Student Success Affected by Out-of-School Issues, Survey Finds

Key points:

Educators believe the biggest obstacles to student success in school are related to challenges outside the classroom, including mental health and behavioral issues, according to a new report from McGraw Hill.

While some educators are concerned that technology and artificial intelligence (ai) may have a negative effect in these areas, many see the positive impact of ai on students' ability to learn in their preferred languages, better grades and professional preparation.

McGraw Hill Global Education Insights Report: Learning Outcomes and the Digital ClassroomConducted in February 2024 by Morning Consult on behalf of McGraw Hill, it surveyed the opinions of more than 1,000 K-12 and higher education educators in 19 countries, including the US, Canada and Northern Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. This.

Fifty-seven percent of educators ranked challenges outside the classroom, such as problems at home and insufficient family support, as the biggest obstacle to student success. Barriers such as students' mental and behavioral health struggles and students not having the basic skills and knowledge to succeed at their grade level also ranked near the top of the list. Regarding ai in the classroom, educators said they are most concerned that it will negatively impact students' social skills, critical thinking, academic integrity, creativity, and memory retention.

“We must do everything we can to ensure that educators around the world feel supported at every level, so they can help students overcome these obstacles and succeed,” said Simon Allen, CEO of McGraw Hill. “Educators understandably feel anxiety and uncertainty about the effects that emerging technologies and ai have on their students. “That is why it is important that we look for opportunities where it can dispel this anxiety, where technology can save educators time and facilitate the participation of students and teachers.”

Forty-one percent of educators across all six regions believe ai has had a mostly positive impact on educational outcomes, compared to 19 percent who believe its impact has been mostly negative.

The top two benefits of ai that educators believe will have a positive impact on education are: reducing time spent on administrative tasks (65 percent) and the ability to personalize each student's learning experiences (63 percent). hundred).

However, educators also identified areas of concern around the use of ai, including negative effects on academic integrity (32 percent), critical thinking (31 percent), memory retention (30 percent ) and social skills and relationships (29 percent).

Among U.S. higher education educators (the group that perceived ai most negatively), the areas in which the perceived negative impact was strongest were academic integrity (68 percent), critical thinking ( 62 percent) and “social skills/relationships” (58 percent). percent).

More findings include:

• Thirty-two percent of educators are already using GenAI, which increases to 63 percent if you include those who have used it or expect to use it in the next year. Eighty percent have already used GenAI or expect to use it at some point in the future.
• Forty-eight percent of educators say they would mostly or completely trust the accuracy of the information students get from GenAI chatbots and 48 percent say they trust it only slightly or not at all, showing a dramatic split in sentiment.
• The “high costs of purchasing the technology” (47 percent), the “lack of time to implement and train educators on how to use the technology effectively” (38 percent), and the “privacy concerns of data” (34 percent) were cited as the highest. barriers to technology implementation. K-12 educators are consistently more likely than higher education instructors to say their school lacks adequate funding for technology.
• Seventy-two percent believe their school needs to provide more guidance on the use of emerging technology.

Educators around the world call for increased funding for education

When asked to rank their top priorities for policymakers and school leaders to address to improve student success, 49 percent of respondents chose to increase funding for education. In the United States, Canada and Northern Europe, educators prioritized increasing teacher salaries as a key issue for policymakers to address, while in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia nearly half of educators prioritized better training and support.

When asked what policymakers and government leaders should focus on when it comes to implementing technology in the classroom, educators globally prioritized protecting student and school data (48 percent) , as well as establishing safeguards against plagiarism and cheating (47 percent).

“As educational leaders in government, institutions, and our industry look to create solutions that help students around the world succeed in the future, it is important that we listen to the people who work with students every day. and let's do everything we can to help them. support and empower them,” Allen said.

This press release originally appeared online.

Laura Ascione is the editorial director of eSchool Media. She graduated from the prestigious Philip Merrill School of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

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