Teaching and learning during the first COVID-19 school lockdown: Realization and associations with parent-perceived students' academic outcomes

The lockdown of all schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic faced students, parents, and teachers with new challenges. Within days, teaching changed from classroom teaching to distant teaching and learning. Given the fact that German schools are still not up to the digital and technical infrastructure common in other countries like the U.S. (e.g., Eickelmann & Gerick, 2020), the prerequisites for online teaching via videoconference were not given at most schools (Hoffmann, 2020; Sliwka & Klopsch, 2020). Furthermore, the Ministries of Education of all federal states completely allocated the realization of distant teaching during the school lockdown to the schools (see also Fickermann & Edelstein, 2020; Wrase, 2020). Consequently, the way in which distant teaching was realized at each single school greatly varied between schools (see Goldan, Geist & Lütje-Klose, 2020). Teaching quality is an important prerequisite for students' academic achievement, motivation, and emotion (e.g., Baumert et al., 2010; Klieme, 2020; Lazarides & Buchholz, 2019; Rabbani, Talepasand, Boogar & Mohammadifar, 2018). Consequently, different teaching activities during the school lockdown (in the following labeled as ‘distant teaching activities’) are probably related to students' motivation, learning behaviors and academic achievement when students had to learn at home. To date, just a few studies (e.g., Huber & Helm, 2020; Porsch & Porsch, 2020; Thorell et al., 2021; Wacker, Unger & Rey, 2020; Wildemann & Hosenfeld, 2020) examined on a descriptive level distant teaching and motivational and academic outcomes of children during the COVID-19 school lockdown. Furthermore, researchers discussed the realization of teaching quality during the school lockdown (Voss & Wittwer, 2020). Huber and Helm (2020) furthermore investigated relations between distant teaching activities and students' academic outcomes during the school lockdown controlling for socio-demographic variables and students' characteristics. Given the current dearth of literature concerned with distant teaching and its academic consequences, there is a high need for further research aiming to extend our understanding of the consequences of the school lockdown, in case the COVID-19 pandemic requires further school lockdowns. The aim of the present article was threefold. First, we provide a preliminary overview on studies investigating the realization of distant teaching activities and student outcomes during the school lockdown. Second, we examine differences in the realization of distant teaching. Third, we investigate how these differences were associated with students' motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress during the school lockdown.

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic-related school lockdown on children and adolescents

A first study in seven European countries on over 6,000 children and adolescents that examined the time of the school lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that overall parents found distant teaching to be of poor quality, with insufficient support from schools (Thorell et al., 2021). Between 19–25% of the parents in this study reported that successful learning was not possible at home during the school lockdown due to a lack of structured instructions. Most often teachers only sent out material/homework once a week and parents felt on their own with the responsibility to handle instructions. Porsch and Porsch (2020), for example, reported that 48% of parents had no contact to teachers apart from receiving teaching tasks, and that only 14% were satisfied with the support received from schools. However, some countries were more advanced than others, for example, in Sweden, over 30% of the parents stated that their children received schooling in form of live webinars, whereas only 5.16% of the children in Germany and 4.41% in the UK received such support (Thorell et al., 2021). In a study from Germany, over 50% of the parents (N = 4230) said that their child was not motivated to learn (Wildemann & Hosenfeld, 2020). Teachers sent feedback in 26% of the cases – thus the majority of children did not receive any feedback on task assignments. In accordance with such findings, a small study of N = 169 German students showed that 48% of the students reported to sometimes get feedback from their teachers, 20% never got feedback, and only 19% stated that they often received teacher feedback (Wacker et al., 2020). A possible explanation might be that teachers felt poorly prepared for distant teaching; previous findings indicated that one-third (31.9%) of the 1059 mostly German teachers reported that they did not feel well prepared for distant teaching, whereas only 5.2% of the teachers reported that they felt prepared (Runge, Rubach & Lazarides, 2020). In this context, the finding of another study is highly concerning: almost 30% of participating parents did not see it as their responsibility to motivate their child, and over 20% also used coercive strategies (Wildemann & Hosenfeld, 2020). Not surprisingly, parents reported increased levels of stress, worry, social isolation, reduced subjective well-being and domestic conflicts and a reduced relationship quality with their child during the school lockdown (Lades, Laffan, Daly & Delaney, 2020; Thorell et al., 2021; Wildemann & Hosenfeld, 2020). Especially parents of children with special needs reported strains (Thorell et al., 2021). A positive example of addressing students with special needs is the “Laborschule” that tried to keep up personal contact and regular feedback for students and teachers even though digital infrastructure was also hampered (Goldan et al., 2020).

Summing up, the studies currently available on distant teaching during the school lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate an overall heterogeneous picture, though a substantial number of teachers did not feel prepared for the situation and students as well as parents did not evaluate distant teaching positively and reported negative impacts on their own and their children's well-being and motivation. The majority of these studies is descriptive, though, and – apart from Huber and Helm (2020) – did not examine multivariate interrelations between distant teaching activities and academic outcomes during the school lockdown.

Effective teaching activities and students' motivational and learning success

Students' motivational development and achievement is strongly influenced by features of instruction and teaching (Brophy, 2004; Wentzel & Miele, 2016). In their theoretical framework of generic dimensions of teaching quality, Klieme and colleagues (Klieme, Pauli, & Reusser, 2009; Praetorius, Klieme, Herbert, & Pinger, 2018) describe three basic dimensions of effective teaching: cognitive activation, classroom management, and learning support. These generic dimensions are substantially related to successful learning and thus need to be considered when implementing distant teaching during the school lockdown (Voss & Wittwer, 2020). In this context, it might be possible that different distant teaching activities contribute differently to students' outcomes during the school lock down (Eickelmann & Gerick, 2020). For example, an effective classroom management defined by actions of the teacher to establish order, or to elicit cooperation among students (Emmer & Stough, 2001) might be of less importance. However, other activities such as cognitive activation in learning processes, clarity of instruction, comprehensibility and structure of tasks, effective support through regular feedback, and individualized learning support can theoretically be realized in distant teaching and are expected to be highly salient when aiming to enhance students' motivation, learning behaviours and achievement during the school lockdown.

Cognitive activation refers to the encouragement of students to develop their own solutions, to try out multiple solution paths and to critically evaluate their own solutions (Baumert et al., 2010), and also refers to the provision of challenging tasks that draw on students' prior knowledge (Hiebert & Grouws, 2007). Cognitive activation is positively related to students' achievement (Fauth et al., 2019; Kunter et al., 2013; Schiepe-Tiska, Heine, Lüdtke, Seidel, & Prenzel, 2016). Relations between cognitive activation and students' motivation are somehow unresolved. Some studies found non-significant effects on students' motivation in elementary (Fauth et al., 2019) and secondary school (Schiepe-Tiska et al., 2016), whereas other studies found positive relations between cognitive activation and students' enjoyment in elementary (Fauth, Decristan, Rieser, Klieme, & Büttner, 2014) and in secondary school (Lazarides & Buchholz, 2019). In times of distant teaching, possible ways to implement cognitive activation is providing opportunities for students to get involved with the learning content on a higher-order level, for example, through tasks that challenge cognitive involvement (e.g., discussing multiple solution paths). Thus, students can be cognitively activated by cooperative learning activities in which they exchange thoughts and explanations (Voss & Wittwer, 2020). In this context, research showed that, in elementary school, the majority of tasks during the school lockdown were repetitions and practice tasks (see also Sliwka & Klopsch, 2020); and that in high school, tasks were overall neither diverse nor cognitively activating as indicated by over 60% of the parents (Wildemann & Hosenfeld, 2020). Therefore, only sending out tasks and solutions as realized often during the school lockdown (Porsch & Porsch, 2020) might not contribute to students' successful learning. In this study we expect that the encouragement to critically evaluate own solutions (Baumert et al., 2010) through regular task-related feedback by the teacher enhances learners' motivation, learning behaviors, and learning progress (e,g. Klieme, 2020).

Learning support is particularly important for students' motivational development (Deci & Ryan, 2002; Klieme et al., 2009) and is characterized, for example, by emotional supportive teacher-student relationships, and adaptive and individualized learning support by the teacher (Praetorius et al., 2018). Teacher-student relationships have been shown to be highly relevant for students' intrinsic motivation to learn (Niemiec & Ryan, 2009), academic effort, and valuing of learning (Goodenow, 1993; Roeser, Eccles, & Sameroff, 1998). Thus, we suggest that student-teacher communication is highly relevant for students' motivation, learning behaviors, and learning progress during the school lock down. Individualized learning support is also highly relevant for students' motivation (Van de Pol, Volman, & Beishuizen, 2010). Individual support in terms of task-related feedback has been outlined in research on effective instruction as one of the strongest predictors of students' achievement (Hattie & Timperley, 2007), but also on students' motivation (e.g. Weidinger, Spinath & Steinmayr, 2016). Both, emotional and individualized support have – at least in some cases – been reduced during the school lockdown as compared to regular classroom settings (Huber & Helm, 2020; Porsch & Porsch, 2020; Wacker et al., 2020). According to the Landau study (Wildemann & Hosenfeld, 2020), 35.6% of parents indicated that their child's teacher did not asks for assignments to be sent back; 18.4% of the children never or seldom received feedback from teachers, 17.9% sometimes and only 26.1% received feedback regularly; similar results were obtained in other studies (Porsch & Porsch, 2020; Wacker et al., 2020). However, these results have to be interpreted with caution as they refer to few empirical studies that mainly investigated families with a relatively high socio-economic background. More research is needed that examines the quantity and quality of support and contact during the school lockdown. Given the importance of student-teacher communication, we assume that distant teaching activities that comprise interpersonal forms of communication positively relate to motivation, learning behaviors and learning progress whereas more indirect forms of support or feedback (e.g., grading or sending out tasks) are less important for these academic outcomes.

Supportive teaching is strongly interrelated and often even depends on the effective cooperation between teachers and parents (Epstein, 1987; Ma, Shen, Krenn, Hu, & Yuan, 2016). Students whose teachers succeed in building cooperative relationships to their parents are highly likely to be engaged in learning and experience higher achievement gains across time than their peers with lower teacher-parent relationship quality (Hughes & Kwok, 2007). In the Landau study on distant teaching, the majority of parents (62.7%) stated that they did not have any exchanges with teachers during the school lockdown, apart from e-mails teachers sent with weekly assignments (Wildemann & Hosenfeld, 2020). This lack of communication was also shown by others (Köller, Fleckenstein, Guill & Meyer, 2020; Porsch & Porsch, 2020). However, it needs to be taken into account that despite teachers' willingness to cooperate with their students, they often did not feel prepared for the situation of distant teaching (Runge et al., 2020), calling for a need for more professional training within the context of methods for distant teaching and teaching quality in the context of digital tools. Particularly students in elementary school need additional teacher support during times of school lockdowns because young students do not seek autonomy from adult socializers yet (Havighurst, 1948) whereas secondary school students are more autonomous and more independent (Eccles & Roeser, 2009). Therefore, we hypothesize that perceived teacher support (e.g., provided by communicating with the teacher, and cooperation between parents and teachers) matters more in elementary school than in secondary school.

Student and family characteristics

Apart from teaching activities, student and family characteristics matter for students' individual achievement (see Köller, 2012) and motivation (e.g., Steinmayr, Dinger & Spinath, 2012; Weidinger et al., 2016). According to the expectancy-value theory (EVT; Eccles [Parsons] et al., 1983; Wigfield, Tonks & Klauda, 2016), students interpret current achievement situations against the background of their current abilities, their own temperament, and their perceptions of the beliefs and behaviour of relevant others, like their parents. Students' achievement motivation (i.e., their expectancies and values) depends on this (un)conscious interpretation and determines whether students will engage in tasks and will do well in school or not. Therefore, students' academic outcomes during the school lockdown (i.e., motivation, learning behavior, and achievement) should be substantially related to students' temperament (e.g., negative emotionality), school engagement, and competencies (Sliwka & Klopsch, 2020). A variety of studies demonstrated substantial relations between these factors and students' academic outcomes (e.g., Hintsanen et al., 2012; Steinmayr, Weidinger & Wigfield, 2018; Šimunović & Babarović, 2020) in elementary and secondary school. Moreover, studies frequently demonstrated the association between social background variables and academic achievement as well as learning motivation, in general and during the school lockdown (e.g., Huber & Helm, 2020; Steinmayr et al., 2012). Overall 86% of teachers who participated in the German School Barometer (2020) stated that effects of social inequality would be intensified due to the school lockdown during the pandemic, with 31% (Grammar School) to 39% (basic schooling/“Hauptschule”) of teachers assuming significant achievement delays of their students.

Aims of the present study

Hitherto, there are few studies investigating how differences in distant teaching activities between teachers were related to important student outcomes during the school lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The first aim of the present study therefore was to investigate how distant teaching was realized in schools in Germany. Because different teaching activities influenced students' cognitive, motivational and affective learning outcomes in regular classroom settings (e.g., Baumert et al., 2010; Lazarides & Buchholz, 2019), we expected that different forms of distant teaching (e.g., grading, sending tasks vs. task-related feedback, provision of solutions, direct communication with students and parents) would be differentially associated with students' motivation, learning behaviors and achievement during the school lockdown. We thereby also considered differential effects depending on the school level (elementary versus secondary school) under investigation. More precisely, we expected that teacher communication and feedback would be more important in younger age groups, and thus, for elementary school students' motivation, learning behavior and achievement. Unlike other studies that asked how teachers realized distant teaching on a general level (e.g., Huber & Helm, 2020), we asked how teachers in specific subjects acted during the school lockdown (see also Wildemann & Hosenfeld, 2020) to exploratorily investigate whether there are subject-specific differences.

Furthermore, studies indicated that students' individual characteristics and family-related socio-economic resources were substantially associated with students' motivation, their behavior, and achievement during the school lockdown (e.g., Huber & Helm, 2020; Porsch & Porsch, 2020; Sliwka & Klopsch, 2020). Thus, the second aim of the present study was to investigate whether differences in distant teaching would be associated with students' motivation, learning behavior, and achievement during the school lockdown controlling for students' background variables and individual characteristics. In terms of learning behaviors, we focus on competent and independent learning during the school lockdown, which is important because it is strongly related to students' intrinsic motivation and is known to relate to students' overall academic attainment (Klieme, 2020; Wild, Rammert & Siegmund, 2006).

To address these objectives, parents gave information on students' individual characteristics (i.e., negative emotionality, school engagement, and competencies in math and language arts), and on the child's social background, resources and their own educational level beside distant teaching activities. Furthermore, we assessed indicators of wealth goods (see Wendt, Bos, Goy & Jusufi, 2017), which we considered to be important during the school lockdown, for example having an own bedroom or possessing a computer or tablet that she/he could use during the school lockdown (see also Huber & Helm, 2020; Wacker et al., 2020). Moreover, we asked for child's and parent's gender and age as at least children's gender and age are important predictors of academic outcomes (see Herbert & Stipek, 2005).

By this means we wanted to extend the findings by Huber and Helm (2020) by considering more student characteristics and socio-demographic variables as predictors of students' academic outcomes during school lockdown (Huber and Helm: students' autonomy and age, parental support, family situation during the pandemic, technical resources; present study: students' negative emotionality, school engagement, and competencies in math and language arts, students' as well as parents' age and gender, technical resources, an own room for the child, parents' education and migration background). Specifically, we aimed at investigating the following research questions:

RQ1: How are distant teaching activities associated with students' motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress during the school lockdown?

RQ2: Do different teaching activities play a different role for elementary vs. secondary school students' motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress during the school lockdown?

RQ3: Are those distant teaching activities that involve direct forms of interpersonal feedback and communication (e.g., task-related feedback, teaching via videoconference, and student-teacher communication) particularly strongly related to students' motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress during the school lockdown when simultaneously taking into account other forms of distant teaching activities (e.g., grading, frequency of sending out tasks)?

RQ4: Do students' characteristics and social background variables add to the variance explanation of students' motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress during the school lockdown above distant teaching activities?

Method

Instruments

Motivation during the school lockdown

Two items assessed students' motivation during the school lockdown. The first one was “My child works motivated on the assignments during the school lockdown” and the second one “My child enjoys working on her/his assignments during the school lockdown.” Both items were used in prior studies to assess motivation in school (self-ratings: Steinmayr & Spinath, 2010; parent-ratings: Steinmayr, Michels & Weidinger, 2017) and are based on items used by Eccles and her colleagues (Eccles et al., 1983; Eccles & Wigfield, 1995). In this study, we added “during school lockdown” to all items. Parents were asked to read through the items and indicate whether the following statements apply to their situation at home during the school lockdown. They answered the items on a 5-point Likert scale with the following answer options: 1 “Strongly disagree”, 2 “Disagree”, 3 “Neutral”, 4 “Agree” and 5 “Strongly agree”. The two items were combined to a “motivation during the school lockdown” scale, which had a high reliability (see Table 1).

Table 1 Means (M), Standard Deviation (SD), internal consistencies (>α) as well as bivariate correlations for the overall sample (above the diagonal parametric, below non-parametric)

	M	SD	>α	1)	2)	3)	4)	5)	6)	7)	8)	9)	10)			11)	12)	13)	14)	15)	16)	17)	18)	19)	20)	21)	22)	23)
Notes:N = 2,267–2,628. Highest school leaving certificate: 0 = no or vocational track school leaving certificate, 1 = academic track school leaving certificate; Child has an own bedroom: 0 = no, 1 = yes; Child has a computer/tablet: 0 = no, 1 = yes; Gender: 0 = male, 1 = female; migration background: 0 = no, 1 = yes. Separate tables for the elementary and secondary school samples can be found in supplements 6 and 7 in the ESM. aThe median was reported instead of the mean as the scores were skewed. bScale ranged from 1 to 5. cScale ranged from 1 to 6. dScale ranged from 1 to 7. Correlations: r >> .04, p >< .05.
Student outcomes during the school lockdown															Student outcomes during the school lockdown
1) Motivationb	2.70	1.11	.89		.52	.59	.12	.14	.13	.20	.09	.11	.21		1) Motivationb	.09	–.30	.42	.15	.17	.04	.04	–.03	–.07	<.01	.04	.12	.06
2) Competent and independent learningb	3.17	1.04	.85	.51		.30	.09	.11	.08	.13	.03	.10	.14		2) Competent and independent learningb	<–.01	–.31	.37	.28	.29	.11	.01	–.08	–.09	.03	.08	.07	.18
3) Learning progressb	2.82	1.15		.57	.29		.09	.09	.09	.18	.05	.09	.17		3) Learning progressb	.18	–.10	.25	.13	.15	.06	.04	–.01	–.02	.08	–.06	.02	–.10
Frequency of distant teaching activities															Frequency of distant teaching activities
4) Tasksc	3.75a	0.89	.76	.12	.10	.08		.59	.54	.41	.08	.29	.31		4) Tasksc	–.01	–.06	.08	.02	.02	–.02	–.02	–.04	–.13	–.04	.17	<.01	.37
5) Task solutionsc	2.50 a	1.27	.85	.14	.11	.08	.59		.42	.47	.11	.35	.31		5) Task solutionsc	.03	–.03	.06	.02	.00	–.04	–.03	–.06	–.10	–.05	.16	<.01	.33
6) Request solutionsc	2.75 a	1.29	.88	.13	.08	.09	.54	.42		.64	.15	.28	.35		6) Request solutionsc	.00	–.06	.04	–.04	.02	–.02	.03	–.06	–.10	–.08	.20	<–.01	.38
7) Feedbackc	1.75 a	1.18	.85	.19	.13	.16	.41	.47	.64		.22	.31	.44		7) Feedbackc	.15	–.04	.08	.02	.06	–.03	–.01	–.04	–.10	–.04	.13	.02	.24
8) Gradingc	1.00 a	0.58	.92	.07	.02	.03	.08	.11	.15	.22		.08	.10		8) Gradingc	.04	–.05	.03	–.02	–.01	–.08	.03	.04	.00	–.03	.02	.03	.11
9) Videoconferencec	1.00 a	0.87	.81	.09	.11	.06	.29	.35	.28	.31	.08		.38		9) Videoconferencec	.03	–.04	.02	.01	.02	.05	–.04	–.03	–.08	–.06	.18	<.01	.28
10) Communication childc	1.50 a	1.18	.86	.20	.13	.16	.31	.31	.35	.44	.10	.38			10) Communication childc	.22	–.04	.08	–.01	.06	.01	–.01	–.05	–.14	–.04	.12	.02	.23
11) Communication parentc	1.00 a	0.94	.86	.06	–.03	.17	<–.01	.03	<.01	.15	.04	.03	.22		11) Communication parentc		.11	–.03	.03	.00	.00	–.02	.05	–.01	.02	–.15	–.02	–.29
Student characteristics															Student characteristics
12) Negative emotionalityd	3.80	1.26	.84	–.29	–.30	–.09	–.06	–.03	–.06	–.04	–.05	–.04	–.04		12) Negative emotionalityd	.11		–.26	–.08	–.10	.00	–.05	.02	.02	.04	–.09	–.15	–.17
13) School engagementd	4.08	1.22	.81	.41	.37	.24	.08	.06	.04	.08	.03	.02	.08		13) School engagementd	–.03	–.26		.37	.44	.08	.00	–.02	–.07	.03	.03	.18	.02
14) Math competenciesd	4.60	1.50	.98	.14	.28	.12	.02	.02	–.04	.02	–.02	<.01	–.01		14) Math competenciesd	.03	–.08	.37		.31	.12	–.01	–.02	–.02	–.04	–.02	–.18	–.09
15) Language arts competenciesd	4.82	1.33	.92	.17	.30	.15	.02	<.01	.02	.06	<–.01	.02	.06		15) Language arts competenciesd	<.01	–.10	.44	.31		.15	.00	.01	–.03	.00	.03	.12	–.04
Social background															Social background
16) Highest school leaving certificate	0.78	0.42		.04	.11	.06	–.02	–.04	–.02	–.03	–.08	.05	<.01		16) Highest school leaving certificate	.00	<.01	.08	.12	.15		.00	–.04	–.05	–.08	.14	.01	–.07
17) Migration background	0.07	0.26		.04	<.01	.04	–.02	–.03	.03	–.01	.03	–.04	<–.01		17) Migration background	–.02	–.05	<–.01	–.01	.00	<.01		.06	.00	.01	–.04	.01	.00
18) Child has an own room	0.91	0.29		.03	.08	<.01	.04	.06	.06	.04	–.04	.03	.05		18) Child has an own room	–.05	–.02	<.01	.02	–.01	.04	–.06		–.10	<–.01	.17	<.01	.12
19) Child has a computer/tablet	0.93	0.26		.08	.09	.03	.13	.10	.10	.10	<.01	.08	.14		19) Child has a computer/tablet	<.01	–.02	.07	.02	.03	.05	.00	–.10		–.03	.11	<–.01	.17
Child's and parent's gender and age															Child's and parent's gender and age
20) Parent's gender	0.85	0.38		–.01	.03	.07	–.04	–.05	–.07	–.03	–.01	–.07	–.02		20) Parent's gender	.02	.04	.02	–.04	.00	–.08	.01	<.01	.03		–.19	.08	–.03
21) Parent's age	43.37	5.66		.04	.08	–.07	.17	.16	.20	.13	.02	.18	.12		21) Parent's age	–.15	–.09	.03	–.02	.03	.14	–.04	–.17	–.11	–.19		.01	.43
22) Child's gender	0.52	0.59		.12	.07	.02	<.01	<.01	<.01	.02	.03	.03	.03		22) Child's gender	–.03	–.16	.18	–.19	.13	.01	.01	<–.01	<.01	.08	.02		–.01
23) Child's age	10.84	2.70		.06	.17	–.11	.37	.33	.38	.25	.13	.28	.23		23) Child's age	–.29	–.17	.02	–.09	–.04	–.07	<–.01	–.12	–.17	–.03	.43	–.01

Table 1 Means (M), Standard Deviation (SD), internal consistencies (>α) as well as bivariate correlations for the overall sample (above the diagonal parametric, below non-parametric)

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Competent and independent learning during the school lockdown

Three items assessed whether the children were able to work competent and independently on school tasks during the school lockdown, that is, without parental support. The items were the following: “My child accomplishes her/his assignment during the school lockdown without any difficulties”, “My child only accomplishes her/his assignment during the school lockdown with my or my partner's help” (reversely coded), and “My child needs a lot of support for doing her/his school tasks during the school lockdown” (reversely coded). The first item was used in prior studies to assess self-perceived competencies in school (e.g., Steinmayr & Spinath, 2009; Schöne, Dickhäuser, Spinath & Stiensmeier-Pelster, 2002). It was reformulated for parent-ratings and it referred to the school lockdown situation. The two other items were developed for the present study referring to Wild et al. (2006; see also Jopt, 1978). Parents answered the items on the same scale as the motivation items. The scale's reliability was high (see Table 1), indicating that the items assessed competent and independent learning as described in Wild et al. (2006).

Learning progress during the school lockdown

The item “My child learns a lot during the school lockdown” assessed parents' perception of their child's learning progress during the school lockdown. The item was part of the parent questionnaire in TIMSS 2015 (Wendt et al., 2017) assessing how content parents are with their children's school. We chose this item because it was the only one referring to learning progress. We added “during the school lockdown”. Parents answered the item on the same scale as the motivation items. The item correlated in the expected direction with the other items; for example, correlation with “motivation during the school lockdown” was high (see Table 1).

Distant teaching activities

Items assessing how schools realized distant teaching during the school lockdown were developed for this project. The different German federal states only gave recommendations on how to realize distant teaching and did not provide promulgations. Based on these recommendations and further teaching aspects influencing students' motivation and learning that might theoretically be realized in distant teaching, we created eight items assessing the perceived frequency at which the main subject teachers (mathematics, language arts, English) and the science/biology teachers realized these aspects. Specifically, we asked the parents for the frequency at which the teacher sent tasks and solutions, requested students' solutions, gave feedback on those, graded students' solutions, taught via videoconference, and had contact with the child and/or parent via chat, e-mail or phone. Answers were given on a scale with six answer options: 1 “Not yet”, 2 “Every three weeks”, 3 “Every two weeks”, 4 “Every week”, 5 “Twice per week”, 6 “Three times per week or more”. Parents were asked to answer these questions for every subject even if the same teacher taught these subjects. Items referring to the same distant teaching activity were summed up indicating how this aspect of distant teaching was realized in general at the school that the rated child attended. Reliabilities were at least satisfactory (see Table 1).

Parent ratings of student characteristics

Parents were instructed to compare their child with children of the same age when rating their child's negative emotionality, school engagement, and math and language arts abilities. Parents answered all items on a 7-point scale. For each of the seven points of the scale, we indicated the percentage of students from the overall population that would be in this category, given a normal distribution: 1 = “far below average [about 2% of all students]”, 2 = “below average [about 14% of all students]”, 3 = “slightly below average [about 15.5% of all students]”, 4 = “average [about 37% of all students]”, 5 = “slightly above average [about 15.5% of all students]”, 6 = “above average [about 14% of all students]”, 7 = “far above average [about 2% of all students]”. All items had previously been used in a parent survey (Steinmayr et al., 2017; Steinmayr, Weidinger, Heyder & Bergold, 2019).

Negative emotionality

In this study, negative emotionality refers to the child's tendency to easily experience negative feelings such as anger. Parents' perception of their child's negative emotionality was assessed with the following four items that were adapted from the Personality questionnaire for children between the age of 9 and 14 (Persönlichkeitsfragebogen für Kinder zwischen 9 und 14 Jahren, PFK 9–14; Seitz & Rausche, 2019): “My child is easily annoyed about something”, “It is mostly difficult for my child to be patient”, and “My child gets angry quickly”. We excluded the item “My child is often afraid of a class test.” In preliminary analysis with this sample and the sample depicted in Steinmayr et al. (2019), we conducted exploratory factor analysis. The test anxiety item did not load highly on the negative emotionality factor (λs < .5) and had a high cross-loading (λs > .3). Reliability of the scale with three items was high (see Table 1).

School engagement

Parents' perception of their child's school engagement was assessed with the short version of the Behavioral Engagement and Disaffection scales developed by Skinner, Kindermann, and Furrer (2008). We assessed behavioral engagement with the following items: “My child tries hard to do well in school”, “My child listens carefully if someone explains something to her/him”, and “My child always takes an effort to do her/his homework well.”

Math and language arts abilities

Parents' perception of their child's abilities in the domain of math was assessed by the following three items (adapted from Lorenz, 2011): “My child is talented in math”, “My child has a good understanding of mathematical relations”, and “My child can solve arithmetic problems well.” Parents' perception of their child's ability in the domain of language arts was assessed by the following four items (adapted from Lorenz, 2011): “My child is talented in German”, “My child can understand texts well”, “My child has an extensive vocabulary”, and “My child can read well”.

Social background

Four items assessed families' social background. First, we asked for the rater's highest school leaving certificate (“No school leaving certificate”, “lower vocational track leaving certificate [Hauptschulabschluss]”, “higher vocational track leaving certificate [Mittlere Reife]”, “lower academic track school leaving certificate [Fachhochschulreife]”, “higher academic track school leaving certificate [Allgemeine Hochschulreife]”, and “others”). The variable was dummy-coded by recoding no or vocational track leaving certificates as 0 and both academic track school leaving certificates as 1. “Others” were coded as missing (-99). Second, parents indicated if they were born in Germany or in a different country as a measure of migration background. The variable was also dummy-coded with 0 “born in Germany” and 1 “not born in Germany”. Third, we assessed whether the rated child had a bedroom for her-/himself, and whether the child had a computer or tablet at her/his disposal for her/his assignments during the school lockdown (see Wendt et al., 2017). Answer options for the latter two items were 0 “no” and 1 “yes”.

Further demographics

Additionally, we considered children's and parents' age and gender. Children's and parents' gender was dummy-coded with 0 “male” and 1 “female”.

Statistical Analyses

Descriptive statistics were calculated with SPSS 26. We applied MPlus Version 7.4 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2015) to examine the measurement models of distant teaching activities and to set up structure equation models (SEMs) investigating simultaneously distant teaching activities and students' outcomes during the school lockdown with and without students' characteristics. We used weighted least square mean and variance adjusted (WLSMV) as a parameter estimator because most items were only ordinal and nearly all outcomes were skewed and not normally distributed. Data depended on the educational system of the different federal states. Furthermore, due to the different data gathering methods (see above) it could not be excluded that data in all federal states were selected with the same probability. This might result in distorted standard errors (see McNeish, Stapleton & Silverman, 2017; Stapleton, McNeish & Yang, 2016). Thus, we used type = complex to control for the nested data structure (see Asparouhov, 2005, 2006).

Figure 1 depicts, among others, the measurement model of distant teaching activities (for more information on the measurement model of distant teaching activities see supplement 2 in the ESM). The SEMs were set up in the following way: In the first model, the eight distant teaching activities were simultaneously regressed on parent rated student's motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress during distant learning (see Figure 1).¹ Perceived motivation and competent and independent learning were modelled as latent factors, learning progress as manifest variable. Residuals of the endogenous factors and learning progress were correlated. Furthermore, all exogenous factors correlated as set as default in MPlus. Then, parent rated child's general negative emotionality, school engagement, abilities in math and language arts (all modelled as latent factors), dummy-coded parent's highest school leaving certificate, migration background, possession of a laptop or a tablet during school lockdown, possession of an own bedroom, child's and parent's gender and age were additionally regressed on parent rated student's motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress. All exogenous variables were correlated to ensure that the path weights on the three endogenous variables can be interpreted as a unique effect of the exogenous variables.²

Analyses were run for the total sample and separately for elementary and secondary schools as we assumed some distant teaching activities to be differently important for elementary and secondary school students (RQ 2).³

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Since the school lockdown was completely new for everyone, we will first present the frequencies concerning the distant teaching quality items to gain an overview on how distant teaching was realized at different schools. Table 2 shows the frequencies for the total sample (separate tables and figures for elementary and secondary school can be found in supplements 3–5 in the ESM).

Table 2 Frequencies and percentages of all distant teaching activities by all teachers

How often did the following teacher …	Not yet		1 every 3 weeks		1 every 2 weeks		Every week		2 per week		3 per week (or more)
	Fre.	Perc.		Fre.	Perc.		Fre.	Perc.		Fre.	Perc.		Fre.	Perc.		Fre.	Perc.
Notes: N = 2,507–2,628. Freq. = Frequency; Perc. = valid Percent. Separate tables and figures for elementary and secondary school samples can be found in supplements 3–5 in the ESM.
… sent tasks?
Math teacher	49	1.9		182	6.9		338	12.9		1,724	65.6		183	7.0		152	5.8
Language arts teacher	58	2.2		188	7.2		374	14.2		1,702	64.8		174	6.6		132	5.0
English teacher	605	23.0		195	7.4		262	10.0		1,311	49.9		162	6.2		93	3.5
Biology/Science teacher	659	25.1		281	10.7		399	15.2		1,182	45.0		65	2.5		42	1.6
… sent solutions?
Math teacher	840	32.3		133	5.1		225	8.6		1,181	45.4		107	4.1		118	4.5
Language arts teacher	1,097	42.1		108	4.1		228	8.8		985	37.8		89	3.4		97	3.7
English teacher	1,270	48.8		84	3.2		192	7.4		907	34.8		80	3.1		71	2.7
Biology/Science teacher	1,437	55.2		128	4.9		225	8.6		730	28.0		43	1.7		41	1.6
… requested students' solutions?
Math teacher	860	33.3		169	6.6		200	7.8		1,126	43.6		126	4.9		99	3.8
Language arts teacher	805	31.2		213	8.3		250	9.7		1,116	43.3		108	4.2		88	3.4
English teacher	1,147	44.5		138	5.3		187	7.2		947	36.7		101	3.9		60	2.3
Biology/Science teacher	1,277	49.5		164	6.4		263	10.2		795	30.8		50	1.9		31	1.2
… gave feedback on students' solutions?
Math teacher	1,340	52.5		224	8.8		206	8.1		645	25.3		77	3.0		61	2.4
Language arts teacher	1,264	49.5		262	10.3		249	9.8		641	25.1		74	2.9		63	2.5
English teacher	1,555	60.9		165	6.5		218	8.5		499	19.5		73	2.9		43	1.7
Biology/Science teacher	1,723	67.5		170	6.7		185	7.2		408	16.0		38	1.5		28	1.1
… graded students' solutions?
Math teacher	2,346	92.5		54	2.1		41	1.6		78	3.1		9	0.4		8	0.3
Language arts teacher	2,326	91.7		60	2.4		55	2.2		81	3.2		7	0.3		7	0.3
English teacher	2,366	93.3		48	1.9		37	1.5		71	2.8		6	0.2		8	0.3
Biology/Science teacher	2,398	94.6		44	1.7		36	1.4		50	2.0		3	0.1		5	0.2
… taught via videoconference?
Math teacher	1,973	78.1		121	4.8		73	2.9		272	10.8		50	2.0		38	1.5
Language arts teacher	2,012	76.6		130	4.9		71	2.7		228	8.7		49	1.9		37	1.4
English teacher	2,079	82.3		98	3.9		83	3.3		203	8.0		38	1.5		26	1.0
Biology/Science teacher	2,294	90.8		48	1.9		36	1.4		108	4.3		21	0.8		20	0.8
… had contact with the child?
Math teacher	1,433	57.0		317	12.6		140	5.6		423	16.8		106	4.2		97	3.9
Language arts teacher	1,354	53.8		368	14.6		176	7.0		434	17.2		98	3.9		86	3.4
English teacher	1,660	66.0		198	7.9		130	5.2		381	15.1		78	3.1		69	2.7
Biology/Science teacher	1,901	72.3		168	6.4		92	3.5		276	10.5		41	1.6		38	1.4
… had contact with a parent?
Math teacher	1,652	65.9		348	13.9		145	5.8		286	11.4		39	1.6		37	1.5
Language arts teacher	1,572	62.7		395	15.8		158	6.3		299	11.9		44	1.8		39	1.6
English teacher	2,003	79.9		195	7.8		93	3.7		166	6.6		29	1.2		21	0.8
Biology/Science teacher	2,082	79.2		138	5.3		83	3.2		156	5.9		22	0.8		26	1.0

Table 2 Frequencies and percentages of all distant teaching activities by all teachers

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Most teachers realized distant teaching by sending tasks to the students. Between 45% (science/biology) and 67% (math) teachers also sent solutions for these tasks. Requesting students' solutions of the sent tasks applied to 51% (science/biology) to 68% (language arts) of the teachers. However, only 33% (science/biology) to 50% (language arts) of all teachers gave feedback on students' solutions. Only 5% (science/biology) to 8% (language arts) of all teachers graded students' solutions. The percentage of teachers' teaching via videoconference was also small (9% in science/biology to 23% in language arts). Between 28% (science/biology) to 46% (language arts) of all teachers had contact with their students via telecommunication tools. About 20% (English) to 34% (language arts) of the teachers had contact with a parent via telecommunication tools. Furthermore, how often teachers realized the different distant teaching activities varied greatly between them. If a teacher realized a distant teaching activity, it was mostly realized once a week.

School level differences were shown between elementary and secondary school English and science/biology teachers. In elementary school, the focus was clearly on distant teaching of math and language arts. The frequencies at which distant teaching activities were realized in English and science were all lower than the same activities realized for math and language arts. Furthermore, there were also some (smaller) differences between elementary and secondary school depending on the focused activity in the same subject (e.g., contact with a parent).

Table 1 shows descriptive statistics and bivariate correlation for the overall sample (separate tables for elementary and secondary school can be found in supplements 6 and 7 in the ESM). For the distant teaching activities, we conducted non-parametric correlations.

As assumed in our first research question (RQ 1), most distant teaching activities correlated significantly positively with students' motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress during the school lockdown (p > .05). The same was true for the elementary school subsample. However, effect sizes were rather small (see Table 1). Giving feedback and communicating with the child demonstrated the highest correlations with students' motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress during the school lockdown for both elementary and secondary school. All student characteristics (negative emotionality, school engagement, math and language arts competencies) correlated lower than r = .10 with distant teaching activities with one exception: the higher parents rated their child's negative emotionality, the more often they had contact with the teacher. Distant teaching activities were not significantly correlated with sociodemographic variables or the association was minuscule with one exception: child's age. Child's age mostly displayed medium correlations with distant teaching activities. Thus, the older the children, the more often teachers realized distant teaching activities.

In line with RQ 2, some associations between distant teaching activities and students' motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress differed between elementary and secondary schools:sending solution x learning progress: z = –2.28, p = .022; requesting students' solution x motivation: z = –2.00, p = .046; requesting students' solution x competent and independent learning: z = –2.13, p = .034; requesting students' solution x learning progress: z = –2.74, p = .006; feedback x motivation: z = –3.59, p < .001; feedback x competent and independent learning: z = –2.52, p = .012; feedback x learning progress: z = –3.59, p < .001; student-teacher communication x learning progress: z = –2.96, p = .004; parent-teacher communication x motivation: z = 2.64, p = .008; parent-teacher communication x competent and independent learning: z = 2.84, p = .004. Correlations were higher in the secondary school sample besides the correlations concerning “parent-teacher communication”; in that case they were higher in the elementary school sample. Given the partly different correlations, SEMs were performed for the total sample and separately for the elementary and secondary samples.

Structural Equation Models

First, we tested the measurement model of the distant teaching activities (measurement model depicted in Figure 1). The model demonstrated an excellent model fit: χ ²(df = 366) = 490.18, p < .001; RMSEA = .012 (90% confidence interval: .009; .014); CFI = .997; TLI = .996.

Second, we regressed the different teaching activities and students' characteristics on students' motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress during the school lockdown (see Figure 1; results without students' characteristics and demographics can be found in supplements 8 and 9 in the ESM). Table 3 displays correlations between residuals and model fit indices for the total sample, elementary and secondary schools. The model fit was excellent in all models. Table 4 depicts path coefficients from all independent variables to students' motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress for the different samples.

Table 3 Model fit indices and inter-correlations between exogenous variables for SEMs regressing distant teaching activities and students' characteristics on students' academic outcomes during the school lockdown for the total sample (All), elementary school (ES) and secondary school (Sec)

	χ² (df)	RMSEA (CI 90%)	CFI	TLI	r resM x resC	r resM x resL	r resC x resL
Notes: resM = residual factor motivation, resC = residual factor competent and independent learning, resL = residual learning process.
All	1,663.54 (1290)	.011 (.009–.012)	.988	.984	.548	.594	.375
ES	1,388.99 (1290)	.009 (.003–.012)	.994	.992	.497	.567	.300
Sec	1,470.11 (1290)	.010 (.007–.012)	.988	.984	.546	.611	.267

Table 3 Model fit indices and inter-correlations between exogenous variables for SEMs regressing distant teaching activities and students' characteristics on students' academic outcomes during the school lockdown for the total sample (All), elementary school (ES) and secondary school (Sec)

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Table 4 Path weights (β) and standard error (SE) of the SEM regressing distant teaching activities on students' academic outcomes during the school lockdown controlling for students' school-related characteristics, socio-economic background, and parent' and child's age and gender for the full sample (‘All’) as well as for elementary school (‘ES’) and secondary schools (‘Sec’)

Model	Motivation		Competent and independent learning		Learning progress
	All	ES	Sec		All	ES	Sec		All	ES	Sec
	>β	SE	>β	SE	>β	SE		>β	SE	>β	SE	>β	SE		>β	SE	>β	SE	>β	SE
Notes: Tasks = Sending Tasks; Tasks Solutions = Sending Task Solutions; Request Solutions = Requesting students' solutions; Feedback = Providing feedback on students' solutions; Video = Teaching via videoconference; Com. Child = Student-teacher communication; Com. Parent = parent-teacher communication; Neg. emotionality = negative emotionality; Engagement = school engagement; Math competence = competencies in math; Language competence = competencies in language arts; HSLC = highest school leaving certificate; Migration = migration background; Own room = Child has an own bedroom; Computer = Child has a computer/tablet during the school lockdown. Highest school leaving certificate: 0 = no or vocational track school leaving certificate, 1 = academic track school leaving certificate; migration background: 0 = no, 1 = yes; Child has an own bedroom: 0 = no, 1 = yes; Child has a computer/tablet: 0 = no, 1 = yes; Gender: 0 = male, 1 = female. *p >< .05.
Distant teaching activities during the school lockdown
Tasks	.03*	.02	–.02	.02	.12*	.03		.02	.02	.03	.06	.02	.03		.10*	.04	–.03	.03	.11	.07
Task solutions	.06*	.02	.01	.04	.08*	.02		.03	.02	.06	.04	.02	.03		><. 01	.03	.05	.04	.09	.06
Request solutions	.02	.03	–.06	.05	.02	.03		–.01	.03	–.05	.04	–.06	.02		.01	.04	.01	.06	.04	.07
Feedback	.07	.04	.12	.06	.15*	.03		.05	.03	><.01	.05	.14*	.02		.11*	.04	.04	.05	.14*	.05
Grading	><.01	.02	.05	.04	–.14*	.03		–.02	.03	><.01	.05	–.09*	.04		–.03	.03	.06	.03	–.22*	.06
Video	– .01	.02	.07	.04	–.06	.06		.05	.02	.02	.05	.07*	.02		.03	.02	.14*	.05	–.04	.05
Com. child	.10*	.02	.10*	.03	.16*	.07		.08*	.02	.12*	.04	.05*	.03		.06*	.02	–.02	.04	.16*	.06
Com. parent	.17*	.03	.10*	.03	.11*	.03		.01	.05	–.01	.05	–.01	.03		.24*	.03	.18*	.03	.16*	.05
Student characteristics
Neg. emotionality	–.23*	.02	–.20*	.03	.20*	.03		–.25*	.02	–.23*	.03	–.22*	.02		– .07*	.03	–.09*	.03	.04	.04
Engagement	.43*	.02	.50*	.05	.47*	.04		.20*	.03	.15*	.03	.20*	.03		.23*	.03	.19*	.03	.37*	.04
Math competence	– .01	.02	–.01	.04	–.04*	.02		.15*	.02	.28*	.02	.09*	.02		.02	.02	.04	.04	–.03	.02
Language competence	–.07	.02	–.07*	.03	–.12*	.04		.13*	.03	.11**	.04	.11*	.03		><.01	.03	.06*	.03	–.11*	.05
Social background
HSLC	.04*	.01	.01	.03	.05*	.02		.06*	.02	.09*	.02	.07*	.02		.07*	.02	.09*	.03	.04	.04
Migration	.03	.04	–.01	.04	.06*	.02		><.01	.01	–.05*	.02	.03	.02		.03	.02	–.04	.03	.08*	.02
Own room	.03*	–.01	.03	–.02	–.02	–.03		.07*	–.01	.05*	–.02	.05*	–.02		.02	–.03	.03	–.04	–.01	–.02
Computer	.01	–.02	–.03	–.03	.02	–.04		.03	–.02	.01	–.03	.03	–.02		–.02	–.02	–.01	–.03	–.03	–.03
Gender and age
Child's gender	.02	.02	.01	.04	><.01	.02		><.01	.02	–.04*	.02	.03	.02		.02	.02	–.10*	.02	–.03*	.02
Child's age	.17*	.04	.03	.02	.09*	.02		.10*	.03	–.02	.02	.22*	.02		.15*	.04	–.08*	.02	.03	.04
Parent's gender	.01	.02	.02	.04	.01	.03		.07*	.01	.08*	.02	.05	.03		.09*	.02	.15*	.03	.07*	.02
Parent's age	–.06*	.027	.02	.03	.01	.06		–.03	.03	.03	.03	–.05	.03		–.08*	.03	><.01	.04	><.01	.04
R²	.379	.379	.406		.314	.345	.324		.215	.187	.267

Table 4 Path weights (β) and standard error (SE) of the SEM regressing distant teaching activities on students' academic outcomes during the school lockdown controlling for students' school-related characteristics, socio-economic background, and parent' and child's age and gender for the full sample (‘All’) as well as for elementary school (‘ES’) and secondary schools (‘Sec’)

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Student-teacher and parent-teacher communication significantly related to children's motivation; student-teacher communication significantly related to children's competent and independent learning; and teaching via videoconference and parent-teacher communication significantly related to children's learning progress during the school lockdown. In the secondary school sample, six out of eight distant teaching activities incrementally explained variance in students' motivation (sending solutions and teaching via videoconference did not, grading had a negative path weight). Feedback, grading (negatively), and student-teacher communication incrementally explained variance in secondary school students' competent and independent learning, and learning progress during the school lockdown. Teaching via videoconference incrementally contributed to students' competent and independent learning and parent-teacher communication to students' learning progress during the school lockdown. Thus, in line with RQ3 those distant teaching activities that involve direct forms of interpersonal feedback and communication particularly contributed to the variance explanation of students' academic outcomes during school lockdown. However, in line with RQ4 children's characteristics, especially negative emotionality (negative association) and school engagement (positive association), incrementally contributed to students' academic outcomes during school lockdown. In both samples, students' math and language arts competencies incrementally explained variance in students' competent and independent learning during the school lockdown. In secondary school, math and language arts competencies negatively related to motivation and learning progress during the school lockdown. Among the socio-economic variables, parents' highest school leaving certificate significantly explained variance in secondary school students' motivation and competent and independent learning, and in elementary students' competent and independent learning, and their learning progress. Students' age had a positive path weight on secondary school students' motivation and competent and independent learning, but a negative path weight on elementary school students' learning progress.

Discussion

Teachers in this study greatly varied in how they realized distant teaching. Distant teaching activities were associated with parents' perceptions of students' academic outcomes during the school lockdown, replicating the overall results of the Landau Homeschooling Study and the School Barometer (Huber & Helm, 2020; Wildemann & Hosenfeld, 2020). After additionally controlling for parents' perceptions of students' characteristics (negative emotionality, school engagement, math and language arts competencies), socio-economic and demographic variables, teachers' distant teaching activities were still associated with students' outcomes during the school lockdown (see also Huber & Helm, 2020). Students' characteristics explained most variance in students' outcomes during the school lockdown, as did positive emotionality and independence in the study by Huber and Helm (2020). Students' socio-economic background variables were also associated with students' outcomes during the school lockdown (see Porsch & Porsch, 2020).

Limitations

The study suffered from several limitations. First, we only assessed parents' ratings. The additional assessment of students' objective learning progress and self-rated students' motivation would have been desirable. During the school lockdown, it was hard to collect data from parents and their children, though. Therefore, researchers either relied on students' self-reports (see Huber & Helm, 2020) or, as in the present study, on parent ratings (see also Wildemann & Hosenfeld, 2020). We are not aware of any study that applied objective achievement tests during school lockdown or assessed data with more than one method. Like all assessment methods, parental ratings come along with some disadvantages. Even though, moderator effects on parental ratings are not well investigated, older studies showed that parent-ratings are systematically biased by parents' stress level and their socio-economic status (SES), which is strongly associated with parental expectations and parents' psychopathy (Berg-Nielsen, Solheim, Belsky & Wichstrom, 2012; De Los Reyes & Kazdin, 2005). Given the stress level, parents reported during the school lockdown (Porsch & Porsch, 2020; Thorell et al., 2021) and given the parents' high educational level as an important indicator of socio-economic status, parents' answers were most likely slightly distorted in this and previous studies. However, prior studies demonstrated parent-ratings' validity for motivation (Wirthwein, Bergold, Preckel & Steinmayr, 2019) and objectively measured competencies (Steinmayr et al., 2019) and are thus valid proxies of students' actual motivation and competencies. In this study, parental ratings also correlated with other variables in the expected direction and magnitude, which underlines their validity (see also Herbert & Stipek, 2005; Steinmayr et al., 2019). Nevertheless, future studies should provide further evidence for the validity of the scales that have been used for the first time in this study (e.g., by demonstrating their associations with students' self-ratings). Taken together, results should be interpreted with some caution but can overall be considered as valid.

Second, we used a cross-sectional design. Thus, the direction of the presented relations is unclear. However, as previous studies longitudinally demonstrated an impact of teaching activities on students' motivation and achievement (e.g., Lazarides & Buchholz, 2019; Maulana, Opdenakker & Bosker, 2016), it might well be that teachers' distant teaching activities impacted on students' academic outcomes during the school lockdown. Third, students attending special educational need schools were excluded from the study as their number was too small and distant teaching activities for this group probably differ from distant teaching activities for students without special educational needs which is also true for their parents' stress level (Goldan et al., 2020; Thorell et al., 2021). Fourth, we only concentrated on four subjects. Considering more subjects would have led to a more comprehensive assessment of school's distant teaching activities. Last but not least, we did not focus on the determinants of distant teaching and on characteristics of the processes underlying distant teaching activities (e.g., obstacles and challenges that teachers faced when realizing distant teaching in Germany). These are important research questions for future studies in the field of distant teaching.

Practical Implications

All federal states in Germany returned to regular face-to-face schooling after the summer holidays 2020. However, as COVID-19 infection rates have been rising again, the risk of a new school lockdown is high. With respect to our results, the different educational ministries and schools should preventively prepare concepts of how to effectively implement distant teaching activities that keep up students' motivation, competent and independent learning, and learning progress, and should appropriately support teachers in realizing these teaching activities (see also Fickermann & Edelstein, 2020). Therefore, schools should implement safe and stable systems that are accessible without barriers for teachers, students, and parents to keep up communication. Here, reaching out to socially disadvantaged children is important (Köller et al., 2020; Wrase, 2020). Prior studies showed that if about a third of a school year is lost (e.g., due to school closures or short school years), this is associated with about 3–4% less average income on the long-run (Wößmann, 2020). Increased child poverty and reduced educational opportunities are already a consequence of the current COVID-19 pandemic in Germany (Butterwegge, 2020; Fickermann & Edelstein, 2020) and with respect to article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “everyone has the right to education. (…) Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.” (United for Human Rights, 2020). Furthermore, distant teaching activities mattered beyond students' characteristics and socio-economic status. Thus, with regard to distant teaching and teaching in the classroom alike, our results highlight once again that teaching quality matters for students' outcomes (see Hattie, 2009).

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