Exploring the Impact of Home-Schooling on the Psychological Wellbeing of Irish Families During the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic: A Qualitative Study Protocol

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has placed severe restrictions on people’s behavior worldwide with school closures in many countries. These closures have shifted education from the classroom to the home. This change is unprecedented, and home-schooling has placed substantial stress on families across the world. As of 9 April 2020, 1.57 billion children were being educated by families that had little or no experience of protracted home-schooling. An essential but neglected issue related to COVID-19 is the psychological impact of home-schooling on family wellbeing, especially considering the other stressors they are experiencing including social isolation, fears of infection, frustration, boredom, inadequate information, and financial stress. This study explores the impact of home-schooling on family psychological wellbeing during COVID-19. These findings will help develop supports and interventions for this population. Methods: An exploratory qualitative study will be conducted using semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of families (at least one parent and one child). Participants will be recruited using social media outlets, contacts of academic members and snowball sampling. Interviews will take place using Microsoft Teams and via telephone and recorded for transcription purposes. These transcripts will be analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Ethical approval has been granted by the Social Research Ethics Subcommittee (SRESC) Maynooth University (2407411). The Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) has funded the research with the COVID-19 rapid response grant. The dissemination of findings will be through open access journal publications, distribution of lay summaries, press release and policy papers. Discussion: The research findings will discuss the impact that home-schooling has had on family psychological wellbeing. It will examine how parents are managing their children’s education and learning while handling the other stresses associated with COVID-19. A deeper understanding of the impact of school closures and home-schooling on family processes is essential if the psychological wellbeing of families is to be protected and supported during challenging times such as health-related disasters.

A Qualitative Study of Child and Adolescent Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ireland

“…The closure of schools shifted education from the classroom to the home. This change was unprecedented, and families had little or no experience of protracted homeschooling [39]. School routines are crucial coping mechanisms, particularly for young people with mental health issues [15].…”

Spirituality and Children’s Coping with Representation of Death During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Qualitative Research with Parents

“…This challenge also appeared in recent literature on COVID-19 consequences on children' psychological well-being (O'Sullivan et al, 2020) and other studies conducted over the years in similar lockdown conditions due to high risks to public health (Sprang & Silman, 2013).…”

“…Since a very important source from which children elaborate their perception and representation of death and of an eventual afterlife are usually their parents, it is possible, as it has already been observed and reported in literature (Panagiotaki et al, 2018), that parents who present a religious view or even simply a personal form of spirituality that leads them not to consider death as total annihilation could inspire such a view in their children as well, consequently allowing them to better manage their eventual death anxiety or the loss of a loved one (Zajac & Boyatzis, 2021).…”

Emergency online school learning during COVID-19 lockdown: A qualitative study of adolescents’ experiences in Italy

“…In this sense, it has been highlighted that the adoption of online learning methods in response to a crisis, as in the COVID-19 pandemic, should be considered a distinct and temporary type of instruction due to the lack of planned design and implementation (Hodges et al, 2020;Williamson et al, 2020). However, this forced experience can inform future preparedness of educational institutions to address other potential emergency disruptions and to meet students' needs for quality learning and for interactions that can improve their outcomes, health, and well-being (O'Sullivan et al, 2020). Thus, it is essential to shed light on the learners' experiences of OSL during the COVID-19 crisis and the perceived characteristics that can influence them.…”