Date of Award

Spring 2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Committee Chair

Mary Beth Roth

Abstract

In the fall of 2020, students chose the learning pathway that best suited their situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Learning pathways were face-to-face, virtual synchronous, and virtual asynchronous. Because of this, in the fall of 2021, all students demonstrated learning loss. The learning loss, however, was not congruent among students. This quantitative study sought to determine if a student’s learning pathway choice during the COVID-19 pandemic impacted their academic achievement as measured by grade point average, end-of-course exam scores for Algebra I, and qualification for Tier 2 academic interventions in a multi-tiered system of support. This study was conducted in a large school district in South Carolina. The population used was the students in one of the district’s high schools who entered their first year of high school during the 2021-2022 school year. Independent t tests and chi-square tests of independence were used to determine if a student’s measure of academic achievement was independent of their learning pathway choice during the 2020-2021 school year. This study found that overall, students learning in the face-to-face pathway had higher academic achievement than their peers on the virtual synchronous pathway. This study did not have enough data to make any conclusions regarding students on the virtual asynchronous pathway. The findings of this study could lead to better training and preparation for teachers and students moving toward virtual learning options in the future.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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