Department of Economics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269.
Education Program, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Aug 13;121(33):e2407322121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2407322121. Epub 2024 Aug 7.
While studies have examined the effects of schools offering in-person learning during the pandemic, this study provides analysis of student enrollment decisions (remote versus in-person) in response to schools providing in-person learning opportunities. In Connecticut during the 2020-21 school year, we find that student take-up of in-person learning opportunities was low with students on average enrolled in-person for only half of the days offered, and take-up was even lower in schools with larger shares of disadvantaged students. The provision of in-person learning opportunities has been previously shown to mitigate pandemic learning losses. By exploiting data on actual enrollment, we show that the protective benefits of in-person learning are twice as large as previously estimated once we account for the low rates of student take-up. Finally, we provide evidence suggesting that a key mechanism behind the benefits of in-person learning is alleviating the burden faced by schools and teachers in delivering remote education. First, we show that the benefits to individual students of their in-person learning are substantially smaller than the overall benefits a student receives from their school average level of in-person enrollment. Second, we show that a combination of remote and in-person learning (hybrid) with a full-time on-line presence of students when at home was worse than hybrid learning with students never or only partially online. This second finding is consistent with qualitative evidence showing that teachers found hybrid learning especially challenging when having to manage both in-person and remote students for the entire class period.
虽然已有研究考察了学校在疫情期间提供面对面学习的效果，但本研究分析了学生对学校提供面对面学习机会的入学决策（远程与面对面）。在康涅狄格州 2020-21 学年，我们发现学生对面对面学习机会的参与度较低，平均只有一半的上课日选择面对面学习，而在有更多弱势学生的学校，参与度甚至更低。此前的研究表明，提供面对面学习机会可以减轻疫情期间的学习损失。通过利用实际入学数据，我们表明，一旦考虑到学生参与度较低的情况，面对面学习的保护效益是之前估计的两倍。最后，我们提供的证据表明，面对面学习的好处背后的一个关键机制是减轻学校和教师在提供远程教育方面面临的负担。首先，我们发现学生从面对面学习中获得的个人收益远小于学生从其所在学校平均面对面入学水平中获得的整体收益。其次，我们发现学生在家时保持全时在线的远程和面对面混合学习（混合学习）比学生从不在线或仅部分在线的混合学习更差。这一发现与定性证据一致，该证据表明，当教师必须在整个课堂期间同时管理面对面和远程学生时，他们发现混合学习尤其具有挑战性。
