparities in school attendance exist for children with medical complexity (CMC) due to COVID-19. Longitudinal changes in family-reported school safety perceptions and predictors of full-time, in-person school attendance are unknown. Methods: This was a prospective, longitudinal cohort study with 3 survey waves (June 2021-June 2022)…

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty and administrators have been called to engage in pilot studies of new educational delivery models. A pilot study was conducted during the Fall 2020 semester at a midwestern liberal arts college involving 49 undergraduate students using a new alternative course delivery format called the "Choice…

Student-faculty interaction (SFI) is an important indicator of student engagement that positively associates with academic achievement and retention. Quantitative information regarding the impact of emergency remote teaching (ERT) during COVID-19 on SFI is limited. This retrospective, observational cohort study tests the hypothesis that COVID-19…

COVID-19 represented a time of disruption and innovation, with online learning ensuring students could still engage with their studies. With the pandemic stabilised, survey data (N > 600) were used to examine ongoing use and perceptions of online learning at a UK university. Despite some reversion to in-person practice, online provision still…

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an unanticipated, near-universal shift from in-person to virtual instruction in the spring of 2020. During the 2020-21 school year, schools began to reopen, and families were faced with decisions regarding the instructional mode for their children. We leverage administrative, survey, and virtual-learning data to…

The pandemic forced many education providers to pivot rapidly their models of education to increased online provision, raising concerns that this may accentuate effects of digital poverty on education. Digital footprints created by learning analytics systems contain a wealth of information about student engagement. Combining these data with…

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the suspension of in-person learning at many higher education institutions (HEIs) in March 2020. In response, HEIs transitioned most courses to online formats immediately and continued this mode of instruction through the 2020-2021 academic year. In fall 2021, numerous HEIs resumed in-person courses and some hybrid…

The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the already problematic issue of student absenteeism. This study uniquely employs an ecological agency approach to better understand student absenteeism during COVID-19. Using a case study methodology, the study captures the experiences of two absentee students within a United States suburban high school during…

During the 2020-21 school year, COVID-19 forced Virginia's school divisions to adapt to unprecedented circumstances, which led many divisions to deviate from the typical five-day-a-week pre-pandemic school schedule with all students attending school in person each day. In-person learning is superior to remote learning in promoting student…

In 2013, The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported 13-20% of youth living in the United States experiencing a mental health disorder. Research indicated that mental health disorders can negatively affect an individual's cognitive, social, and emotional functions (National Institute of Mental Health, 2018). As a result, students…