The school closings in the spring of 2020 led to a loss of skills in the affected children and adolescents similar to those caused by the absence of lessons during the summer holidays.

Psychologists at Goethe University have come to this conclusion.

Andreas Frey's team evaluated eleven studies which, according to the researchers, recorded the learning success of the participating students in a scientifically high-quality way.

Among other things, the skills in mathematics, reading, history, social sciences and French as a foreign language were examined.

The studies come from Germany, China, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and the United States.

Sascha Zoske

Journalist in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

  • Follow I follow

    According to Frey, it was found that the learning progress during homeschooling was significantly lower than in face-to-face teaching.

    The average effect was a “stagnation with a tendency towards loss of competence”, which roughly corresponds to the effect of the summer holidays.

    The regression was particularly great among younger children and students from socially disadvantaged homes.

    "This confirms the previous assumptions made by empirical evidence: the gap between rich and poor widened even further during the first corona-related school closings," said Frey.

    Situation could have improved in winter

    However, there are initial indications that the school closings last winter had fewer negative consequences than those in spring 2020. In the meantime, online teaching has improved in many places, says the professor of educational psychology. The study is available on a preprint server. Research is published there that has not yet been peer-reviewed.

    The Left in the Hessian State Parliament sees the results of the Frankfurt study as a result of the “lack of plan” and the shifting of tasks to teachers and school administrators who are already overloaded, as was the case at the beginning of the pandemic.

    This can be partly explained by the short preparation time.

    However, even after a year of pandemic, Minister of Education Alexander Lorz (CDU) has still not managed to present a concept for distance teaching.

    Developing ideas for this has so far been left to the schools and parents.

    Link to the publication