The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the learning and wellbeing of secondary school students: a survey in Southern Europe

The transition from the traditional model of learning and teaching to full online mode had to be implemented in many countries, in an extremely short time, as the 2020-2021 school year was in mid-stream. Secondary education, which includes students in the age range of 12-18, faced many challenges in this rapid change, as many research studies have shown. Researchers raise questions regarding the readiness of the secondary education community to transition to fully online learning. The pilot study reported in this paper deals with the impact of the transition to online learning on secondary schools in southern European countries. More specifically, this paper presents the results of a literature survey and an empirical survey using an online questionnaire which captured non-traceable responses from secondary schools that, voluntarily and anonymously, completed the questionnaire. The questions were mainly closed, with some open-ended questions for students to fill in. The study also aims to capture data on the socio-economic dimension, accessibility/ availability of the necessary technologies that enable online learning, as well as the families’ employment status and their ability to support students. A total of 90 students participated (62% female, 28% male) from three Mediterranean countries. The students’ perspectives as seen by the students themselves along with the difficulties and the issues they faced are compared and contrasted. This investigation offers a pedagogical and socio-technical analysis and highlights the needs for wellbeing as well as quality learning and teaching in the new social distance reality.