Learning in the Pandemic: How the possibility to play video games during class and attend lessons without getting out of bed affects time-on-task

This Innovate Practice work-in-progress paper presents findings around how distance learning, due to the the COVID-19 pandemic, affected students as measured by time-on-task in programming.In this qualitative study, we examine a group of 36 second year upper-secondary students in Programming 1 during a nine week period in Spring 2021. During this time, they alternated between one whole week of distance learning followed by two weeks of in school instruction. For the Programming 1 lessons, students used an online platform to write, edit and run code in. We analyzed the log data from the platform to estimate time-on-task for each student for every lesson both at home and at school.We observed that students were affected differently by distance learning as measured by time-on-task. 12 students had more average time-on-task at school. 15 students had more average time-on-task at home. Nine students had less than five minutes difference on average.In addition to the analysis of time-on-task, students were given a survey in Fall 2021 to follow up on their experiences with in-school teaching and distance learning. In the survey, students were asked questions about their study environment at home during distance learning. From the responses, 13 students described their study environment as “in bed” despite having access to a table and chair in a room for themselves and twenty-three students described their study environment as “playing video games during online lectures”. Not surprisingly, students that said they were playing video games during online lectures had a lower average time-on-task by about ten minutes than their peers. Interestingly, students that said they participated in class in bed had a higher average time-on-task by about ten minutes than their peers.Correlating responses from the survey and time-on-task data, we reason about how students’ study environments at home affected their time-on-task and how distance learning has affected students in the pandemic.