Student Life During a Pandemic
WAVE 3 Results
March 2021
HOW ARE TEENS EXPERIENCING COVID-19?
How are students feeling about remote and parent involvement in their learning experiences including:
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Changes to school delivery since September re-entry.
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Quarantining because students and/or teachers in their classroom or school tested positive for COVID-19.
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Someone in their household taking a COVID test.
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Socializing with people in their bubble
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respect for physical distancing
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frequency of exposure to news and information about COVID-19
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their concern about impacts on household members, vulnerable populations, country/world health, health system overload, maintaining social ties, and violence in the home
The
Basics
What school district are the students attending?
N = 1698
How old are the students who completed the Wave 3 Survey?
N = 1698
School Delivery
We asked students what best describes their form of schooling since classes resumed in January?
N = 1698
We wondered if there would be differences in self-reported behaviours and adaptive functioning based on school type and changes between in-person and online delivery.
We found that those students who moved from in-person to online learning since January 2021 reported significantly lower social and academic functioning and higher conduct and cognitive/ attention problems compared to all other school types.
School Delivery
We looked at how school delivery method was related to COVID stress reactions.
There was no significant difference in the proportion of those above the clinical cut-off for CRIES Total scale or the Avoidance, Arousal, or Intrusion subscales by way of the various school delivery methods.
We wanted to see if school delivery method impacted self-reported resilience factors.
As noted above with the BIMAS, students who started school in January in-person but moved to online learning reported
lower individual, caregiver, and context support.
School Delivery and COVID-19 Testing
Between Jan 2021 - Mar 2021, did you have to quarantine (i.e., move to online learning) because students and/or teachers in your classroom or school tested positive for COVID 19?
N = 1698
16% of students had their schooling disrupted by needing to quarantine
Gender Differences
in Behavioural Risk Levels
We found a significant difference between genders in regards to social, cognitive/attention, and negative affect risk categories, with females reporting higher risk than males.
There was no significant difference between genders found with regard to academic functioning or conduct problems.
4.0% female students in Wave 3 reported scores above the clinical cutoff for the CRIES Total compared to 16.1% of male students.
16.5% of females reported scores above the clinical cutoff for the arousal subscale, while only 5.06% of males were above the cutoff.
The avoidance subscale followed the same pattern, with 7.28% of female students reporting scores above the cutoff compared to 2.53% of male students.
Gender Differences
in Critical Levels of Stress Reaction
Gender Differences
in Self-Reported Resilience
There were no significant differences between male and female students in their self-reported resilience scales - caregiver, context, and individual.
TEST FONT
Gender Differences
in Self-Reported Resilience
There were no significant differences between male and female students in their self-reported resilience scales - caregiver, context, and individual.
TEST FONT
Covid-19 VACCINATION, Mental health, and adaptive behaviours
Has anyone in your immediate family (yourself or people you live with) BEEN VACCINATED for COVID-19?
9.84% of students reported someone in their immediate family having been vaccinated
Vaccine Comfort and Behavioural Outcomes
There were no significant differences in the mean cognitive attention and negative affect BIMAS t-scores across vaccine comfort groups, but there was a significant difference between comfort levels for conduct, social, and academic functioning.
Covid-19 VACCINATION and stress reactions
A higher percentage of students who were reportedly more uncomfortable getting a COVID-19 vaccine scored above the clinical cutoff on the avoidance and intrusion scales, but there is no significant difference in the proportion of those above the clinical cutoff based on comfort getting the vaccine for CRIES Total or arousal.
Covid-19 VACCINATION and Resilience
Students who reported more discomfort with getting a COVID-19 vaccine scored lower on the individual resilience factor, but there were no significant difference between the comfort levels in their caregiver or context resilience factors.
COVID-19 TESTING
Has anyone in your immediate family (yourself or people you live with) been TESTED for COVID-19?
5.29% reported family or self tested positive for COVID-19
Those whose family members/themselves tested positive for COVID-19 had, on average, lower academic functioning and higher conduct issues.
Concern with COVID-19 Variants
Those students who indicated varying levels of concern about the COVID-19 variants of concern did NOT reveal consistent differences in their self-reported behaviour - conduct, cognition/attention, negative affect, social functioning, or academic functioning.
68.9% of students were reportedly very or extremely concerned about COVID-19 variants;
44.4% were not concerned or somewhat concerned with variants.
Arousal was the only subscale to show significant increase by way of covariant concern e.g., very (15.5%) or extremely concerned (18.1%).
Those students indicating higher (i.e., extremely) concern about COVID-19 variants self-reported significantly higher context and caregiver resilience.
Family
Employment
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, did anyone in your immediate family (people you live with) lose their job or have their work hours reduced?
More than HALF of students have experienced a change in family finances because of COVID-19.
Family
Employment, Mental Health and Adaptive Behaviour
We looked at how family job loss may have impacted student functioning.
Those students whose families experienced a job loss or reduction in hours due to COVID-19 self-reported higher Negative Affect, Cognitive/Attention, and Conduct scores and lower Social and Academic Functioning scores.
Family
Employment, and Stress Reactions
37.2% of students whose family experienced changes in employment exceeded the clinical cutoff for CRIES Total, whereas only 23.3% of those who did not experience job changes exceeded the clinical cutoff.
15.6% of those whose family members experienced changes in employment due to COVID-19 exceeded the clinical cutoff for arousal, whereas only 10.7% of those who did not experience employment changes exceeded the clinical cutoff for arousal.
Changes in Behavioural and Mental Health Across data Collection Waves
There is a significant difference between waves 1 and 3 for each BIMAS Behaviour Concern scale. This means that between September 2020 and March 2021, a higher percentage of students were in the "high risk" range for the self-reported negative affect, conduct, and cognitive/attention functioning.
Changes in Stress Reactions Across data Collection Waves
There was a significant difference in the proportion of students above and below the clinical cut-off for CRIES Total and arousal for Wave 1 (September 2020) and Wave 3 (March 2021).
The proportion of those above the clinical cut-off for CRIES
Total increased from 23.6% in Wave 1 to 28.8% in Wave 3. The proportion of those above the clinical cut-off for arousal increase from 9.72% in Wave 1 to 12.7% in Wave 3.
WHAT ARE STUDENTS STRESS REACTIONS DURING COVID-19?
Child Revised Impact of Events Scale
(CRIES; Weiss & Mamar, 1997):
13-item measure of objective stress as it related to COVID-19
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4 Intrusion items
Do you think about it [the event] even when you don’t mean to?
4 Avoidance items
Do you try not to think about it [the event]?
5 Arousal items
Do you have sleep problems?
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Total score ranges from 0 to 65
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Clinical cutoff score of 30 or above (17 or above on the subscales) having been found to identify children with a diagnosis of PTSD.
How much do students worry about...
How concerned are students about about their PERSONAL HEALTH?
37%
63%
of students are very or extremely concerned about COVID-19 and their health, but
are not at all or only somewhat worried; no change between September and December.
How concerned are youth about FAMILY CONFINEMENT & STRESS?
Overall stress levels have increased. Family Confinement is more of a stressor than the virus.
How much do students worry about...
How concerned are youth about about MAINTAINING SOCIAL TIES?
52.3%
of youth are very or extremely concerned about maintaining Social Ties, a
increase since September.
61%
When students are asked to THINK ABOUT COVID-19, how does it make them feel?
The number of students whose stress reactions exceeded the critical cutoff increased by 3.3.% from September to December.
When students are asked how they feel about COVID-19, how does it affect their thoughts, behaviour, and physical arousal?
Stress reactions are up across all subscales, likely due to COVID fatigue and the many school/social changes.
COVID
Stress
Reactions
HOW ARE STUDENTS FEELING AND BEHAVING?
Behaviour Intervention Monitoring Assessment System
(BIMAS-2; McDougal et al., 2016)
Measuring conduct, negative affect, cognitive/attention, and social and academic functioning
The BIMAS-2 is a brief, repeatable self-report measure that is useful for universal behavioral screening, progress monitoring, outcome assessment, and program evaluation.
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How is student mental health and adaptive behaviour?
Overall, mental health and adaptive behaviour remain in the low risk range for all students.
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An increase is noted in the percentage of those in High Risk range for negative affect and in Concern range for social functioning.
In the last week, how often did students report?
I was anxious (nervous or worried)...
Wave 1 – 37.9% were never or rarely worried or nervous; 38.1%
were often or very often worried or nervous in last week
Wave 2 – 36.2% were never or rarely worried or nervous; 39.8%
were often or very often worried or nervous in last week
Mental Health Indicators
Increases were noted in all three mental health indicators - conduct, negative affect, and cognitive/attention - but effect size suggest change is minimal.
We asked, "How often did certain behaviours happen in the last week?"
In the last week, how often did students report?
I was sad or withdrawn...
Wave 1 – 53.3% were never or rarely sad or withdrawn;
25.9% were often or very often sad or withdrawn in last week
Wave 2 – 46.9% were never or rarely sad or withdrawn; 32.2% were often
or very often sad or withdrawn in last week
WHAT INDICATORS OF RESILIENCY WERE REPORTED?
Child and Youth Resilience Measure
(CYRM-R; Jefferies et al., 2013)
Measuring an estimate of resiliency in 3 areas:
Individual (personal skills, peer support, social skills);
Caregiver (physical and psychological caregiving); and
Context (spiritual, education, cultural).
We will review just two items here related to family and friends.
We asked students to consider some of the personal, social, and
contextual strengths that were both available and accessible to them.
Sources of Resiliency
Overall, resiliency levels reported at both waves were similar to normative sample, though peer, social skills, spiritual, and contextual resilience supports were lower (but stable) in both Wave 1 and Wave 2.
