Chair of Health Literacy Research Covid-HL Universities

Covid-HL: Schools

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on schools and education

The COVID-19 pandemic is associated with far-reaching changes in society and requires individuals and systems to adapt to meet the demands associated with this unprecedented public health emergency. As a result of the school closures, the education sector is affected in multiple ways. School closures have led to children and adolescents being deprived of one of the core settings for development, interaction, and socialisation. The switch from face-to-face classroom learning in schools to homeschooling via online learning and virtual platforms brings a high risk that educational inequities have greater impact on those child and adolescent groups that are already socially and economically disadvantaged. These inequalities are further multiplied as children and young people from poor social backgrounds experience adversities that are worsened by COVID-19 e.g. the digital divide. Disadvantaged children and adolescents have limited access to computers or the internet, and sometimes their parents are not able to support their learning. This adds up to a situation where learning has become more difficult and educational outcomes cannot be achieved, further reinforcing educational inequities.

Beyond the impact on educational development and outcomes, school closures are associated with increased health risk and negative consequences and worse health outcomes for children and adolescents. Since the pandemic started, some research has been conducted in child and adolescent populations. However, there is very limited research available exploring the effects of the pandemic on school and educational professionals. This is surprising given that schoolteachers are exposed to a whole new working situation and environment with numerous challenges they have to master (e.g. shift in teaching and learning due to the pandemic), associated with an increased likelihood of negative health outcomes for teachers as well as students. Even less attention is paid to school principals, who are responsible for all aspects of the school life and therefore have to cope with particularly high demands as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pre-pandemic research shows that school principals report high work-related stress and more frequently psychological and physical burden compared to other professional groups. In addition, it is well known that there is an association between teacher health and teaching quality. In this context, the COVID-HL School Principals Survey aims at exploring burden and stress that school principals and school administrators (e.g., deputy principals or members of the school management team) experience in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, the study focuses on the following research questions:

Source: Scale documentation of the Covid-HL School Surveys (see link below)

The impact of Covid-19 on the German school system

The Corona pandemic has posed an unprecedented and extreme challenge upon the German school system. As early as March 13 in 2020, all German state ministries of education decided on Corona-related school closures. This was followed by the establishment of emergency care for children from system-relevant professions and the switch from face-to-face teaching in classrooms to digital distant learning in virtual environments (a.k.a. homeschooling). A gradual opening of school operations occurred in late April 2020, subjected to strict hygiene and distancing rules. De-centered and reduced class sizes and alternate teaching styles led to different teaching modes of face-to-face and distance learning.

Resulting from the immediate need to migrate schooling and learning into the digital realm, the existing "Digitalpakt Schule" (Digital Pact for Schools) was increased by 500 million Euros for the acquisition of digital devices for students and online learning content for schools. At that time, however, schools were not adequately equipped in relation to their digital infrastructure and staffing to adequately address the challenges associated with digitalization and, in particular, distant learning. In addition to pre-existing problems, teacher shortages were exacerbated due to the suspended attendance requirement for teachers who, due to age or certain pre-existing conditions, among other factors, are in the at-risk group for severe COVID-19 cases. While the start of the new school year occurred under new, more strict hygiene requirements, rising infection rates in the fall of 2020 led to the closure of numerous schools once again. As a result of the December 2020 "lockdown," schools across the country were closed and once again switched to distant learning modes. Overall, significant regulatory differences could be observed not only at state levels, but at regional levels as well. Thus, already existing corona-related problems were immediatly accompanied by new poblems, which accumulated into a great burden for the entire education sector in Germany.

Source: Final project report (see below)

Project objectives

To investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on schools and school principals in Germany - and globally - the Covid-HL: Schools Survey was launched in February 2021. The target group of the study were school principals and members of the school leadership team (e.g. deputy principals) of schools in the German states of Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia. In particular, the study focuses on the following research questions:

What is the level of work-related stress for school principals during the COVID-19 pandemic?
How are school principals dealing with work-related stress?
To what extent school principals apply maladaptive coping strategies at the workplace?
What is the mental health situation of school principals? What is the relationship between the current working situation of school principals and their mental health?
What is the SoC level of school principals in the time of COVID-19?
What is the level of corona-specific health literacy among school principals?
Are there any associations between SoC and health literacy and school principals’ health?
What school health promotion measures are implemented in schools during COVID-19?

Schools and school principals during the Covid-19 pandemic

The school system has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in a special and profound way. In addition to school closures, key challenges include the switch to digital teaching and learning formats, compliance with hygiene rules, and personnel management.

While available research findings focus primarily on the target groups of school-aged children and teachers, school principals have been neglected in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as in health research in general.

Few available studies indicate high stress levels for school principals as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, including a significant increase in time spent on work.

The study was conducted in cooperation with the school management associations of the respective federal states. In addition to the Allgemeiner Schulleitungsverband Deutschland e.V. (ASD), these are the Association of School Principals in Baden-Württemberg (VSL BW), the Interest Group of Hessian School Principals (IHS), the School Principals Association of Lower Saxony (SLVN) and the School Principals Association of North Rhine-Westphalia (SLV NRW).

The study was conducted in the form of an online survey from March 09 to April 13, 2021, i.e., during the period of the third wave of infection in Germany (Fig. 1). For this purpose, all school principals were contacted via the e-mail b yusing the mailing lists of the respective school principal associations and invited to participate in the study. To increase the response rate, a reminder was sent after approximately 10 days. Ethical approval was obtained by Bielefeld University (EUB 2021-030).

Figure 1: Confirmed Covid-19 cases in Germany (RKI COVID-19 Dashboard)

The questionnaire used consisted largely of scientifically validated instruments, some of which were linguistically adapted for the present study context (Covid-19 and coronavirus). To assess work-related stress, an adapted version of the so-called "Perceived Stress Scale" was used and linguistically adapted to the study context. The instrument comprises 10 questions that could be answered on a five-point scale ("never" to "very often"). Three sub-aspects of self-hazardous behavior were used (work extension, work intensification, and quality reduction) to gain insight into the extent of health-hazardous work coping strategies. Each sub-aspect included different questions to be answered in terms of frequency on a five-point scale ("never/very rarely" to "very often"). To assess the health situation, emotional exhaustion as a core dimension of the burnout phenomenon was recorded among the respondents by means of three questions as well as the frequency of five psychosomatic complaints (e.g. stomach or intestinal pain). These were answered using a five-stage response format ("never" to "always").