Skip to content

ACT Newsroom & Blog

Hide All News & Blogs View All News & Blogs

Mode of Learning Linked to Slight COVID-19 Rebound in 2022

  In 2021, ACT research examined the effects of the pandemic on student learning. This year, we revisited the data to see what, if any, gai...

Read this article


 

In 2021, ACT research examined the effects of the pandemic on student learning. This year, we revisited the data to see what, if any, gains had been made as students returned to the classroom following widespread disruption due to the pandemic. Despite inconsistencies in mode of learning, ACT recently found signs that academic achievement may be stabilizing with the class of 2023, as most students have returned to in-person learning.

Studies, including ACT’s pandemic-related research, have documented the pandemic-era declines in student achievement, with pronounced losses in math and milder losses in reading. Measuring trends in ACT test scores helps to understand the depth of the disrupted learning that students have experienced as the pandemic’s effects have lingered across multiple school years. It’s also our hope that this information will help provide insights across the education ecosystem and ensure that student learning continues to rebound.

While observing trends we found signs of a slight rebound in academic achievement for 11th graders of 2022, relative to 11th graders of 2021. Despite the slight improvement, ACT Composite scores were still lower for the 2022 11th grade students, compared to pre-pandemic students. The 2022 score rebounds were not observed for all racial/ethnic groups: Scores rebounded slightly for students who are Black or white students but decreased slightly for students who are Hispanic, Native American, or Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander.


How did mode of learning affect academic achievement?

While students’ experiences with learning at home during the pandemic were mixed, students told us that they felt school closures might affect their academic achievement—37% of students felt school closures would affect their academic preparedness “a great deal,” and another 51% said “somewhat”.

Data collected before and during the pandemic reflect that in-person learning leads to greater academic achievement than learning online. Further, new research from Harvard found that “remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps,” estimating that districts with a high proportion of students living in poverty opting for remote learning will require almost all of their federal aid to promote student academic recovery.

ACT’s research also examined mode of learning differences. ACT surveyed students in the 11th grade in 2022 and found that the delivery of instruction varied across student and school demographic groups during the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years. Students of color, female students, and students attending urban schools were more likely to attend school online. While only 22% of the students attended school exclusively in-person during the 2020-2021 school year, the number jumped to 87% during the 2021-2022 school year.

ACT’s research suggests that mode of learning matters—students who learned in-person had an average ACT Composite score of about 1.1 points higher than their peers who learned online. The analysis used students’ eighth grade state test scores and their 11th grade ACT test scores and accounted for differences across mode of learning groups. The results suggest that more in-person schooling was related to more academic growth.

While the effects of the pandemic will likely persist for several years, ACT’s research shows modest yet positive signs of score rebounds for 11th graders of 2022, forecasting what learning gains might look like for the graduating class of 2023. For student achievement to fully recover to pre-pandemic levels, accelerated learning must continue for future students, with a special focus on recovery for Hispanic, Native American, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander students and students from low-income families.

ACT works alongside NLGA to support STEM Scholarship Program

 By: John Clark, senior director for ACT state government relations ACT has collaborated with the National Lieutenant Governors Association ...

Read this article


 By: John Clark, senior director for ACT state government relations

ACT has collaborated with the National Lieutenant Governors Association (NLGA) to support the inaugural year of the NLGA Lieutenant Governors’ STEM Scholarship Program. The collaboration aligns with ACT’s commitment to help people achieve education and workplace success and parallels our long-standing belief that all students should have access to rigorous course-taking, including the opportunity to learn valuable skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to be competitive in college and career. In addition to math, the ACT has always provided a dedicated science test measuring STEM-associated skills like analysis, reasoning, and problem-solving, which indicate a student’s readiness for postsecondary STEM majors. ACT’s more than 30 years of workforce research also confirms that being able to apply these types of skills is essential for success in a vast and growing number of jobs across the U.S. economy.

Ensuring that students are prepared to be successful in college and career means that all students have access to a STEM education; however, access continues to be a barrier for many Black and Latinx students, as well as the 6.5 million students living in rural areas. Yet, STEM occupations are projected to grow more than two times faster than the total for all occupations in the next decade. In funding the NLGA STEM scholarship, ACT is hoping to make STEM programs a little more accessible to students, regardless of their postsecondary path, providing states and school districts more opportunities to deliver hands-on STEM learning. In 2022, the collective scholarships allowed the NLGA to provide direct STEM education to more than 3,000 students from pre-K-12, in a vast array of programming in STEM education including robotics, aquaponics, aviation, and agriculture, among others. 

Leading with purpose and living our mission is important to ACT as a national leader in education and workforce. We, like NLGA, know that championing bipartisanship issues, like access to STEM learning, can positively affect outcomes for students, districts, and states that are critical to our country’s future success. In ACT’s collaboration with NLGA, there is an even greater opportunity to share insights to ensure that public policy will positively effect student career success and academic achievement. Working together with NLGA to solve problems and improve the lives of students helps ACT deepen relationships and expand education and career opportunities for all. 


Top