Effect of Covid-19 Closures and Distance-Learning on Biology Research Projects of High School Students in Israel

Bibliographic Data

ID22049252
AuthorsReuven Yosef (0000-0003-4331-9866, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, corresponding author), Sigal Talker (Israeli Ministry of Education, Jerusalem 91911, Israel), Irit Sadeh (Israeli Ministry of Education, Jerusalem 91911, Israel)
Year2021
Volume11
Issue11
Pages716
Publication date2021-11-08
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEducation Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2227-7102 • E-ISSN: 2227-7102
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/educsci11110716
OpenAlexW3211609397
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited30

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a situation, the “anthropopause”, of lockdowns and distancing among individuals to reduce the spread of the disease. One of the major problems to surface is the inequality of the educational process in schools. We present a study of high school students who conduct a year-long research project with an academic. We hypothesized that the projects would not be impacted because of the individual manner of study involved. We analyzed the number of research proposals submitted in the years 2015–2021. We compared the data of the pre-epidemic period with the two pandemic years, 2020 and 2021. Our data show that in the years of the pandemic, significantly less research proposals were submitted, and the number of research proposals rejected was lower, but the total number of research proposals approved, or the number of theses submitted, was not significantly different. The research areas in which Israeli high school students conducted research were mostly in the laboratory (63.2%) and agriculture (27.5%), while ecology was relatively insignificant—whether in captivity (3.1%) or the field (5.1%). A new field that is fast becoming of interest is bioinformatics. Research in agriculture was significantly lower during the pandemic period, while there were no differences in the other subjects between the two periods. We conclude that the fewer research proposals submitted suggest that those that did not take the subject seriously enough did not begin the process. This resulted in a lower number of rejections and is substantiated by the fact that an equal number of students that submitted their final theses did not differ from the years before the pandemic. We are optimistic that the truly motivated students will continue to make the effort to be involved in biology science projects over and above their regular school curriculum and in spite of the COVID-19 restrictions and limitations

Agriculture · Biology · Disease · Distancing · Medical education · Pandemic · Socioeconomics · Sociology · COVID-19 and Mental Health · Demography · Dental Research and COVID-19 · Medicine · Psychology · SARS-CoV-2 detection and testing · Ecology

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