Date of Award
2025
Degree Name
Leadership Studies
College
College of Education and Professional Development
Type of Degree
Ed.D.
Document Type
Dissertation
First Advisor
Dr. Eugenia Lambert
Second Advisor
Dr. Tom Hisiro
Third Advisor
Dr. Stuart Inglis
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic altered education through rapid, widespread, and prolonged school closures, as well as through numerous additional unprecedented challenges for administrators, teachers, parents, and students. Previous research established that prior long-term school closures led to learning losses, and there was a general consensus that the COVID-19 pandemic led to student learning losses. However, there was very limited information about the ways that primary, secondary, and higher education students in the United States of America were negatively influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The current investigation addressed this problem by examining large quantitative datasets to discern how student enrollment and achievement at primary, secondary, and higher education institutions were influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic overall, as well as within specific geographic regions of the United States of America. The findings provide several significant insights about how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced primary, secondary, and higher education students in the United States of America. The results indicate that primary and secondary school enrollment decreased at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, the results show that there were increases in high school status dropouts and decreases in high school graduation in the United States of America during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the current study shows how higher education enrollment and degree conferral changed during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. All in all, the current investigation provides comprehensive results that can be used as the basis for a variety of future research projects, as well as key insights that will help educators and administrators to more efficiently address the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and inform strategies for more effective responses to future pandemics.
Subject(s)
Education.
Education, Elementary.
Middle school education.
Education, Secondary.
Education, Higher.
School management and organization.
School supervision.
Educational leadership.
COVID-19 (Disease)
Recommended Citation
Wysocki, Matthew A., "Analyzing student enrollment and achievement in the United States of America during the COVID-19 pandemic" (2025). Theses, Dissertations and Capstones. 1968.
https://mds.marshall.edu/etd/1968
Included in
COVID-19 Commons, Educational Leadership Commons, Elementary and Middle and Secondary Education Administration Commons, Higher Education Administration Commons
