The relationship between instructional modality and elementary achievement outcomes during the 2020-21 pandemic school year

Following nationwide school closures in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. school systems faced crucial decisions in how to advance student learning while grappling with novel health and safety considerations. The State of Illinois was not immune from this decision-making, as each individual school board was required to make its own choices on instructional modality for the 2020-21 school year (SY21): in-person learning, remote learning, or a combination of the two (Illinois State Board of Education, 2020b). Emerging research continues to show that students who learned via remote instruction during SY21 experienced the greatest declines in academic achievement, with the most drastic declines occurring amongst historically marginalized and disadvantaged student groups (Cashdollar, Barragan Torres, et al., 2022; Goldhaber, Kane, McEachin, & Morton, 2022; West et al., 2021). This dissertation furthers the current research by investigating: (a) the relationship between instructional modality and student achievement in elementary-serving Chicagoland school districts during SY21; (b) how this relationship was impacted by school funding; and (c) which school districts and students were most likely to experience remote instructions. Using difference-in-difference methods, results show that student proficiency rates on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness were predicted to have experienced the sharpest decline when remote learning was employed instead of in-person learning, followed by hybrid learning. Results show that schools funded below their adequacy targets were predicted to have experienced exacerbated effects on student learning. Lastly, results also demonstrate that Black/Hispanic students, students from low-income households, and districts funded below their funding adequacy targets were most likely to experience remote instruction.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Swanner, Joshua K.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bruno, Paul
• Alexander, Kern
• Lewis, Colleen
• Roegman, Rachel

• Instructional Modality
• Covid-19
• Pandemic
• Achievement
• Remote Learning
• Hybrid Learning
• Elementary School
• Chicagoland
• Illinois
• Learning Loss

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Joshua Swanner

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/124221

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F124221