Post COVID Surveys

The Covid-19 pandemic and the consequent changes to lifestyles and education practices have focused the American attention intensely on education and learning, both processes and progress. The shifts from in-classroom to virtual learning and from social to asocial learning and isolated environments have profoundly affected students and teachers as well as education administrators at all levels who are faced with making decisions based on whatever information is available. In consequence the context for national surveys and assessments through the remaining pandemic period and into the post-Covid era will in many ways be new, while contextual changes already underway are accelerated

Important changes are variously attitudinal (i.e., increasing reluctance to participate), transactional (i.e., desires for quid pro quo for participation), content-related (i.e., information on measures of learning delays and strategies for recouping), and technological (i.e., greater familiarity and facility with electronic media and virtual classrooms).

The expert panel identified three broad areas for addressing these changes:

• Recognition and Trust of IES/NCES
• Relationships with Educators, Respondents and other Stakeholders
• Opportunities Arising from Technical Advances and Available Technologies

Broad recommendations in each of these areas are given in the final report. More specifically targeted recommendations appear in the final section of the full report and are appended in abbreviated form to this summary.  Major difficulties with data collection ultimately manifest in non-response; and this is of significant concern when it impacts data quality. For NCES the impact is most acute at the school district level where refusal eliminates all district schools from all (non-mandatory) surveys and assessments. Therefore the expert panel framed part of its discussion specifically at the district level and offered some specific recommendations.