The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in unprecedented times for students with drastic changes in school, routines, and everyday interactions. We identified student interest about various dimensions of COVID-19 at the beginning of the outbreak and throughout the duration of the pandemic to aid future teaching and learning about the virus as well as other potential outbreaks. Interest is of particular importance in the context of COVID-19 as it plays a central role in student motivation and learning. Specifically, engaging students’ situational interest, or interest sparked by environmental factors, is critical for the support of learning (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). Given the ubiquity of the pandemic (and presumably other similar disasters of this scale) and its necessary connections to science, it creates opportunities to trigger situational interest among students through classroom instruction even among students who may not have developed or demonstrated longer term personal interest in science and science learning. It is critical that all students understand the science behind COVID-19 and viral disease transmission to improve public health safety and help students make informed personal decisions related to the pandemic.
We sought to uncover the areas of interest to aid educators in curriculum design around the pandemic and glean additional information on information sources, concerns, and impact of the virus to contextualize student interest. We further discuss the results from our four research questions.
Research Question 1
Research question 1 addresses the interests students have about COVID-19. The most reported themes in order from greatest percentage to least were the origin of COVID-19, vaccines, transmission, infection rate, body’s response, biology of COVID-19, prevention, symptoms, and individual response. The origin of COVID-19 remained of high interest to students across the three time points. Unsurprisingly, interest in vaccines reached its peak and was the highest percentage across all other themes in fall 2020 when the first COVID-19 vaccines became authorized for emergency use (Pfizer, 2020).
Compared to issues such as the virus’ origin and availability of vaccines, topics that tend to fit in traditional life science classes such as viral transmission, the biology of viruses, and human physiological responses were mentioned less frequently by the student respondents. This has important implications for educators and who want to build on students’ natural curiosities and interest in an emerging pandemic. Science teachers may see immediate connections between a viral pandemic and traditional curricular themes, such as the biology of viruses, and therefore be tempted to use these connections as a starting place for instruction. However, despite ostensible connections to the real-world issue, this approach may not effectively leverage student situational interest for prompting motivation to learn or the triggering of more enduring, individual interest (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). To meet student interest more generally, science educators should consider initiating instruction related to the pandemic with topics such as origin of the virus or vaccines, which were the two most popular themes students expressed. It is interesting to note that these two topics were at the center of debate the media (across many platforms) at the time of survey distribution. Therefore, the larger message (beyond teaching about the current pandemic) is a recommendation for educators to carefully consider the questions and controversies unfolding in popular culture as an entry point for issues-based teaching and learning particularly for emergent issues like a pandemic. This approach stands in contrast to what teachers often do when they try to incorporate SSI in their classes—prioritize connections to content ideas that stem from standards or traditional curricular approaches (Hancock et al., 2019). We are not suggesting that these connections not be attempted, but rather that these connections should follow efforts to build student engagement by tapping into aspects of the issue that students are more inherently interested in.
Across the world, conspiracy theories about where and how COVID-19 first emerged (i.e. human-made, bio-terrorism) and misinformation about vaccine safety (i.e. birth defects, infertility) have been spreading rampantly on social media (Roozenbeek et al., 2020). In fact, WHO coined the term “infodemic” to describe this problem. An infodemic refers to the overwhelmingly large pool of information during a disease outbreak that may or may not be factual and limits the ability to find reliable sources (WHO, 2021). Youth are especially susceptible to infodemics on social media platforms, where news is filtered by likes and dislikes rather than by factual content (Wiederhold, 2020). Our findings indicate that a significant proportion of students acquire information from people they know, TV news, and social media, which are often individually and politically biased. Addressing students’ interest about the origin of COVID-19 and vaccines in classrooms can help students develop scientific knowledge about viruses (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). Furthermore, discussions about these topics create opportunities to help students navigate the difficult task of discerning trustworthy information from the media they commonly consume, a skill that applies to the scientific practice of evaluating evidence.
COVID-19 presents a unique case where the science about the virus unfolded in real-time. Although infection rates of COVID-19 in the United States reached higher points than ever before in fall 2020, student interest in infection rates significantly decreased during this time (p = 0.01). A possible explanation could be that students became more knowledgeable about the spread of COVID-19 over the course of the pandemic. An alternative explanation could be “COVID fatigue,” a colloquial term used to describe the emotional drain as a result of constant stress and reminders of the pandemic. If these explanations were accurate, we would expect interest in other COVID-19 themes to decrease concurrently. Interest in transmission did decrease from 20.3% in spring 2020 to 15.5% in fall 2021, although this change was not significant. However, this trend was not the case across other themes. For instance, interest in prevention strategies slightly increased over the three time points and interest in the biology of COVID-19 peaked in spring 2021. While these trends were not significant, they highlight some students’ growing interest in aspects of the virus over time despite more knowledge or COVID fatigue.
Research Question 2
Media consumption has become an integral component of personal experience among youth in the twenty-first century (Twenge et al., 2019), even more so during the COVID-19 pandemic when quarantining required individuals to access information and engage with society through digital means. We identified the most used sources of information about the pandemic among high school students as health agencies and healthcare professionals. Similarly, Smith et al. (2017) found that health organizations were the primary source of information among teachers. Only 6.7% of students in our sample reported using teachers as their source of COVID-19 information. Likewise, Campbell et al. (2021) found that high school students in semi-rural Georgia turned to peers and social media the most and schools the least for information about COVID-19. Integrating media platforms that students are interested in and frequently use in science classroom instruction is an avenue to encourage and sustain attention as students cultivate knowledge about the pandemic (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). Further, familiarity with popular information sources may provide students with increased sense of autonomy and competence (Hidi & Renninger, 2006), which are necessary as individuals contend with misinformation from the media, friends, or family. Students may also be more likely to remain invested in their learning even when they face challenges within a domain (Alexander, 2004).
In our study, one student explained, “I prefer to get information from my family though because it is easier to understand.” Given that websites like the CDC, NIH, and WHO are heavily trafficked by students and teachers, we echo Smith and colleagues’ suggestion that these organizations could better accommodate teachers and additionally recommend that information be organized in a comprehensible way for students for educational purposes. Science teachers are often reticent to introduce issues like pandemics into their classrooms because they can be controversial or uncertain (Hancock et al., 2019). Additionally, resources about viral outbreaks as seen with the Ebola crisis are limited, requiring teachers to do their own research and develop curricular material which takes time (Smith et al., 2017).
Due to school closures and increased time spent at home, we did expect students to consume more cable news than they would have otherwise. However, we did not observe any trends about the cable networks they reported watching. Some students were partisan in their viewership. For example, one student reported watching both CNN and Fox News, which tend to have opposite political leanings. Other students reported watching only one cable network like Fox News. During the study, the United States was in the midst of the 2020 presidential election. Politicians took to social media platforms like Twitter to disseminate COVID-19 information to the public, but this information was often biased or misleading. For instance, Donald Trump’s anti-vaccine tweets were found to heighten vaccine hesitancy among his voters (Hornsey et al., 2020). We found that high school students pay attention to political messaging. One student described following the governor of his state to acquire COVID-19 information. Several students reported using the president as their primary source of information, who was Donald Trump in spring and fall 2020 and Joe Biden in spring 2021. The COVID-19 information politicians publish on social media does permeate into high school students’ lives, which will influence the prior knowledge they bring into the classroom about the pandemic.
Across the three time points, students relied on healthcare professionals significantly less over time (p = .017). In fall 2020, less than a year since the first COVID-19 case emerged in Wuhan, China, there was still much uncertainty around the pandemic. Students relied the most on healthcare professionals for their source of COVID-19 information because of their firsthand experience with the virus. One student wrote she used the personal accounts of doctors and nurses “since they are the ones dealing with it and treating it.” However, in spring 2021 and fall 2021, the highest reported information source was health agencies. Over the course of the three survey time points, students reported using “government-funded, unbiased sources including the NIH and CDC to ensure that the information is current and reliable” more often than health professionals. This switch may have occurred as more health statistics were publicly available on health agencies’ websites for students to access. Furthermore, the high percentage of students using these health agencies demonstrates a sense of trust and perceived reliability of these sources of information.
Research Question 3
The greatest concern to students was someone they know contracting COVID-19 or contracting the virus themselves. Students also expressed uncertainty about vaccines, fear of the death rate, and worry about their academic success with school closures. The main challenges students reported included increased time spent at home, loss of jobs, and the transition to online school, which have been linked to an increase in incidence of mental health issues (i.e. stress, anxiety, substance abuse) among youth during the pandemic (Thakur, 2020). Discussing topics related to the viral outbreak has been shown to reduce students’ worry about the pandemic (Ho et al., 2020). Thus, educators can relate these topics of student concerns with instruction about the virus. For example, student concern around vaccines, ranging from uncertainty about distribution of vaccines to their safety, increased at each time point. By spring 2021, 17.2% of students reported concern about vaccines. Teachers could integrate lessons about vaccines into science content related to the body’s immune response including topics such as active and passive immunity.
As stay-at-home orders began to lift and businesses started to reopen, students concern about the economy significantly decreased in fall 2020 (p = .011). However, as COVID-19 cases surged after winter holidays, students concern about the economy increased. Some students lost jobs; others described more family and childcare responsibilities at home while their parents worked. On the surface, concern about the economy may seem as though it does not relate to science instruction about the pandemic. However, the economic impacts that students experience at home do connect with scientific evidence demonstrating COVID-19 health disparities among marginalized and low-income groups (CDC, 2020). Furthermore, the third highest reported concern was related to the COVID-19 death rate. Teachers could help students think critically about factors that influence COVID-19 health statistics, including prevention strategies, access to health resources, accessibility of COVID-19 testing, and socioeconomic status.
Research Question 4
We asked students to describe the ways in which COVID-19 has impacted their lives. While not all students experienced hardship during the pandemic—17% expressed minimal impact which included responses such as washing hands more often or as one student put it, “mild inconveniences”—other students expressed challenges with staying at home, online school, and jobs. Many high school students were expected to provide childcare or tutor siblings while trying to navigate online schooling for the first time themselves. Several students expressed highly emotional responses to the question, describing feelings of stress, grief, or social isolation. By asking about students’ personal experiences with the pandemic, we gained more insight into the difficulties students faced and how that might influence the interests they have in learning about the pandemic. We reported the top themes related to COVID-19 impact to raise awareness around the topics that directly relate to students’ lived experiences. Educators can use our findings by incorporating these personal connections to instruction about COVID-19. For example, students may be more interested in learning about the science behind wearing masks if it pertains to reopening business and students keeping their jobs. Students’ experiences, values, beliefs, and prior knowledge are a resource that teachers can use to sustain attention around science concepts related to COVID-19 and help students feel as though their thoughts and opinions are valued in the classroom (Gonzalez et al., 2005).
Although there were no significant changes in frequency of the themes across the three time points, we did notice a change in the number of students who reported knowing someone who contracted COVID-19. In spring 2020, none of the students reported knowing someone who had contracted COVID-19, but by fall 2020 and spring 2021, eleven students did. This may explain why peak student concern related to contracting COVID-19 occurred during fall 2020 as case numbers increased the probability of exposure to the virus.
Limitations
One limitation of the study was that some students provided limited responses that were either vague or too brief to interpret. We could have asked probing questions to obtain more detailed and specific answers. For instance, many students wrote “social media” as their source of COVID-19 related information. An additional question could have asked what social media platforms students access. Additionally, future studies could ask questions that elicit explanations as to why students are interested in certain topics related to the pandemic. This information would help reveal more insight into student interest that could be connected to science classroom instruction.