Award Abstract #2037179

RAPID: Exploring COVID and the Effects on U.S. Education: Evidence from a National Survey of American Households

NSF Directorate:
EHR - Directorate for Education and Human Resources
NSF Division:

Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings

Initial Amendment Date:

Latest Amendment Date:

Award Number:

2037179

Award Instrument:

Grant

Program Manager:

Robert Ochsendorf

Start Date:

End Date:

Awarded Amount to Date:

$199,620.00

Investigator(s):

Anna R Saavedra [email protected] (Principal Investigator)
Morgan Polikoff (Co-Principal Investigator)

Sponsor:

University of Southern California
University Park
Los Angeles CA 900890001

NSF Program:
Discovery Research K-12
Program Reference Code(s):
096Z
7914
Program Element Code(s):
7645
Abstract:

The COVID-19 epidemic has been a tremendous disruption to the education of U.S. students and their families, and early evidence suggests that this disruption has been unequally felt across households by income and race/ethnicity. While other ongoing data collection efforts focus on understanding this disruption from the perspective of students or educators, less is known about the impact of COVID-19 on children’s prek-12 educational experiences as reported by their parents, especially in STEM subjects. This study aims to understand parents’ perspectives on the educational impacts of COVID-19 by leveraging a nationally representative, longitudinal study, the Understanding America Study (UAS). The study will track educational experiences during the summer of 2020 and into the 2020-21 school year and analyze outcomes overall and for key demographic groups of interest.

Since March of 2020, the UAS has been tracking the educational impacts of COVID-19 for a nationally representative sample of approximately 1,500 households with preK-12 children. Early results focused on quantifying the digital divide and documenting the receipt of important educational services--like free meals and special education services--after COVID-19 began. This project will support targeted administration of UAS questions to parents about students’ learning experiences and engagement, overall and in STEM subjects, data analysis, and dissemination of results to key stakeholder groups. Findings will be reported overall and across key demographic groups including ethnicity, disability, urbanicity, and socioeconomic status. The grant will also support targeted research briefs addressing pressing policy questions aimed at supporting intervention strategies in states, districts, and schools moving forward. Widespread dissemination will take place through existing networks and in collaboration with other research projects focused on understanding the COVID-19 crisis. All cross-sectional and longitudinal UAS data files will be publicly available shortly after conclusion of administration so that other researchers can explore the correlates of, and outcomes associated with, COVID-19.

This RAPID award is made by the DRK-12 program in the Division of Research on Learning. The Discovery Research PreK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics by preK-12 students and teachers, through the research and development of new innovations and approaches. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for the projects.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.