Research report
COVID’s impact on science achievement: Trends from 2019 through 2024
September 2024
Description
Building on NWEA’s previous research series focused on math and reading achievement, we now explore how the pandemic influenced student achievement in science. To our knowledge, this represents the first large-scale, in-depth analysis of how science achievement in the U.S.1 was influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of this study, our researchers examined science test scores across seven school years to understand how COVID-19 influenced science achievement.
See MoreTopics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity, Growth
Associated Research
Related Topics
Effective summer programs: Practical guidance for district leaders
This report dives into the research on summer programs, their implementation and design, as well as the efficacy of those programs for literacy, math, and social-emotional learning (SEL) outcomes. It also provides recommendations for district leaders to use as a framework for planning and implementing effective summer programming.
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Growth, Guidance, Seasonal learning patterns & summer loss
High dosage tutoring for academically at-risk students
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Typical learning for whom? Guidelines for selecting benchmarks to calculate months of learning
To describe the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students, researchers have translated test scores into months of learning to claim how many months/years students are behind in school. Despite its perceived accessibility, there are major downsides to this translation. To inform future uses by researchers and media, we discuss in this brief how to calculate this metric as well as its trade-offs.
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity, Growth, Growth modeling, Seasonal learning patterns & summer loss
Exploring the educational impacts of COVID-19
This visualization was developed to provide state-level insights into how students performed on MAP Growth in the 2020–2021 school year. Assessments are one indicator, among many, of the student impact from COVID-19. Our goal with this tool is to create visible data that informs academic recovery efforts that will be necessary in the 2022 school year and beyond.
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Innovations in reporting & assessment
Education’s long COVID: 2022–23 achievement data reveal stalled progress toward pandemic recovery
New research shows progress toward academic recovery stalled in 2022-23. This research brief covers data from 6.7 million US students examining academic gains relative to pre-pandemic years as well as tracking the gap in achievement between COVID year student groups compared to their pre-pandemic peers.
Products: MAP Growth
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity
Technical appendix: 2022-23 achievement data reveal stalled progress toward pandemic recovery
The purpose of this technical appendix is to share more detailed results and describe the sample and methods used in the research in Education’s long COVID: 2022-23 achievement data reveal stalled progress toward pandemic recovery report.
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity
The purpose of this technical appendix is to share more detailed results and describe the sample and methods used in the research in Progress towards pandemic recovery: Continued signs of rebounding achievement at the start of the 2022-23 school year.
Topics: COVID-19 & schools, Equity
