A multilevel analysis of the contextual effects in distance education outcomes during COVID-19

• Main Author: Umut TÜRK
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi 2021-08-01
• Series: Eastern Journal of European Studies
• Subjects: distance education; multilevel models; city-effects; turkey
• Online Access: https://ejes.uaic.ro/articles/EJES2021_12SI_TUR.pdf

The COVID-19 outbreak has forced countries to take extensive measures aimed at minimizing human contact. In this crisis period, distance education has played a crucial role in ensuring continuous learning. However, not all locations have had the same maturity level regarding infrastructure availability, and the city-level heterogeneity in socioeconomic structures might have impeded equal access to distance education. This paper focuses on the contextual dimension of distance education by a comparative approach between in-person and distance education outcomes in Turkey. By a multilevel modelling approach, student outcomes are examined against a set of student-level and city-level determinants of academic success during the COVID-19 period compared to the same academic semester in the previous year. The findings support previous studies, discussing the long-term contextual effects on student outcomes and show that the digital divide between the rural and urban areas and income inequality are the main drivers of city-level variation in students' success during the pandemic.