Secondary Education in COVID Lockdown: More Anxious and Less Creative—Maybe Not?

Abstract

Secondary education around the world has been significantly disrupted by covid-19. Students have been forced into new ways of independent learning, often using remote technologies, but without the social nuances and direct teacher interactions of a normal classroom environment. Using data from the School Attitudes Survey—which surveys students regarding the perceived level of difficulty, anxiety level, self-efficacy, enjoyability, subject relevance, and opportunities for creativity with regards to each of their school subjects—this study examines students' responses to this disruption from two very different schools with two very different experiences of the pandemic. This paper reports on the composite attitudinal profiles of students in the senior secondary levels at each school (Years 10–12, n = 834). The findings challenged our expectation that the increased difficulty and anxiety caused by the disruption would reduce perceived opportunities for creativity. Indeed, our analyses showed that the students at both schools demonstrated generally positive attitudes toward their learning and strongly associated opportunities for creativity with other attitudinal constructs including enjoyability, subject relevance, and self-efficacy. These complex associations made by the students appear to have buffered the impacts of the disruption, and they may even have supported creative resilience.

Through Thick and Thin: Changes in Creativity During the First Lockdown of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Hence, SCC relies on a self-rating of one’s own creativity. Similar self-report scales or ratings measuring creativity belief, self-concept, and self-efficacy have been developed ( Beghetto, 2006 ; Ng and Feldman, 2012 ; Karwowski and Barbot, 2016 ; Karwowski and Lebuda, 2016 , 2017 ; Karwowski et al, 2019 ) and used in COVID-19-related studies ( Hofreiter et al, 2021 ; Mercier et al, 2021 ; Patston et al, 2021 ). In contrast to these previous measures, we asked participants to rate a change in their creativity related to a key event (i.e., the beginning of the lockdown).…”

Secondary Education and COVID-19

“…Moreover, education outside of the school environment offered the opportunity for independence to be developed in students, allowing self-reflection and focus outside of peer influence and pressure [152]. The unconventional educational methods enabled innovation and creativity in both educators and students [153], possibly due to the exploration of new learning methodologies in a different educational context [154]. Creativity is considered a vital ability in students [155] and has played a key role in managing the pandemic-related difficulties [156].…”

“…Creativity is considered a vital ability in students [155] and has played a key role in managing the pandemic-related difficulties [156]. Lastly, research has shown that the greater the creativity demonstrated by students, the less anxiety they experienced [154].…”

Guest editorial: educational legacies of the pandemic

“…The stories of suffering during the pandemic will no doubt continue to emerge, but there is also a strand of scholarship that shows how humans have responded to adversity with tenacity. For example, some students thrived academically during remote learning (Hammerstein et al, 2021), and others have shown emotional resilience during school closures (Patston et al, 2021;Luthar et al, 2021). Narratives that foreground teacher voices have shown educators taking pride in "finding a way" for their students (Kim and Asbury, 2020).…”