Digital tutoring ‘fills the gaps' during the pandemic

GoStudent survey paints a picture of parents’ mood at the end of a school year, characterized by the pandemic - After a year marked by school closures and a switch over to digital learning, we at GoStudent surveyed 3000 parents of school children in Germany, Austria, Spain & France to find out how they coped with the situation.

Sentiments towards the school year 2021/21 reflect disappointment

With the upsurge of bookings on our digital tutoring platform during the pandemic, it was clear that parents were caught off guard and were eager to find ways to ensure that the education of their children (in such crucial developmental years) continued. Half of our respondents from Austria and Germany stated they were disappointed with the public school system and a whopping 80% of all surveyed felt stressed about the circumstances.

Many parents didn’t feel equipped to deal with the developments on their own, resulting in at least 50% of those surveyed in Austria and Germany turning to external sources such as private tutoring for additional support. Though parents in France and Spain were generally less disappointed with the school system, 40% of parents in Spain and one in every three parents in France also took advantage of additional learning support.

When parents grade teachers: An average of ‘3’ on the grading scale

This isn’t a blame game and we know that the public education system was taken by surprise and was simply not equipped to make the full switch to digital learning overnight. However, we were curious to know how parents would have graded the performance of schoolteachers during this time. Despite being in a difficult place, more than one-third of respondents in Austria and Germany viewed teachers’ performance as satisfactory, which would translate into a ‘3’, in a grading system where 1 correlates with ‘very good’ and 5 with ‘unsatisfactory’ or a fail.?Only six percent of parents would have given teachers a failing grade. This number is slightly higher in Spain with ten percent of survey participants stating teachers deserved a ‘5’. Parents in France were considered ‘the strictest’ with more than 15% stating the performance of teachers was inadequate.

Where could parents have been better supported by school teachers?

In addition to asking parents how they felt about the school year and how they would have graded school teachers if they had a chance, they were also specifically asked which areas they wished for additional support. These have been ranked from highest to lowest below:

- More motivation to learn by teaching staff (67%)

- More interactive exchange between teachers and students (58%)

- More efficient learning platforms and technical conditions for homeschooling (44%)

- More learning materials for homeschooling (35%)

- Opportunity for exchange with other parents (22%)

For parents who turned to private tutoring, what were their expectations?

In line with the findings of where parents felt they could’ve been better supported, those who turned to private tutoring did so with the intention of ‘filling the gaps’. In Austria & Germany, the number was as high as 45%, followed by 37% in Spain and only 27% in France.

With more than half of parents in this group stating the improvement of school grades as a top priority,?60% also hoped that private tutoring would increase their child’s motivation and enthusiasm for learning. Additionally, 43% of parents expected a personal learning plan to create some structure in daily life and 38% hoped that tutoring would be a means for their child(ren) to receive individualized teaching- Meaning enabling more quality time between the teacher and student.

The effect of school closures on familial relationships and children

During this period, parents may have been stressed by the additional childcare and educational responsibilities but were also able to spend more quality time with their children than would’ve been ordinarily possible. Though 45% of parents felt that this did not affect the family dynamic, 40% even saw a positive impact. The remaining 15% did, however, feel some negative effects.

Aside from the effect of school closures on familial relationships, parents were also concerned about the physical and psychological impact of such a situation on their children. In Germany and Austria, a third of parents felt that their children fared ‘badly’ to ‘very badly’, while another third stated their children were doing ‘moderately.’ Only ten percent felt that their children coped well with homeschooling.

In France, more than half of parents estimated that their children were doing badly with the situation and approximately one-third saw a moderate effect.?Similarly in Spain, 60% of respondents also stated their children were coping badly with the situation, and just over a quarter of parents estimated that their children were doing ‘moderately’. In total, half of the parents noticed a negative physical impact, and just over half noticed a psychological impact- Something that may have been different if children had had more freedom to run around outside, as 90% of those surveyed noted.

So much for the summer: Estimated hours of learning needed during the break to catch up.

Even so, children will certainly have to re-enter a phase of readjustment and teachers will be expected to make up for the ‘educational gaps’ which occurred during school closures. While there is a relief that children can socialize again, we wanted parents to estimate how many additional hours of learning they assume their children would require to make up for these mentioned ‘gaps’:

- None

- Less than five hours a week

- Six to ten hours a week

- More than ten hours a week

In Austria, Germany, France and Spain the main consensus appeared to lie between one to five extra learning hours per week, as seen in the graph. However, at least a quarter or in the case of Germany and Austria, even 36% of parents felt that at least six to ten hours of additional learning per week during the summertime would be necessary to make up for the missed year.

A look into the future: Will schools stay open?

The summer has rolled around and the question remains if there will be some semblance of normality for the upcoming school year. Parents in France remain most confident that schools will stay open with 66% of respondents stating so, followed by 50% in Spain and 40% in Austria and Germany combined.?

As we’ve witnessed, going fully digital in terms of education may not be the answer, but it may be time to begin integrating the knowledge and technology of leaders in the edtech industry to find better solutions for teaching in an increasingly digitalized age in order to better deal with unforeseeable circumstances in the future.