Data reveals insights on wellbeing of Australia’s students
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COVID-19 has caused significant disruption to student learning, but how has it impacted their wellbeing? Pivot Professional Learning discusses data gathered from its new wellbeing tool and its weekly check-ins with students
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AUSTRALIA'S STUDENTS have faced two years of disruption and uncertainty, and it appears to have taken a toll on their wellbeing, with new data indicating that around one in two students are struggling from week to week.
While the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has varied across jurisdictions, emergency restrictions have shut down schools across every Australian state and territory since 2020. UNESCO estimated that by the end of March 2020, around 87% of the world’s student population had their learning disrupted by school shutdowns, and in early May, only 3% of children in Victorian government schools were attending class.
While the impact of these shutdowns on learning outcomes is yet to be determined, new research from Pivot Professional Learning suggests that the impact on student wellbeing has been significant.
Pivot Professional Learning is an Australian-based education technology company dedicated to improving schools through evidence-based tools and insights. Pivot Professional Learning provides schools with a simple way to gather authentic and timely feedback on teaching practice, wellbeing and school leadership.
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“What we found really staggering is that outside of the low-income schools, the biggest concern was around wellbeing as opposed to learning loss, and that was not what we had expected to see”
Amanda Bickerstaff,
Pivot Professional Learning
Resilience and wellbeing a bigger concern than learning loss
In 2021, Pivot Professional Learning launched a new online tool designed to monitor and support the wellbeing of students. Participants were given a baseline survey on resilience, belonging and safety, and this was followed up with weekly check-ins to gauge how the students were feeling. The resulting data showed a mixed picture but highlighted overall wellbeing, resilience and adult support as areas of concern – something CEO Amanda Bickerstaff says was an unexpected finding.
“In April 2020, we did what we thought was going to be a very small study on the impact of COVID on teaching and learning,” she says.
“It ended up being the largest survey of its kind, with 4,000 responses in the first four days across Australia and New Zealand.
“What we found really staggering is that, outside of the very low-income schools, the biggest concern was around wellbeing as opposed to learning loss, and that was not what we had expected to see,” she explains.
“When we looked at the market, we found that a lot of wellbeing tools used by schools are not necessarily fit for purpose any more. They tended to focus on family and anxiety and had a ‘deficit mindset’, where most things were negatively worded. So we decided that we should put together a very sound research protocol, which led to us developing this tool.
“We had four months of consultation with school psychologists, education researchers, teachers, industry leaders and students, and that led to the creation of this tool,” she adds.
“To make sure we were doing this the right way, we had 52 schools that were able to do it for free, and that gave us almost 30,000 data points in just eight weeks. We were able to validate the tool on the market, which was a really great step, because schools can feel fully confident that it’s asking the right things in the right way. Our data ended up being statistically significant for quite a few different benchmarks.”
The Wellbeing for Learning tool includes a weekly check-in survey, which monitors student wellbeing with the question ‘How have you been feeling this week?’ Students are able to answer on a five-point scale (1. Struggling, 2. Not So Good, 3. Okay, 4. Good, 5. Great).
The survey found the average general wellbeing score to be 3.56, with 45% of students experiencing non-positive wellbeing every week.
“We saw that resilience is the lowest-scoring area, and the questions scoring the lowest were ‘I can ask for help when I need it’ and ‘I can talk to an adult when I have a problem”
Amanda Bickerstaff,
Pivot Professional Learning
“Students in lower-income areas also had lower scores across every measure – the 15 baseline questions, the general wellbeing questions and the objective behaviours. Those are two key areas that we need to focus on, and with all of these insights we really started to realise just how much a tool like this is necessary.”
Early intervention recommended for struggling students
There is positive news, however, as data from more recent weeks has shown an upward trend in positive responses to the question on asking for help. This suggests growing confidence and trust among students, and Bickerstaff says this is worth further investigation as students continue to engage with the tool.
“Students have responded to the tool very positively,” she says.
“One student told us, ‘Why wouldn’t we want to spend a few minutes a week checking on our wellbeing?’ It just shows that the schools care, and we saw that when a student opened a survey, 99.7% of them completed it. That is a phenomenal figure.
“Looking forward, we definitely want to continue this research,” Bickerstaff concludes.
“We now have a large number of schools committed to this for the full year, and we’ve started working with departments of health at a state level. The tool is ongoing, and we feel really confident in it. We want everyone to be able to use the data that we collect, so when we see student trends, we are committed to publishing that research on an ongoing basis.”
To read the full Wellbeing for Learning report, click here.
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A further 11% of students indicated they were ‘struggling’ or ‘not so good’, which suggests that a proportion of students could really benefit from a higher level of support. Bickerstaff also notes that a low percentage of students felt they could go to adults for help, and girls tended to score lower across most metrics than boys.
“A key finding for us was that half of the surveyed students reported being between ‘okay’ and ‘struggling’ each week, which means that almost one in two students is either neutral, or actively not doing well,” Bickerstaff says.
“We saw that resilience is the lowest-scoring area, and the questions scoring the lowest were ‘I can ask for help when I need it’ and ‘I can talk to an adult when I have a problem’. This shows us that a lot of students are not in a positive wellbeing space, and that they don’t feel they can ask for help, or don’t know where to go.
“We found that girls scored lower on almost every measure – in fact, the only measure that they’re higher in is respect for personal boundaries,” she continues.
45%
experienced non-positive wellbeing each week
15%
reported struggling for more than one week
Student responses to ‘How are you feeling?’
Average wellbeing score: 3.56 out of 5
45%
experienced non-positive wellbeing each week
15%
reported struggling for more than one week
Student responses to ‘How are you feeling?’
Average wellbeing score: 3.56 out of 5
45%
experienced non-positive wellbeing each week
15%
reported struggling for more than one week
Student responses to ‘How are you feeling?’
Average wellbeing score: 3.56 out of 5
3.79
Girls’ average score across wellbeing domains
(resilience, wellbeing, safety)
Boys’ average score across wellbeing domains
(resilience, wellbeing, safety)
3.95
Girls’ average general wellbeing
score
3.46
Boys’ average general wellbeing score
3.69
Differences in wellbeing across gendeR
3.79
Girls’ average score across wellbeing domains
(resilience, wellbeing, safety)
Boys’ average score across wellbeing domains
(resilience, wellbeing, safety)
3.95
Girls’ average general wellbeing
score
3.46
Boys’ average general wellbeing score
3.69
Differences in wellbeing across gendeR
3.79
Girls’ average score across wellbeing domains
(resilience, wellbeing, safety)
Boys’ average score across wellbeing domains
(resilience, wellbeing, safety)
3.95
Girls’ average general wellbeing
score
3.46
Boys’ average general wellbeing score
3.69
Differences in wellbeing
across gendeR