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National Home Education Research Institute

Research Facts on Homeschooling

Research facts on homeschooling, homeschooling: the research.

Research Facts on Homeschooling, Homeschool Fast Facts

Brian D. Ray, Ph.D. February 9, 2024    Copyright © 2024 National Home Education Research Institute

This article gives key research facts on homeschooling

General facts, statistics, and trends.

  • There were about 3.1 million homeschool students in 2021-2022 in grades K-12 in the United States  (roughly 6% of school-age children). There were about 2.5 million homeschool students in spring 2019 (or 3% to 4% of school-age children) [note 1]. The homeschool population had been growing at an estimated 2% to 8% per annum over the past several years, but it grew drastically from 2019-2020 to 2020-2021.

research paper for home schooling

  • Homeschooling – that is, parent-led home-based education; home education – is an age-old traditional educational practice that a decade ago appeared to be cutting-edge and “alternative” but is now bordering on “mainstream” in the United States. It may be the fastest-growing form of education in the United States. Home-based education has also been growing around the world in many other nations (e.g., Australia, Canada, France, Hungary, Japan, Kenya, Russia, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, and the United Kingdom).
  • A demographically wide variety of people homeschool – these are atheists, Christians, and Mormons; conservatives, libertarians, and liberals; low-, middle-, and high-income families; black, Hispanic, and white; parents with Ph.D.s, GEDs, and no high-school diplomas. One nationwide study shows that 41% of homeschool students are Black, Asian, Hispanic, and others (i.e., not White/non-Hispanic) (U.S. Department of Education, 2019).
  • Taxpayers spend an average of $16,446 per pupil annually in public schools, plus capital expenditures (National Education Association, 2023). The roughly 3.1 million homeschool students of 2021-22 represented a savings of over $51 billion for taxpayers. This is $51 billion that American taxpayers did not have to spend.
  • Taxpayers spend nothing on the vast majority of homeschool students, while homeschool families spend an average of $600 per student annually for their education. Families engaged in home-based education are not dependent on public, tax-funded resources for their children’s education.
  • Homeschooling is quickly growing in popularity among minorities. About 41% of homeschool families are non-white/non-Hispanic (i.e., not white/Anglo).
  • It is estimated that over 9 million Americans had experienced being homeschooled as of February of 2020.

Reasons and Motivations for Home Educating

Most parents and youth decide to homeschool for more than one reason. The most common reasons given for homeschooling are the following:

  • customize or individualize the curriculum and learning environment for each child,
  • accomplish more academically than in schools,
  • use pedagogical approaches other than those typical in institutional schools,
  • enhance family relationships between children and parents and among siblings,
  • provide guided and reasoned social interactions with youthful peers and adults,
  • provide a safer environment for children and youth, because of physical violence, drugs and alcohol, psychological abuse, racism, and improper and unhealthy sexuality associated with institutional schools, and
  • as an alternative education approach when public or private institutional schools are closed due to acute health situations such as related to disease (e.g., Covid-19, Coronavirus)
  • protect minority children from racism in public schools or lower expectations of children of color (e.g., black) (e.g., Fields-Smith, 2020; Mazama & Lundy, 2012).
  • teach and impart a particular set of values, beliefs, and worldview to children and youth.

Academic Performance

  • The home-educated typically score 15 to 25 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests (Ray, 2010, 2015, 2017, 2024). (The public school average is roughly the 50 th percentile; scores range from 1 to 99.) A 2015 study found Black homeschool students to be scoring 23 to 42 percentile points above Black public school students (Ray, 2015).
  • 78% of peer-reviewed studies on academic achievement show homeschool students perform statistically significantly better than those in institutional schools ( Ray, 2017 ).
  • Homeschool students score above average on achievement tests regardless of their parents’ level of formal education or their family’s household income.
  • Whether homeschool parents were ever certified teachers is not notably related to their children’s academic achievement.
  • Degree of state control and regulation of homeschooling is not related to academic achievement.
  • Home-educated students typically score above average on the SAT and ACT tests that colleges consider for admissions.
  • Homeschool students are increasingly being actively recruited by colleges.

research paper for home schooling

Social, Emotional, and Psychological Development (Socialization)

  • Research facts on homeschooling show that the home-educated are doing well, typically above average, on measures of social, emotional, and psychological development. Research measures include peer interaction, self-concept, leadership skills, family cohesion, participation in community service, and self-esteem.
  • 87% of peer-reviewed studies on social, emotional, and psychological development show homeschool students perform statistically significantly better than those in conventional schools ( Ray, 2017 ).
  • Homeschool students are regularly engaged in social and educational activities outside their homes and with people other than their nuclear-family members. They are commonly involved in activities such as field trips, scouting, 4-H, political drives, church ministry, sports teams, and community volunteer work.
  • The balance of research to date suggests that homeschool students may suffer less harm (e.g., abuse, neglect, fatalities) than conventional school students.
  • Adults who were home educated are more politically tolerant than the public schooled in the limited research done so far.

Gender Differences in Children and Youth Respected?

  • One researcher finds that homeschooling gives young people an unusual chance to ask questions such as, “Who am I?” and “What do I really want?,” and through the process of such asking and gradually answering the questions home-educated girls develop the strengths and the resistance abilities that give them an unusually strong sense of self.
  • Some think that boys’ energetic natures and tendency to physical expression can more easily be accommodated in home-based education. Many are concerned that a highly disproportionate number of public school special-education students are boys and that boys are 2.5 times as likely as girls in public schools to be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Success in the “Real World” of Adulthood

The research base on adults who were home educated is growing; thus far it indicates that:

  • 69% of peer-reviewed studies on success into adulthood (including college) show adults who were home educated succeed and perform statistically significantly better than those who attended institutional schools ( Ray, 2017 ).
  • they participate in local community service more frequently than does the general population (e.g., Seiver & Pope, 2022 ),
  • these adults vote and attend public meetings more frequently than the general population
  • they go to and succeed at college at an equal or higher rate than the general population
  • by adulthood, they internalize the values and beliefs of their parents at a high rate

General Interpretation of Research on Homeschool Success or Failure

It is possible that homeschooling causes the positive traits reported above. However, the research designs to date do not conclusively “prove” or substantiate that homeschooling causes these things. One hypothesis is that the positive findings might be due to the demographics of the homeschool students and families in the studies. The “sources” (articles) below explain limitations and caveats regarding the studies. More methodologically stronger research needs to be done to find whether homeschooling is what leads to or causes better outcomes.  At the same time, there is no empirical evidence that homeschooling overall causes negative things compared to institutional schooling. Future research may better answer the question of causation.

1. For more detail, see How Many Homeschool Students Are There in the United States? The March of 2021 estimate is based on data from state governments (e.g., Delaware, Florida, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Virginia), the U.S. Census Bureau (2021), and the U.S. Department of Education (2019). See McDonald (2020). The spring 2019 estimate was based on an estimate of about 2.5% per annum growth from estimates of 2 million home-educated children during the spring of 2010 and 2.3 million spring of 2016 in the United States (Ray, 2011). The estimate of 2.3 million in 2016 was calculated by Brian D. Ray, the author of this fact sheet, on April 7, 2016. He based it on publicly available research findings.

The above findings are extensively documented in one or more of the following sources, and most are available from www.nheri.org:

  • Cheng, Albert. (2014). Does homeschooling or private schooling promote political intolerance? Evidence from a Christian university. Journal of School Choice: International Research and Reform , 8(1), 49-68 [a peer-reviewed journal].
  • Fields-Smith, Cheryl. (2020). Exploring single black mothers’ resistance through homeschooling . Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan Cham.
  • Mazama, Ama; & Lundy, Garvey. (2012, August 26). African American homeschooling as racial protectionism. Journal of Black Studies, 43 (7) 723–748.
  • McDonald, Kerry. (2020). Homeschooling more than doubles during the pandemic: State-level data show just how dramatic the surge in homeschooling has been. Retrieved December 29, 2020 from https://fee.org/articles/homeschooling-more-than-doubles-during-the-pandemic/
  • Mead, Sara. (2006). The truth about boys and girls.
  • Medlin, Richard G. (2013). Homeschooling and the question of socialization revisited. Peabody Journal of Education, 88 (3), 284-297 [a peer-reviewed journal].
  • Murphy, Joseph. (2012). Homeschooling in America: Capturing and assessing the movement . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, a Sage Company.
  • National Education Association. (2023). Rankings of the States 2022 and Estimates of School Statistics 2023,  https://www.nea.org/sites/default/files/2023-04/2023-rankings-and-estimates-report.pdf
  • Ray, Brian D. (2004). Home educated and now adults: Their community and civic involvement, views about homeschooling, and other traits. Salem, Oregon: NHERI.
  • Ray, Brian D. (2004). Homeschoolers on to college: What research shows us. Ray, Journal of College Admission , No. 185, 5-11 [a peer-reviewed journal].
  • Ray, Brian D. (2010). Academic achievement and demographic traits of homeschool students: A nationwide study. Academic Leadership Journal, 8, www.academicleadership.org [a peer-reviewed journal]. For a free copy, contact us .
  • Ray, Brian D. (2013). Homeschooling associated with beneficial learner and societal outcomes but educators do not promote it. Peabody Journal of Education, 88 (3), 324-341 [a peer-reviewed journal].
  • Ray, Brian D. (2015). African American homeschool parents’ motivations for homeschooling and their Black children’s academic achievement. Journal of School Choice, 9 :71–96 [a peer-reviewed journal]. For a free copy, contact us .
  • Ray, Brian D. (2017). A systematic review of the empirical research on selected aspects of homeschooling as a school choice. Journal of School Choice , 11 (4), 604-621 [a peer-reviewed journal]
  • Ray, Brian D. (2024). Reasons for homeschooling and the correlates of home-educated students’ academic achievement: A new U.S. nationwide study. Presented at International School Choice and Reform Conference, Madrid, Spain, January 6, 2024.
  • Ray, Brian D.; & Shakeel, M. Danish. (2022). Demographics are predictive of child abuse and neglect but homeschool versus conventional school is a nonissue: Evidence from a nationally representative survey. Journal of School Choice, https://doi.org/10.1080/15582159.2022.2108879  [a peer-reviewed journal]
  • Seiver, Jillene Grove; & Pope, Elisa A. (2022). The kids are alright II: social engagement in young adulthood as a function of k-12 schooling type, personality traits, and parental education level. Home School Researcher , 37 (2), 1-9.
  • Sheffer, Susannah. (1995). A sense of self: Listening to homeschooled adolescent girls .
  • United States Department of Education. (2019) Homeschooling in the United States: Results from the 2012 and 2016 Parent and Family Involvement Survey (PFINHES: 2012 and 2016). Retrieved November 3, 2020 from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2020/2020001.pdf

About the Author

Brian D. Ray, Ph.D. is an internationally known researcher  (see Google Scholar Profile for many of his publications), educator, speaker, and expert witness, and serves as president of the nonprofit National Home Education Research Institute. He is a former certified teacher in public and private schools and served as a professor in the fields of science, research methods, and education at the graduate and undergraduate levels. He holds a Ph.D. in science education from Oregon State University, a M.S. in zoology from Ohio University, and a B.S. in biology from the University of Puget Sound. Dr. Ray has been studying the homeschool movement since about 1984.

For more homeschool research and more in-depth interpretation of research, media, journalists, and others please contact:

National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI)

PO Box 13939 Salem OR 97309 USA

tel. (503) 364‑1490 [email protected] www.nheri.org

Copyright © 2024 by National Home Education Research Institute

About nheri.

NHERI conducts homeschooling research, is a clearinghouse of research for the public, researchers, homeschoolers, the media, and policy makers, and educates the public concerning the findings of all related research. NHERI executes, evaluates, and disseminates studies and information (e.g., statistics, facts, data) on homeschooling (i.e., home schooling, home-based education, home education, home school, home-schooling, unschooling, deschooling, a form of alternative education), publishes reports and the peer-reviewed scholarly journal Home School Researcher, and serves in consulting, academic achievement tests, and expert witness (in courts and legislatures).

PO Box 13939 Salem, OR 97309 503-364-1490 503-364-3837 fax contact NHERI

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Cara Goodwin, Ph.D.

Environment

The research on homeschooling, the academic, social, and long-term outcomes for children in home schools..

Posted September 1, 2021 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

About 4 to 5 million children in the United States (or approximately 8 to 9% of school-age children) were homeschooled in March 2021. This statistic increased dramatically during the pandemic: Only 2.5 million (or 3 to 4% of school-age children) were homeschooled in spring 2019.

The most common reason cited for homeschooling (before the pandemic) was concern about the local school environment, including safety and negative peer pressure . Many parents also choose to homeschool due to dissatisfaction with the educational quality of local schools, or for religious reasons.

However, many parents and caregivers considering homeschooling may be especially concerned about how homeschooling might impact their child’s academic progress and social development. Does the research find any differences between children who were homeschooled versus children in conventional school?

Academic Performance

Homeschooled students tend to score higher on tests of academic skills when compared to children in public schools across most studies. However, it is difficult to draw any conclusions from these studies since most do not control for important family demographic factors and compare self-selected homeschooling families’ test scores (from tests proctored by parents) to national averages. Interestingly, children in a “structured” homeschool program — that is, a homeschool program with organized lesson plans — tend to score higher on academic tests than children from conventional schools, while children in “unstructured” homeschool environments without organized lesson plans tend to score lower than children in conventional schools.

Social Skills

The findings on social skills seem to be more mixed. Some studies have found no difference in social skills between children in homeschool environments versus conventional schools, some studies have found that homeschooled children score higher on measures of social ability, and some have found that homeschooled children score lower on overall social skills. Not surprisingly, homeschooled students who have had more opportunities for peer interactions tend to show improved social skills.

Long-Term Success

Most studies find that homeschooled children tend to have higher college GPAs than children from conventional schools. In addition, most studies have found no difference between homeschooled and conventional students in college graduation rates. However, most homeschooled students do not attend competitive four-year colleges and one study found that homeschooled students may have lower math GPAs in college than children from conventional schools. Children who are homeschooled may also be more likely to work in a lower-paying job.

Limitations of this Research

It is important to note that this research is difficult to interpret because families that choose to homeschool are different from families who do not in many other ways — for example, they may have parents with higher income or educational levels — and these factors likely contribute to the results as well. For instance, we cannot conclude that homeschooling will improve your child’s test scores since homeschooled children may have more educated mothers and it may be the mother’s educational level that drives the higher test scores, not homeschooling itself.

Almasoud, S., & Fowler, S. R. (2016). The difference in the academic achievements of homeschooled and non-homeschooled students. Home School Researcher, 32(1), 1-4.

Cogan, M. F. (2010). Exploring academic outcomes of homeschooled students. Journal of College Admission, 208, 18-25.

Coleman, R. E. (2014). The homeschool math gap: The data. Coalition for Responsible Home Education.

Drenovsky, C. K., & Cohen, I. (2012). The impact of homeschooling on the adjustment of college students. International Social Science Review, 87(1/2), 19-34.

Kunzman, R., & Gaither, M. (2020). Homeschooling: An updated comprehensive survey of the research. Other Education, 9(1), 253-336.

Martin-Chang, S., Gould, O. N., & Meuse, R. E. (2011). The impact of schooling on academic achievement: Evidence from homeschooled and traditionally schooled students. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue Canadienne Des Sciences du Comportement, 43(3), 195.

McKinley, M. J., Asaro, J. N., Bergin, J., D'Auria, N., & Gagnon, K. E. (2007). Social Skills and Satisfaction with Social Relationships in Home-Schooled, Private-Schooled, and Public-Schooled Children. Online Submission, 17(3), 1-6.

Medlin, R. G. (2006). Homeschooled Children's Social Skills. Online Submission, 17(1), 1-8.

Montes, G. (2006). Do Parental Reasons to Homeschool Vary by Grade? Evidence from the National Household Education Survey, 2001. Online Submission, 16(4), 11-17.

Montes, G. (2015). The social and emotional health of homeschooled students in the United States: A population-based comparison with publicly schooled students based on the national survey of children’s health, 2007. Home School Researcher, 31(1), 1-9.

Pearlman-Avnion, S., & Grayevsky, M. (2019). Homeschooling, civics, and socialization: The case of Israel. Education and Urban Society, 51(7), 970-988.

Ray, B. D. (2017). A systematic review of the empirical research on selected aspects of homeschooling as a school choice. Journal of School Choice, 11(4), 604-621.

Redford, J., Battle, D., & Bielick, S. (2017, April). Homeschooling in the United States: 2012. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved August 1, 2017, from. (NCES 2016-096.REV) https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2016096rev

Sikkink, D., & Skiles, S. (2015). Homeschooling and young adult outcomes: Evidence from the 2011 and 2014 Cardus Education Survey. The Cardus Religious Schools Initiative.

Cara Goodwin, Ph.D.

Cara Goodwin, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in translating scientific research into information that is useful, accurate, and relevant for parents.

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The Effects of Online Homeschooling on Children, Parents, and Teachers of Grades 1–9 During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Beginning in the 2020 spring semester, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all school-age children in China were homeschooled via live/recorded broadcasts, online group communication, and software-based homework submission. This study assessed the effects of and proper preparation for this educational approach.

Material/Methods

The homeschooling behaviors and feelings of school-age children were assessed with 2010 online surveys obtained separately from students, parents, and teachers of grades 1–9 in 15 Chinese provinces. Answers were compared among low- (grades 1–3), middle- (grades 4–6), and high- (grades 7–9) grade groups. The chi-square test was used to identify significant differences between groups.

We found that 76% of the respondents thought the homeschooling style was acceptable. However, teachers were concerned that students’ interest, focus, and academic performance would decline. Sixty-nine percent of the parents reported their children had more than 3 hours of daily screen time, and 82% of students had less than 2 hours of daily outdoor activity. Ninety-five percent of the parents were concerned about their children’s eyesight. Additionally, 17.6% of the students were suspected to have emotional or behavioral problems according to the parent-rated Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) results. The Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) results of parents and teachers showed higher levels of anxiety than usual.

Conclusions

Students should continue the going-to-school rhythm at home to cope with changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Integrated grade-specific approaches are needed. Because long screen time and insufficient outdoor activities can severely affect children’s eyesight, appropriate eye-protection measures should be implemented.

Home confinement was implemented nationwide in China in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Consequently, all school-age children received homeschooling from the beginning of the 2020 spring semester [ 1 ]. Although children were considered to be less affected by the virus than adults, as revealed by clinical experience, they were not exempt from infection but merely showed less severe symptoms [ 2 ]. Given the length of the home confinement period, homeschooling was considered both necessary and effective under the circumstances [ 3 ].

Unlike the conventional homeschooling style applied in other countries, where parents, relatives, or other knowledgeable persons act as instructors and conduct basic education at home [ 4 ], the Chinese homeschooling style is a combination of live/recorded broadcasts, WeChat/DingTalk group communication, and software-based homework submission [ 5 ]. All school subjects are taught online, including the major subjects of language, science, and math and the minor subjects of morality, music, art, and gym. As this style has never been used before, and thus no previous experience can be referenced, the present study assessed the effects of and proper preparation for this educational approach.

According to the Ministry of Education, approximately 180 million primary and secondary students were being homeschooled in China. Concerns were raised regarding their mental and physical health, as well as academic performance [ 6 , 7 ]. To understand the possible influence, both direct and indirect, of this homeschooling style on their academic performance, we conducted a survey of primary and secondary school students enrolled in homeschooling, as well as their parents and teachers.

Material and Methods

Students enrolled in homeschooling and parents and teachers of grades 1–9 were selected for this survey. Excluding unwilling participants, responses with repeated data, and questionnaires with multiple unanswered items, a total of 2010 valid questionnaires were collected, with 738 answered by students, 1062 answered by parents (or similar guardians), and 210 answered by teachers.

By means of online questionnaires developed on the “Wenjuanxing” website and submitted via cell phone, learning- and adaptation-related questions (mainly single-choice and a few fill-in-the-blank questions) were delivered separately to the students, parents, and teachers to assess homeschooling-related behaviors, feelings, and somatic effects [ 8 ]. The questions were answered as “strongly agree”, “agree”, “neither agree nor disagree”, “disagree”, and “strongly disagree”, and the choice “do not know” was included in some of the questions for parents and teachers. The survey lasted for 7 days in the second week (7 to 13 March 2020) of the homeschooling semester.

Demographics

Basic demographic information, including age and gender of the surveyed students, parents, and teachers, was collected as part of the survey. The relationship of the respondent with the homeschooled child and the child’s gender and age were also included in the parents’ survey.

Survey of students

Questions regarding interest in learning, interaction in class, feelings, physical discomfort, screen time, outdoor activity time, sleeping time, and schooling style preference were included in the survey of students. The target population was students in grades 1–9 who were currently taking online classes.

Survey of parents

Parents were asked the same questions regarding one of their homeschooled children in grades 1–9 to provide a different angle from the parents’ perspectives. Additional questions on class monitoring and children’s eyesight were included. Moreover, the parent-rated Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was used to assess the emotional symptoms, conduct problems, peer relationships, and other psychological characteristics of the children [ 9 ]. Previous studies in China have proven the good psychometric properties of the SDQ [ 10 ]. A cutoff score of 17 (standard score) was used to indicate an abnormal range, referring to previous studies of Chinese children [ 11 ]. The Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) was used to assess the anxiety levels of parents, with a cutoff score of 50 (standard scores ≥50 indicate anxiety) [ 12 ]. The SDQ and SAS questions were set to be skippable so that parents could decide whether to participate.

Survey of teachers

The questions addressed to teachers were counterparts of those presented to students as a reflection of students’ behaviors and feelings. Teachers were also asked about their anticipation of students’ academic performance based on their experience of teaching online classes. Additionally, the SAS was also addressed to teachers and set to be skippable.

Statistical analysis

The answers collected from students, parents, and teachers were compared in the low- (grades 1–3), middle- (grades 4–6), and high- (grades 7–9) grade groups. To simplify the analysis, “strongly agree” and “agree” were both counted as “agree”, while “disagree” and “strongly disagree” were both counted as “disagree”. In the few cases when the answer was “do not know”, it was also counted as “disagree”. The chi-square test was used to identify statistically significant differences between groups. SPSS (Release 24, IBM SPSS Statistics) for Windows was used for data analyses, and p<0.05 was considered significant.

A total of 2010 valid questionnaires were collected from 15 provinces in China. The students’ questionnaires were completed by children with an average age of 11 years, while the parents who completed questionnaires had children with an average age of 10 years. The gender ratio of the students/children was generally even. Sixty-five percent of the parents’ questionnaires were answered by mothers and 61.1% of the parents were 31–40 years old. We found that 63.3% of the families reported having 1 child taking online classes. The teachers’ questionnaires were completed by teachers teaching online classes – 76.2% were female, 88.1% were under 50 years old, and the teachers sampled were distributed evenly among grades ( Table 1 ).

Characteristics of students, parents and teachers.

Student results

According to the students’ questionnaires, 55.6% of the students were interested in this homeschooling style, but only 37.7% of them could interact actively with teachers and classmates during online classes. Among students, 93.2% reported not being distracted (playing games or chatting with friends) during online classes, and the percentages increased as the grades increased (89.2%, 94%, and 96.4% for the low-, middle-, and high-grade groups, respectively). Among students, 74.4% reported no fatigue/sleepiness, while 84.6% reported having no back pain. However, the percentages of the high-grade group (63.1% for no fatigue/sleepiness and 72.6% for no back pain) were considerably lower than the averages. Among students, 66.7% reported having less than 1 hour of screen time per day, while 13% reported more than 3 hours. Among students, 82% reported having less than 2 hours of outdoor activity per day. Notably, 42.9% of the high-grade group students reported no outdoor activity time at all, while 39.2% and 40.1% of the low- and middle-grade groups, respectively, reported 1–2 hours per day. Regarding daily sleeping time, 56.3% and 55.2% of the low- and middle-grade groups, respectively, reported 9–10 hours, while 53.6% of the high-grade group reported 7–8 hours. We found that 83.5% of the students preferred classroom-based schooling to homeschooling and other schooling styles ( Table 2 ).

Homeschooling behaviors and feelings of students.

Parent results

We found 41.9% of the surveyed parents believed their children were interested in the homeschooling style. However, 57.4% of them considered that there was not enough interaction during online classes. Among parents, 77.4% considered that their children focused on learning during online classes, and the percentage increased as the grades increased (73.4%, 80.3%, and 81.6% for low, middle, and high grades, respectively). Nevertheless, 50% of them believed that monitoring was required during online classes, with the percentage decreasing as the grades increased (60.9%, 43.1%, and 33.3% for low, middle, and high grades, respectively). Up to 57.2% of the parents reported no fatigue/sleepiness in their children, while 73.3% reported no back pain, but the percentages of the high-grade group (34.5% for no fatigue/sleepiness and 55.2% for no back pain) were considerably lower than the averages. We found that 68.8% of the parents reported that their children had more than 3 hours of screen time per day, which exceeded the recommendation (≤2 hours a day) of the American Academy of Pediatrics [ 13 , 14 ]. Among parents, 43.7% reported no outdoor activity for their children, especially for the high-grade group (60.9%). In particular, parents of students in all grades expressed concern about their children’s eyesight (94.8%, 94%, and 97.7% for low, middle, and high grades, respectively). Regarding their children’s sleeping time, 62.1% of the high-grade group parents reported 7–8 hours, while 59.2% and 59.4% of the low- and middle-grade group parents, respectively, reported 9–10 hours. We found that 95.6% of the parents preferred classroom-based schooling to other schooling styles ( Table 3 ).

Homeschooling behaviors and feelings of Barents.

Teacher results

Among teachers, 35.2% considered that this homeschooling style would increase their students’ interest in learning, but the percentage decreased quickly as the grades increased (41.5%, 40%, and 16.7% for low, middle, and high grades, respectively). Conversely, 25.7% of the teachers considered that this style would decrease their students’ interest, and the percentage increased quickly as the grades increased (18.3%, 26.3%, and 37.5% for low, middle, and high grades, respectively). We found that 74.3% of the teachers felt they could interact with their students during online classes, although the percentage decreased as the grades increased (80.5%, 76.3%, and 60.4% for low, middle, and high grades, respectively). However, 41.9% believed that their students were truly focused in class. Only 8.6% reported that they could effectively monitor their students during online classes, with the percentage decreasing from 13.4% to 0% as the grades increased. Meanwhile, 52.9% of them considered that homeschooling would have a negative influence on their students’ academic performance. Like the students and the parents, 83.8% of the teachers preferred classroom-based schooling to other styles ( Table 4 ).

Homeschooling behaviors and feelings of teachers.

SDQ and SAS scores of parents and teachers

The results of the parent-rated SDQ indicated that 17.6% of the students were suspected to have emotional or behavioral problems, and low-grade students were considered more vulnerable than high-grade students (19.3%, 16.7%, and 13.7% for low, middle, and high grades, respectively). Merely 9.6% of the surveyed parents and 17.2% of the surveyed teachers showed elevated levels of anxiety, as indicated in the SAS results. More parents and teachers reported anxiety in the low- and middle-grade groups than in the high-grade group (10.8%, 8.9%, and 6.3% in parents and 18.5%, 20.8%, and 9.4% in teachers for low, middle, and high grades, respectively) ( Table 5 ).

Results of parent-rated Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) * and Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) of parents ** and teachers *** .

The survey results indicated that most of the students, parents, and teachers thought the homeschooling style was acceptable, at least in the beginning. Positive attitudes are believed to have a positive influence on students’ academic performance [ 15 ]. Nevertheless, it is notable that 25.7% of the teachers expressed concern that this style could diminish their students’ interest in learning; the higher the grade, the more teachers were concerned.

It is commonly agreed that students’ interest in learning is one of the most important factors influencing their academic performance. To preserve and improve students’ interest in learning during this homeschooling period, it is suggested that the aspect of “teaching” be weakened and the aspect of “learning” be strengthened [ 16 ]. Information can be discovered and summarized by students themselves through explorative reading and research assignments. It is even better if the assignments are designed to be associated with real life to make full use of the home environment [ 17 ]. Instead of live/recorded broadcasts, multimedia methods (e.g., demonstrative experiments, animated videos, didactic games) can be applied. As the home environment is not dedicated to long-term learning, it is also important to minimize the number of learning tasks. Some subjects (e.g., music and gym) that are not suitable for online learning can be learned in the form of appreciation and family activities to reduce the amount of online time [ 18 ].

Interaction is an indicator of class participation. Good interaction in class can increase students’ comprehension and application of knowledge and promote the learning effect [ 19 ]. Although 74.3% of the teachers considered that they could interact with students during online classes, 66.3% of the students and 57.4% of the parents did not agree. This contrast probably indicates that teachers can pay attention to a small portion of the students during online classes, while the majority of students were neglected because they were not proactive.

To actively engage students in class interaction, parents can do more than providing the proper equipment. It is a good idea for parents to join their children as partners in online classes so that the students can interact not only with teachers and classmates but also with parents. Parents can note their children’s shortcomings and provide feedback to teachers so that the teaching effect can be evaluated, with necessary adjustments made, and even individual tutoring assigned.

We found that 93.2% of the students reported that they were not distracted (not playing or chatting) during online classes, and 77.4% of the parents believed the same, but only 41.9% of the teachers agreed. Similarly, 50% of the parents considered that their children required monitoring in class, but 37.1% of the teachers thought they could not monitor their students at all. As a result, 52.9% of the teachers anticipated that their students’ academic performance would be adversely affected by this homeschooling style; the higher the grade, the more teachers expressed this negative anticipation.

There are several ways that parents can help students be more focused in class. Instead of telling the children to study hard, parents can set them an example by working hard at home and participating in classes with their children. The going-to-school rhythm can be continued at home by means such as setting up a study room that is similar to the classroom, having the students dressed in school uniforms before classes, and entering the study room as if entering the classroom. For teachers to effectively monitor students in class, online conferences/virtual classroom software can be used as supplements to the live/recorded broadcasts. With the camera on, teachers and students can see each other as they do in the classroom [ 20 ].

We found that 68.8% of the parents reported 3 hours and more of daily screen time for their children, but 82% of the students and 84.4% of the parents reported less than 2 hours of outdoor time. In addition, 94.6% of the parents were concerned about their children’s eyesight [ 21 ]. Furthermore, although 74.4% of the students reported no fatigue/sleepiness and 84.6% reported no back pain, a clear difference in percentages between the low-/middle- and high-grade groups was reported by both students and parents.

In the present study, eye distance was less than 1 foot when studying, and sleep time of less than 7 hours is a risk factor for myopia [ 22 ]. Therefore, it is crucial to reduce students’ screen time to mitigate the negative direct and indirect influences, even though they are being homeschooled [ 23 ]. One way to achieve this is to have as few classes a day as possible (as discussed before), and homework can be done in the traditional handwritten way instead of on computers and cellphones [ 18 ]. Children should be kept away from TVs and video games after class and be engaged in outdoor exercise (in the garden or even on the balcony) for at least 2 hours a day [ 24 , 25 ]. Correct posture during study and adequate sleeping time for school students should be assured. For after-class time, parents can help students develop hobbies at home, such as cooking, baking, drawing, gardening, and indoor exercise (e.g., skipping, dancing, yoga) [ 26 ].

According to the results of the parents’ SDQs, we found that 17.6% of the students were suspected to have emotional or behavioral problems, and low-grade students were considered to be more vulnerable. The percentage of the abnormal range reported in the parents’ SDQs was higher than that previously reported in China (12.1%) [ 11 ]. Similarly, the percentage of abnormal ranges reported in the SASs of parents and teachers were considerably higher than those of the general population [ 27 ], and both were higher for the low-grade groups than the high-grade groups. Previous studies have shown elevated anxiety levels of parents and teachers with children/students in primary schools [ 28 , 29 ]. Therefore, further investigation is required to determine whether the higher levels of anxiety revealed in the study are related to homeschooling.

We found that 83.5% of students, 95.6% of parents, and 83.8% of teachers preferred classroom-based schooling to other styles. Therefore, it is important to restore the classroom-based schooling style as soon as possible if students’ and teachers’ health and safety can be secured. In cities and provinces where no confirmed and suspected COVID-19 cases have been diagnosed within a certain period of time (e.g., 14 days), schools can be reopened with certain measures (e.g., washing hands and changing masks upon entering, maintaining physical distance in classes, limiting after-class activities) [ 30 ].

The present survey has several limitations. Firstly, this study has a cross-sectional design. It was carried out in the first 2 weeks of the homeschooling semester, when many possible problems may not have emerged. Constant attention and further investigation are required to assess the overall situation. Secondly, there is a clear contrast in the daily screen time reported by students and parents. One possible reason is that the students and parents are not in one-to-one correspondence. Another explanation may derive from children’s high self-esteem in that they tend to overestimate their own abilities [ 31 ]. This is an interesting topic that can be investigated further in the future. Thirdly, compared to the total number of homeschooling students, the sample size of the survey was very small. Due to the randomness of the survey, not all provinces were included. Nevertheless, this survey managed to investigate multiple factors affecting homeschooling for students, parents, and teachers, without face-to-face communication. The results can help with the formulation and adjustment of homeschooling style, not only in China but also in other countries applying home containment due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current homeschooling style was generally considered acceptable by the students, parents, and teachers in China during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the concerns raised by teachers that this style might diminish students’ interest, focus, and academic performance. The long screen time and insufficient outdoor activities reported by parents can severely affect children’s eyesight. Therefore, it is suggested that students continue the going-to-school rhythm at home to cope with these changes, while integrated approaches customized to their age, as well as proper eye-protection measures, should be implemented.

Source of support: Departmental sources

The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal

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research paper for home schooling

The Academic and Social Benefits of Homeschooling

research paper for home schooling

Homeschooling works. The roughly 2 million children who currently learn at home join a millennia-old practice supported by many government officials, scholars, college officials, and employers.

While mainstream America has embraced homeschooling as a viable and positive educational option—and as 55 million K-12 students and their parents have been thrust into “crisis-teaching at home”—the angst of some academics over homeschooling has abruptly emerged.

Professors Elizabeth Bartholet of Harvard University and James Dwyer of William and Mary School of Law organized a summer meeting to “focus on problems of educational deprivation and child maltreatment that too often occur under the guise of homeschooling, in a legal environment of minimal or no oversight.” In a highly controversial article in Harvard Magazine , Erin O’Donnell advanced Bartholet’s arguments in favor of a homeschooling ban.

Yet, what does the evidence tell us about homeschool educational and social outcomes? Is there any sound corpus of evidence that homeschooled children are actually educationally deprived or maltreated? And what worldview drives anti-homeschoolers such as Bartholet and Dwyer?

Most reviews of homeschooling research reveal generally positive learning outcomes for children.

Joseph Murphy and Brian Ray provide quite optimistic reviews, while other appraisals present positive, albeit more tentative , conclusions. A one-of-its-kind review of only peer-reviewed research by Ray revealed that 11 of the 14 peer-reviewed studies on academic achievement found that homeschool students significantly outperformed conventionally schooled children. Both of the publicly available state-provided data sets showed higher-than-average test scores for homeschooled children.

A similar pattern emerges for the social, emotional, and psychological development of the homeschooled.

The clear majority of peer-reviewed studies show that homeschoolers often have better parent-child relationships and friendships than conventionally schooled children. Homeschoolers are happy, satisfied, and civically engaged .

A growing body of research indicates that graduates of home-based education excel. Eleven of the 16 peer-reviewed studies on success into adulthood (including college) showed that homeschoolers had better results for political tolerance, college GPA, and college retention than students in conventional schools. After reviewing the relevant literature, Gloeckner and Jones concluded that the “comparative results of the studies reported in this review, combined with the data collected from college admission officers provide evidence that homeschooling is an effective alternative path to college for the children of many families.”

Homeschoolers are not being educationally deprived, maltreated, or abused. On the contrary, the research literature suggests that rates of abuse (e.g., physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect) are lower among homeschoolers than institutionally schooled children.

Although there are certainly cases when homeschoolers are abused (and such cases should be prosecuted), banning homeschooling is not the answer, nor will it improve education or make children safer.

As a society we do not, for example, close public schools when a child is abused there. When scholars like Bartholet, Fineman and Worthington, and Dwyer and Peters advocate for a total or presumptive ban on homeschooling, they do so without solid support from the empirical literature. When Bartholet and others advocate for forcing children to enter the public school system, they are ignoring evidence that only approximately 40 percent of conventionally schooled students are at, or above, proficiency in reading and mathematics.

Certainly, many public educators are engaged in terrific efforts to provide high-quality education, but it is also clear that the public school system has significant limitations.

Why, then, do some academics want more government control and restrictions on homeschooling? We think it is not hard to perceive: They do not approve of the values and beliefs of the parents who choose to homeschool.

One of us partially addressed the answer in a scholarly journal some years ago. Ray identified four classes of negativity toward parent-led home-based education. Some scholars make theoretical arguments that government schools are the gold standard of education that advances the common good, while private schooling is bad for society. A second group argues that homeschooling is an attempt to “cocoon” one’s children from ideas and people that the parents disdain. Another category holds that homeschooling harms children philosophically, psychologically, religiously, physically, and educationally. And the fourth group goes against homeschooling by theorizing why the state should have more domination over children and their parents.

In the end, however, all of those categories of opposition are founded on different values, beliefs, and presuppositions than those at the core of parent-led homeschooling. Dwyer and Peters , for example, presuppose that “[t]he state must have the ultimate authority to determine what children’s interests are” and that the state is the entity that shall decide over what aspects of a child’s life his parents have authority.

In a similar vein, Bartholet argues that the state, not the parent, shall have the ultimate authority to decide what and how children shall be taught. Parents, in her world, must prove to the state that they deserve permission to educate their children outside of the government’s control. Fineman’s philosophical zeal is so clear that anything other than state-funded and state-controlled education must be banned by the government.

These kinds of ideas simply stem from their philosophical and religious worldviews. It is “natural” for them to conclude that the civil government must control children’s teaching, training, and indoctrination. It is natural because their worldviews cannot comprehend or tolerate a worldview such as classical liberalism or Christianity that holds the state should not control boys’ and girls’ educational formation, unless parents are abusive.

While the relevant research has limitations , scholarly research shows that homeschooling has positive outcomes for children. There is certainly no body of clear evidence that homeschooling undermines children’s academic and social development and should be restricted. Certain academics’ agitation over homeschooling appears to be based on their perspective that the state—and not parents—should control the education of all children.

Compared to conventional students, homeschool graduates are more likely to

  • have higher college GPAs,
  • be politically tolerant,
  • be agreeable and conscientious,
  • have a more positive college experience, and
  • be self-employed.

In summary, opponents of homeschooling lack empirical data for their arguments, and judges and governmental officials consistently hold that parents have the right to educate their children at home.

Those arguing for state domination lost their major battles in legislatures, courts, and the public mind in the 1980s and 1990s. Homeschooling advocates have strong support in protecting their freedom to educate outside state-run systems.

College personnel, employers, and independent business advocates should be glad about homeschooling. It is a form of free enterprise. It costs taxpayers less than public schooling and its graduates are well-equipped to be the next generation of entrepreneurs, leaders, parents, householders, creators, and everyday citizens. In summary, we agree with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s analysis of this issue: “The risk to children is not from homeschooling. The risk is from radical leftist scholars seeking to impose their values on our children.”

Brian D. Ray, Ph.D., is president of the National Home Education Research Institute and is internationally known for his research on homeschooling.

Carlos Valiente, Ph.D., is a Professor in the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University.

research paper for home schooling

May 13, 2020 › Academics , Politicization

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research paper for home schooling

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  • Published: 17 January 2022

Psychosocial impacts of home-schooling on parents and caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic

  • Alison L. Calear 1 ,
  • Sonia McCallum 1 ,
  • Alyssa R. Morse 1 ,
  • Michelle Banfield 1 ,
  • Amelia Gulliver 1 ,
  • Nicolas Cherbuin 2 ,
  • Louise M. Farrer 1 ,
  • Kristen Murray 3 ,
  • Rachael M. Rodney Harris 4 , 5 &
  • Philip J. Batterham 1  

BMC Public Health volume  22 , Article number:  119 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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The COVID-19 pandemic has been highly disruptive, with the closure of schools causing sudden shifts for students, educators and parents/caregivers to remote learning from home (home-schooling). Limited research has focused on home-schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic, with most research to date being descriptive in nature. The aim of the current study was to comprehensively quantify the psychosocial impacts of home-schooling on parents and other caregivers, and identify factors associated with better outcomes.

A nationally representative sample of 1,296 Australian adults was recruited at the beginning of Australian COVID-19 restrictions in late-March 2020, and followed up every two weeks. Data for the current study were drawn from waves two and three. Surveys assessed psychosocial outcomes of psychological distress, work and social impairment, and wellbeing, as well as a range of home-schooling factors.

Parents and caregivers who were home-schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic experienced significantly higher levels of psychological distress and work/social impairment compared to those who were not home-schooling or had no school-aged children. A current mental health diagnosis or lower levels of perceived support from their child’s school negatively affected levels of psychological distress, work and social impairment, and wellbeing in parents and caregivers involved in home-schooling.

Conclusions

The mental health impacts of home-schooling were high and may rise as periods of home-schooling increase in frequency and duration. Recognising and acknowledging the challenges of home-schooling is important, and should be included in psychosocial assessments of wellbeing during periods of school closure. Emotional and instrumental support is needed for those involved in home-schooling, as perceived levels of support is associated with improved outcomes. Proactive planning by schools to support parents may promote better outcomes and improved home-schooling experiences for students.

Peer Review reports

By the end of March 2020, many countries had implemented strict physical distancing policies, including large-scale or national closure of schools, to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 [ 1 ]. According to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), by the beginning of April 2020 an estimated 172 countries had instituted nation-wide school closures affecting over 1.4 billion learners [ 2 ]. In response, educators had to adapt curriculum and implement new modes of delivery to enable students to participate in remote learning from home (hereafter termed home-schooling), while parents and other caregivers had to manage the supervision of home-schooling alongside their other professional, personal, and parenting roles [ 3 , 4 ]. In Australia, schools closed nationally to the majority of students at the end of March 2020, with select schools remaining open for vulnerable children, based on young age, social disadvantage, or specific needs [ 5 ], and those whose parents or caregivers were healthcare or other essential frontline workers.

For many parents and caregivers, home-schooling has placed considerable demands on time. It has often required them to balance multiple competing and unfamiliar roles without the usual support of grandparents, or other extended family, friends or teachers [ 3 , 6 ]. The challenges of home-schooling may be exacerbated by pressure to continue to work from home to keep jobs and businesses running [ 6 ]. As a result, some parents and caregivers have had to work longer hours each day to meet work and home-schooling obligations, potentially affecting sleep and reducing time for leisure activities [ 3 , 7 ].

The availability of resources for schools and families, such as electronic devices and adequate internet service, has also likely impacted home-schooling experiences. Carers of younger school-aged children or those with additional needs may have been particularly affected, as these children typically require closer supervision to complete home-schooling activities. A study in Hong Kong that surveyed parents about their experiences of home-schooling reported that only 14% of primary school students could complete activities without assistance [ 4 ].

School closures have been a highly disruptive element of the COVID-19 pandemic, altering the day-to-day lives of children and families. The sudden shift to home-schooling and the challenges it has presented based on factors such as the age and ability of their child(ren), parental income, living conditions (crowded housing or homelessness), and available additional support has placed added pressure on parents and caregivers [ 3 , 8 ]. In addition, the impact of home-schooling has not been evenly distributed, with caregivers of children with disabilities and diverse educational needs facing higher rates of stress and mental health problems [ 7 , 9 ]. In turn, increased parental stress may have negatively affected their mental health, the parent-child relationship, and the emotional wellbeing of the child [ 3 , 4 ]. These factors may have also impacted educational attainment [ 5 ].

Given the ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns internationally, and the potential for future pandemics and other system shocks (e.g., fires, floods, earthquakes), there is a clear need to comprehensively quantify the psychosocial impacts of home-schooling on parents and other caregivers, and to investigate individual and environmental characteristics that exacerbate them. Therefore, the current study aimed to (1) assess the impact of home-schooling on parent/caregiver psychological distress, work and social impairment, and wellbeing; and (2) identify factors associated with psychological distress, work and social impairment, and wellbeing among those engaged in home-schooling.

Participants and procedure

The Australian National COVID-19 Mental Health, Behaviour and Risk Communication (COVID-MHBRC) survey was established to longitudinally assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on a representative sample of Australian adults aged 18 years and over [ 10 ]. The study consisted of seven waves of data collection, which were completed online on a fortnightly basis and administered through Qualtrics Research Services. Participants were emailed an invitation to complete each survey and were provided a one-week window in which to complete it. Participants received up to five reminders to complete a survey during the week of data collection. Quota sampling was used to obtain a sample of the Australian population from market research panels that was representative on the bases of age group, gender and State/Territory of residence. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to participation in the study. The current study was approved by The Australian National University Human Research Ethics Committee (protocol 2020/152) and the full study protocol is available online ( https://psychology.anu.edu.au/files/COVID_MHBRCS_protocol.pdf ).

The first wave of data collection commenced on the 28th March 2020 ( N =1296). Besides demographics and background variables (collected in Wave 1), data for the current study were drawn from waves two (home-schooling variables) and three (mental health outcomes) collected between the 11th and 30th April 2020. Over 73% of the initial sample was retained at Wave 2 (W2; N =969). Attrition across subsequent waves was lower, consistently retaining over 90% wave-on-wave ( N W3=952, W4=910, W5=874; W6=820; W7=762).

Psychological Distress

The five-item Distress Questionnaire-5 (DQ5; [ 11 ]) was measured at wave 3 and used to assess psychological distress over the past two weeks. Items were rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (Never) to 5 (Always). Total scale scores ranged from 5 to 25, with higher scores indicating greater psychological distress. The scale had very good internal consistency in the current study sample (α = 0.93).

Work and social impairment

The extent to which work and social activities were impaired by COVID-19 was measured at wave 3 using the Work and Social Adjustment Scale (WSAS; [ 12 ]). Participants were asked to rate the level of impairment COVID-19 had caused for five work and social domains (ability to work, home management, social leisure activities, private leisure activities, and ability to form and maintain close relationships) on a 9-point scale ranging from 0 (Not at all impaired) to 8 (Very severely impaired). Total scores on this scale ranged from 0 to 40, with higher scores indicative of greater work and social impairment as a result of COVID-19. The WSAS had very good internal consistency in the current study sample (α = 0.77).

Subjective wellbeing during the past two weeks was assessed at wave 3 using the 5-item World Health Organization Wellbeing Index (WHO-5; [ 13 ]). Items were responded to on a 6-point scale ranging from 0 (At no time) to 5 (All of the time), multiplied by four to obtain total scale scores ranging between 0 and 100. Higher scores are indicative of greater wellbeing. The scale had very good internal consistency (α = 0.93).

Home-schooling factors

A range of factors associated with home-schooling were also assessed at wave 2 among respondents who reported home-schooling their children due to COVID-19. Respondents to these items could include parents, grandparents, or other caregivers, and included items on the school level of children (primary school/ secondary school), working from home (yes/no), sharing of home-schooling duties (yes/no), and perceived impact on work/daily activity (4-point scale from ‘not at all’ to ‘a lot’). The amount of support received from the school was also collated (e.g., online social interactions with teachers and/or peers; real-time lessons; pre-recorded teacher instruction videos; structured activities; list of optional activities; connected with other parents), with total scores on this item ranging from 0 to 6. The perceived support received from the school was assessed based on perceptions of school flexibility (e.g., advice from the school to do what best suits each family), how the school facilitated connection to peers, whether the school helped families to enjoy home-schooling, or whether the school caused parents to feel stress or worry about home-schooling. These four items were assessed on a 5-point scale ranging from 0 (Not at all) to 4 (Extremely) and could range from 0 to 16 with higher scores indicating greater perceived support.

Demographic and background variables

At wave 1 participants also provided details on their age, gender, and level of educational attainment (Secondary school, certificate/diploma, Bachelor’s degree, higher degree [e.g., PhD]). Participants were also asked if they had ever been diagnosed (past/current) by a clinician (e.g., general practitioner, psychologist, psychiatrist) with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, autism spectrum disorder, alcohol or substance use disorder, eating disorder, or other mental disorder (specify). For the purposes of the current study, these items were combined into a single variable assessing mental health diagnosis history (none/past/current).

Statistical analysis

Between-subject ANOVAs were conducted to compare participants who were home-schooling, with those who had children but were not home-schooling them (‘not home-schooling’) and those who did not have school-aged children, on the key psychosocial outcomes of (i) psychological distress, (ii) work and social impairment, and (iii) wellbeing. A series of linear regression analyses were conducted to identify if demographic, background and home-schooling variables collected at wave 2 were associated with higher levels of psychological distress and work and social impairment, and lower levels of wellbeing measured at wave 3.

Impact on psychosocial outcomes

Table  1 presents participant characteristics according to home-schooling status. For demographic factors, participants who reported home-schooling their children were significantly younger and more likely to have a Bachelor’s degree than participants without school-aged children or those not home-schooling their children. There were no significant differences between the three groups in terms of gender or mental health diagnosis.

The impact of home-schooling on psychological distress, work/social impairment and wellbeing at wave 3 is also presented in Table  1 . On average, home-schooling participants scored 1.6 points higher (Cohen’s d = 0.32) on the DQ5 measure of psychological distress, F (2,872)=7.19, p = 0.001, and 3.5 points higher ( d = 0.38) on the WSAS measure of work/social impairment, F (2,869)=9.90, p <0.001, compared to participants who were not home-schooling. No differences were observed in levels of wellbeing between groups, F (2,873)=0.35, p = 0.704.

Factors associated with psychosocial outcomes among participants who home-schooled

Table  2 presents a summary of the home-schooling variables. The majority of home-schooling participants reported having at least one primary-school aged child (65.4%), while just over half reported working from home while home-schooling (53.8%) and/or sharing the home-schooling duties with another adult (51%). A little under half of home-schooling participants perceived home-schooling to have had some or much impact on their work or daily activities. On average, participants received two home-schooling supports from their school (e.g., structured activities).

Table  3 presents the results of the linear regression analyses. Higher levels of psychological distress were significantly associated with a current mental health diagnosis, lower levels of educational attainment, greater perceptions that home-schooling was having an impact on work and daily activities, and lower levels of perceived support from their child’s school. Higher levels of work and social impairment were significantly associated with a current mental health diagnosis, male gender, younger age, and lower levels of perceived support from their child’s school. Lastly, lower levels of wellbeing were significantly associated with past and current mental health diagnosis, and lower levels of perceived support from their child’s school.

To our knowledge, the current study is the first to comprehensively assess and quantify the psychosocial effects of home-schooling on parents and other caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, this study found that parents and caregivers who were home-schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic experienced higher levels of psychological distress and work/social impairment than those who were not home-schooling or had no school-aged children. Among those home-schooling, younger people with less education and a history of mental health problems had higher psychological distress and lower wellbeing. Work/social impairment was additionally associated with being male. Those who perceived home-schooling to have a higher impact on work and daily activities, and those who believed they had lower levels of support from the school, also experienced greater distress and work/social impairments. This key finding highlights the importance of communication between schools and parents in the context of home-schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, the need to acknowledge and support the diverse challenges faced when home-schooling, such as enabling flexibility in expectations and activities.

The findings are consistent with qualitative research suggesting that home-schooling puts enormous time demands and pressure on people who are required to fulfil multiple, and sometimes conflicting, roles [ 3 , 4 ]. For many parents and caregivers, the time needed to undertake home-schooling duties has adversely impacted their ability to work, or led to a reduction or reallocation of work hours, which may have also reduced their ability to engage in home management and leisure activities [ 3 , 7 ]. The distress, lowered wellbeing, and lack of support felt by parents during this time has likely been amplified by financial concerns, worries about the health risks of COVID-19, and the inability to draw on usual social networks for support, such as grandparents, friends and other family members, due to strict physical distancing restrictions during the pandemic [ 3 , 6 ]. The available “down-time” during this period may have been significantly reduced for many parents and caregivers and this is reflected in increased psychological distress, and work and social impairment.

The current study also found that the levels of psychological distress, work and social impairment, and wellbeing experienced by participants who were home-schooling during the pandemic was negatively affected by a current or past mental health diagnosis. People experiencing mental health difficulties may already have a reduced capacity to cope with stress and uncertainty [ 14 , 15 ]. As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, and in future major crises, this points to a need to identify people who are highly likely to struggle with the additional responsibilities of home-schooling and ensure tailored support is available to minimise distress and maximise educational outcomes for children.

The importance of support is reinforced by the finding that perceived support from the child’s school was consistently related to all three psychosocial outcomes. Participants who reported higher perceived support from their child’s school tended to report lower levels of distress and impairment, and higher levels of wellbeing. This finding is in line with the wider mental health literature that associates social support with better mental health outcomes [ 16 ]. Specifically, it points to the importance of providing all schools with the capacity to deliver the required practical and social support, and appropriate resources to parents and caregivers, during enforced periods of home-schooling, with attention paid to factors that may increase vulnerability to distress. Support may include simple recognition of the challenges faced by non-teachers in education delivery, and reassurance that parents’ and caregivers’ efforts to support their children’s learning are “enough.” Further, cooperation and flexibility from workplaces to ensure parents and caregivers, especially those with a history of mental health problems and/or with young children requiring significant learning support, is also likely to reduce distress and perceived impairments.

Higher psychological distress was also associated with lower levels of educational attainment and higher perceived impact of home-schooling on work and daily activities. Parents and caregivers with lower levels of education may have been less confident in their ability to support learning or found it more challenging due to lower literacy or numeracy skills [ 17 ]. Higher perceptions of the negative impacts of home-schooling may have led to feelings of being overwhelmed or reduced feelings of control. This risks further entrenching the social disadvantage already prevalent in those with lower levels of education. Higher levels of work and social impairment were also observed in males and younger participants. Males may have been less accustomed to flexible work arrangements [ 18 ], as women are often the primary carers of children, or their positions may have been less amenable to home-schooling disruptions and thus they perceived greater impairments to their work and social functioning. Younger parents and caregivers may have been more likely to have younger children, and thus the time requirement and pressure on them to actively participate in remote home learning activities may have been greater and potentially more disruptive.

Recognising and acknowledging the challenges of home-schooling is important, and should be included in psychosocial assessments of wellbeing during periods of school closure. There is a clear need to provide emotional and instrumental support to parents and other caregivers during school closures so that they can manage all roles effectively, and minimise adverse psychosocial effects. Parents and caregivers need access to support from social networks if available [ 16 ], and need schools to communicate realistic expectations, provide adequate educational activities, and supportive feedback that accounts for the unequal spread of perceived impact. Similarly, as teachers are the primary point of contact for students during remote learning, they need to be adequately supported during this time so that they can be available to effectively support students and parents. Whilst the unexpected school closures as a result of COVID-19 necessitated a rapid response to educational support materials that may have been less than ideal in some cases, as the pandemic progresses, it is critical to record and act upon lessons learned about activities that facilitate supported and independent learning for children, and provide greater support for parents and caregivers who are not educators and trying to balance work responsibilities. This is particularly the case for parents and caregivers who may face additional struggles, including those with mental health issues or with lower levels of education, that may undermine confidence or ability to home-school [ 4 ] and perpetuate social disadvantage.

The current study has several strengths. Firstly, the data were collected at the peak of home-schooling in Australia in a generally representative population sample. Secondly, data were collected over multiple time points, reinforcing the temporal effects of the findings. However, the study also has some limitations. Although the study was designed to be representative of the Australian population, it is likely that under-privileged groups - those with low income, educational attainment, and employment - were not adequately represented and may have been even more affected by home-schooling [ 19 ]. We also did not separately consider the impacts of home-schooling on families with multiple children or on those who had children with a disability or diverse educational needs. Time-poor parents may be less inclined to participate in research panels, so the findings may provide a conservative estimate of the impacts of home-schooling on busy parents.

In summary, parents and caregivers engaged in home-schooling during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic reported higher levels of psychological distress and work and social impairment than their non-home-schooling peers – both those without school-aged children and those with children still in school. People who were younger, male, had a history of mental health difficulties and/or perceived the impacts of home-schooling on work and daily activities to be higher, or the support of schools to be lower, were particularly affected. Understanding the impacts of home-schooling on parents and caregivers is critical, as periods of home-schooling are likely to continue into the future. In addition, the functioning of parents and caregivers can impact upon the parent-child relationship, child wellbeing and potentially the academic outcomes of children during periods of lock-down.

Availability of data and materials

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the other team members of The Australian National COVID-19 Mental Health, Behaviour and Risk Communication survey who also contributed to the design and management of the study.

This project was supported by funding from the College of Health and Medicine at the Australian National University. ALC is supported by National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) fellowships 1173146. LMF is supported by Australian Research Council DECRA DE190101382. PJB is supported by NHMRC Fellowship 1158707. The funding body did not have a role in the study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data; in the writing of the paper; or in the decision to submit the paper for publication.

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ALC, SM, ARM, and PJB were involved in formulating the research question, and designing the study. PJB analysed the data. All authors were involved in the design and conduct of the survey. ALC drafted the article, and all authors contributed to the writing and critical editing of the article. All authors approved the final version for submission.

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Calear, A.L., McCallum, S., Morse, A.R. et al. Psychosocial impacts of home-schooling on parents and caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic. BMC Public Health 22 , 119 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12532-2

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82 Homeschooling Research Topics & Essay Examples

📝 homeschooling research papers examples, 🏆 best homeschooling essay titles, ❓ homeschooling research questions.

  • "School as Prison" Perception: Arguments Against The primary reason schools are not suitable for successful learning is "the top-down, teach-and-test method" that demotivated children to learn willingly.
  • How Colleges Can Reach Out to Homeschooled Children Currently, public and private schools are not the only two options for children to receive sufficient education in preparation for college.
  • Benefits of Home School Analysis Homeschooling is a positive trend in the modern educational system. It will become more popular, so educational institutions need to take measures to adapt to this system.
  • Benefits Homeschooling Homeschooling has a vast list of benefits ranging from a higher quality of education to more flexible curriculums and even possible mental health benefits
  • Benefits of Homeschooling Homeschooling refers to the process of a parent or parents schooling their youngsters at home, rather than enrolling them in the nearest public or private academic institution.
  • Distant Education or Traditional Education Essay aims to analyze and study both types of education to compare and highlight key features. The traditional method of teaching consists in full-time attendance at institution.
  • Homeschool Method of Education Home-school presupposes more flexibility and comfort. The ability to acquire information and process it not leaving home is one of the basic advantages of this mode of learning.
  • Homeschooling and Its Impact on Learners Homeschooling has become popular in the 21st century with parents increasingly acknowledging the benefits associated with this system.
  • Can Homeschooling Be the Change Our Education System Needs? Homeschooling has its shortfalls relating to the children themselves and their instructors as children develop differently cognitively and socially.
  • Homeschooling as a Better Choice for K-12 Education The paper will address the benefits of homeschooling such as safety, personalization, the ability to develop creative talents, and opportunities for children with special needs.
  • Homeschooling: The Best Choice for K-12 Education Homeschooling provides a favorable environment for learners, enhancing their security and providing an alternative approach to K-12 education.
  • K-12 Education Homeschooling Alternative This paper will support homeschooling as a better option for K-12 education due to the physical, emotional and psychological wellness of a youngster.
  • Studying at School vs. Studying Online Schoolchildren in many countries have been transferred to studying at home, and communication with classmates and teachers takes place online.
  • Learning in an Online Environment Comprehending students' attitudes, facilitators' experiences, and the latest trends in institutions determine positive progress for online learning.
  • Homeschooling and Its Impact on Students All processes are gradually moving or have already moved to an online format, starting with training in institutes and schools, ending with most work in firms and companies.
  • Distance Education in Virtual High School Electronic, virtual, or distance education is a good alternative for students to learn topics that do not require discussion in real-time.
  • Home Shcooling and Its Effect on Social Skills Considering the growing popularity of home-based education, the decision to home school children remains a difficult encounter for most parents.
  • Homeschooling Topic Explored at Global Level In this paper, ten sources of various kinds were reviewed to explore this issue of homeschooling in more depth globally.
  • Homeschooling in the US: Summary This paper reviews selected research topics in homeschooling in the US by M. Gaither, by Brewer and Lubienski, and social psychology of education by Guterman and Neuman.
  • The Challenges of Homeschooling in North Carolina The need for homeschooling is determined by several factors - the lifestyle of the parents and the child's characteristics.
  • Distance Learning Can Substitute Face-to-Face Traditional Educational System in Wyoming Distance learning can replace the face-to-face traditional education K-12 system in Wyoming, and there are many benefits to this approach.
  • Traditional and Virtual Learning During Quarantine The shift towards virtual learning was slowly happening, but the quarantine made the process abrupt and mandatory, exposing numerous disadvantages.
  • Classroom vs. Online Education: The Conundrum of Computerized Learning The essay explores the advantages of online learning and tries to reinforce the idea that computerized teaching could replace its offline alternatives.
  • Benefits of Homeschooling: Better Success and Less Stress Homeschooling is a concept acquiring more popularity because of multiple benefits associated with it, which become more valuable regarding the existing environment.
  • Online Studying vs. Traditional Face-to-Face Learning Although online studying and face-to-face learning have a similar principle – obtaining new information, traditional face-to-face studying is better.
  • Homeschooling as an Approach to Educate Children This paper discloses the issue of homeschooling as a successful approach to children's education and identifies the pros and cons of the method.
  • K-12 Education Change in Educating Young People During the COVID-19 Pandemic This paper is an annotated bibliography of the articles devoted to the K-12 education change in light of the experience of educating young people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Homeschooling Shape Your Child’s Future
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  • Homeschooling and Classroom Management From a Columnist Point of View
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  • Homeschooling and Extracurricular Activities
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93 Homeschooling Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best homeschooling topic ideas & essay examples, ⭐ good research topics about homeschooling, 📝 simple & easy homeschooling essay titles, ❓ homeschooling research questions.

  • Advantages and Disadvantages of Homeschooling According to Lyman, the continuous rise in the number of home schooled students is a clear indication of the amount of dissatisfaction with the quality of education delivered at schools.
  • Is Homeschooling Better? The points forwarded by the proponents of homeschooling like flexibility, excellent performance and individualized learning should be disregarded since it is not in conformity with government’s policy on education. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
  • Home School Versus Public School These two types of schools are also similar in that most of the subjects taught in public schools and home schools are the same.
  • Homeschooling as an Option for Formal Education This is because of some of the disadvantages that come with homeschooling. This is because of the challenges that come with it.
  • Homeschooling Factors in America A number of people fathom that the only way to restore the value of education in reference to the requirements of Christianity is when people home school their children.
  • Positive Development: Home School v. Public School The decision on whether to home school or take a child to a public school is vital to the future of the child.
  • The Arguments and Debates of the Home Schooling System The learner and the facilitator are able to twist or manipulate the learning times in a way that satisfies their comfort and schedule.
  • The Significance of Home Schooling This article examines the concept of home schooling. 4, 2002, p.197.
  • Homeschooling as a Valid Alternative to Formal Education One of the main questions that should be examined is the academic performance of children who were educated in this way.
  • Homeschooling, Its Advantages and Disadvantages Nowadays, education is extremely important because it provides the representatives of the general public to receive the knowledge needed to live an independent life to the fullest.
  • Public School Access for Homeschoolers First of all, there should be enough space for homeschool students in the class, and a teacher should be able to provide them all with the necessary materials.
  • After-School Program and Homeschooling: Comparison Visits to cultural sites and memorials to encourage the knowledge of history and the education of spirituality an hour and a half.
  • Home Schooling and Public Schooling Comparison Before the introduction of compulsory education laws in the 19th century, education of children was conducted mainly in their homes and families.
  • Advantages Arguments of Homeschooling According to the Education Resource Centre, Home schooling is providing education to children based at home as opposed to public and private schools.
  • Homeschooled Kids in the U.S. The increase in the amount of interest is due to the increased number of homeschoolers in America. This paper aims to understand this growing trend in the US and the reason behind the increasing popularity […]
  • Home Schooling and Children’s Social Development Going back in time, the victory of the 13-years old Rebecca Sealfon in the contest Scripps National Spelling Bee in 1997, brought the attention of the country to the phenomenon that is called homeschooling.
  • Selection of Literature on Homeschooling The main achievement is the explanation of the very essence of the term homeschooling. The current culture is fighting for the fulfilment of the educational standards.
  • Homeschooling Growth in the United States and Its Legalization In a recent study in America, it was found that eighty-five percent of parents enrolled their children in home schools because of fear about the environment of other schools.
  • The Success of Homeschooling and How the Program Can Be Increased One of the first steps to undertake is to develop a proper assessment framework in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of current homeschooling methods.
  • Homeschooling Is Changing in America Such a publication seems to be relevant for the ongoing study because it sheds light on the diversity of homeschooling in the United States to a great extent.
  • Sociology: Home School Environment Homeschooling may also cause stress in a child because when the contents get tough, the child may have no peer to talk to, and the guardian is not suitable for such talks.
  • Home Schooling from the Nursing Perspective Much to the credit of both sides, one must admit that the proponents of homeschooling and the supporters of the traditional teaching approach act on behalf of the child and in the latter’s interests.
  • Homeschooling is a Viable Alternative to Public School General information: In public discourse, homeschooling can be seen as inferior to mainstream education and criticized as unregulated and ineffective from the standpoint of socialization.
  • Homeschooling and Depriving Children of Social Development
  • Homeschooling vs. Public School: Which Is More Beneficial
  • High School Kids and Homeschooling: Stereotypes and Perks
  • Social Factors That Affect Homeschooling
  • The Misconception About Homeschooling and the Benefits of Learning at Home
  • Preference for Homeschooling Over Traditional Schooling
  • Homeschooling: Alternative Education and Independent Study
  • Compelling Reasons for Homeschooling
  • Homeschooling: Left Behind, Jumping Ahead
  • The Benefits of Homeschooling – Education and Public College
  • Homeschooling: Academics, Socialization and College
  • Homeschooling: Education and Supervision
  • Ethical Questions Regarding Homeschooling
  • Homeschooling Versus Public Schooling
  • Reasons Why Parents Are Choosing Homeschooling
  • Differences Between Homeschooling and Public Education
  • Homeschooling Prepares Students for College
  • Homeschooling and the Community
  • Homeschooling and Family Education
  • Technology Business Opportunity for Homeschooling
  • Homeschooling and Saving Children From Destruction
  • Homeschooling and Its Effect on Children
  • The Benefits and Factors of Homeschooling
  • The Legitimacy and Advantages of Homeschooling
  • Good Homeschooling and Public School in the United States
  • Homeschooling and Childhood Socialization
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  • Homeschooling: Are Parents Really Helping Their Children
  • Homeschooling and Traditional Education: Advantages and Disadvantages
  • Public Education and Homeschooling: The Best Known Techniques
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  • What Does Homeschooling Mean to Me?
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  • What Are the Disadvantages of Homeschooling?
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  • What Is Homeschooling, and How Does It Work?
  • Is Homeschool Expensive?
  • Is Homeschooling Free?
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  • What Do Psychologists Say About Homeschooling?
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  • Published: 19 February 2024

‘It depends’: what 86 systematic reviews tell us about what strategies to use to support the use of research in clinical practice

  • Annette Boaz   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0557-1294 1 ,
  • Juan Baeza 2 ,
  • Alec Fraser   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1121-1551 2 &
  • Erik Persson 3  

Implementation Science volume  19 , Article number:  15 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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The gap between research findings and clinical practice is well documented and a range of strategies have been developed to support the implementation of research into clinical practice. The objective of this study was to update and extend two previous reviews of systematic reviews of strategies designed to implement research evidence into clinical practice.

We developed a comprehensive systematic literature search strategy based on the terms used in the previous reviews to identify studies that looked explicitly at interventions designed to turn research evidence into practice. The search was performed in June 2022 in four electronic databases: Medline, Embase, Cochrane and Epistemonikos. We searched from January 2010 up to June 2022 and applied no language restrictions. Two independent reviewers appraised the quality of included studies using a quality assessment checklist. To reduce the risk of bias, papers were excluded following discussion between all members of the team. Data were synthesised using descriptive and narrative techniques to identify themes and patterns linked to intervention strategies, targeted behaviours, study settings and study outcomes.

We identified 32 reviews conducted between 2010 and 2022. The reviews are mainly of multi-faceted interventions ( n  = 20) although there are reviews focusing on single strategies (ICT, educational, reminders, local opinion leaders, audit and feedback, social media and toolkits). The majority of reviews report strategies achieving small impacts (normally on processes of care). There is much less evidence that these strategies have shifted patient outcomes. Furthermore, a lot of nuance lies behind these headline findings, and this is increasingly commented upon in the reviews themselves.

Combined with the two previous reviews, 86 systematic reviews of strategies to increase the implementation of research into clinical practice have been identified. We need to shift the emphasis away from isolating individual and multi-faceted interventions to better understanding and building more situated, relational and organisational capability to support the use of research in clinical practice. This will involve drawing on a wider range of research perspectives (including social science) in primary studies and diversifying the types of synthesis undertaken to include approaches such as realist synthesis which facilitate exploration of the context in which strategies are employed.

Peer Review reports

Contribution to the literature

Considerable time and money is invested in implementing and evaluating strategies to increase the implementation of research into clinical practice.

The growing body of evidence is not providing the anticipated clear lessons to support improved implementation.

Instead what is needed is better understanding and building more situated, relational and organisational capability to support the use of research in clinical practice.

This would involve a more central role in implementation science for a wider range of perspectives, especially from the social, economic, political and behavioural sciences and for greater use of different types of synthesis, such as realist synthesis.

Introduction

The gap between research findings and clinical practice is well documented and a range of interventions has been developed to increase the implementation of research into clinical practice [ 1 , 2 ]. In recent years researchers have worked to improve the consistency in the ways in which these interventions (often called strategies) are described to support their evaluation. One notable development has been the emergence of Implementation Science as a field focusing explicitly on “the scientific study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of research findings and other evidence-based practices into routine practice” ([ 3 ] p. 1). The work of implementation science focuses on closing, or at least narrowing, the gap between research and practice. One contribution has been to map existing interventions, identifying 73 discreet strategies to support research implementation [ 4 ] which have been grouped into 9 clusters [ 5 ]. The authors note that they have not considered the evidence of effectiveness of the individual strategies and that a next step is to understand better which strategies perform best in which combinations and for what purposes [ 4 ]. Other authors have noted that there is also scope to learn more from other related fields of study such as policy implementation [ 6 ] and to draw on methods designed to support the evaluation of complex interventions [ 7 ].

The increase in activity designed to support the implementation of research into practice and improvements in reporting provided the impetus for an update of a review of systematic reviews of the effectiveness of interventions designed to support the use of research in clinical practice [ 8 ] which was itself an update of the review conducted by Grimshaw and colleagues in 2001. The 2001 review [ 9 ] identified 41 reviews considering a range of strategies including educational interventions, audit and feedback, computerised decision support to financial incentives and combined interventions. The authors concluded that all the interventions had the potential to promote the uptake of evidence in practice, although no one intervention seemed to be more effective than the others in all settings. They concluded that combined interventions were more likely to be effective than single interventions. The 2011 review identified a further 13 systematic reviews containing 313 discrete primary studies. Consistent with the previous review, four main strategy types were identified: audit and feedback; computerised decision support; opinion leaders; and multi-faceted interventions (MFIs). Nine of the reviews reported on MFIs. The review highlighted the small effects of single interventions such as audit and feedback, computerised decision support and opinion leaders. MFIs claimed an improvement in effectiveness over single interventions, although effect sizes remained small to moderate and this improvement in effectiveness relating to MFIs has been questioned in a subsequent review [ 10 ]. In updating the review, we anticipated a larger pool of reviews and an opportunity to consolidate learning from more recent systematic reviews of interventions.

This review updates and extends our previous review of systematic reviews of interventions designed to implement research evidence into clinical practice. To identify potentially relevant peer-reviewed research papers, we developed a comprehensive systematic literature search strategy based on the terms used in the Grimshaw et al. [ 9 ] and Boaz, Baeza and Fraser [ 8 ] overview articles. To ensure optimal retrieval, our search strategy was refined with support from an expert university librarian, considering the ongoing improvements in the development of search filters for systematic reviews since our first review [ 11 ]. We also wanted to include technology-related terms (e.g. apps, algorithms, machine learning, artificial intelligence) to find studies that explored interventions based on the use of technological innovations as mechanistic tools for increasing the use of evidence into practice (see Additional file 1 : Appendix A for full search strategy).

The search was performed in June 2022 in the following electronic databases: Medline, Embase, Cochrane and Epistemonikos. We searched for articles published since the 2011 review. We searched from January 2010 up to June 2022 and applied no language restrictions. Reference lists of relevant papers were also examined.

We uploaded the results using EPPI-Reviewer, a web-based tool that facilitated semi-automation of the screening process and removal of duplicate studies. We made particular use of a priority screening function to reduce screening workload and avoid ‘data deluge’ [ 12 ]. Through machine learning, one reviewer screened a smaller number of records ( n  = 1200) to train the software to predict whether a given record was more likely to be relevant or irrelevant, thus pulling the relevant studies towards the beginning of the screening process. This automation did not replace manual work but helped the reviewer to identify eligible studies more quickly. During the selection process, we included studies that looked explicitly at interventions designed to turn research evidence into practice. Studies were included if they met the following pre-determined inclusion criteria:

The study was a systematic review

Search terms were included

Focused on the implementation of research evidence into practice

The methodological quality of the included studies was assessed as part of the review

Study populations included healthcare providers and patients. The EPOC taxonomy [ 13 ] was used to categorise the strategies. The EPOC taxonomy has four domains: delivery arrangements, financial arrangements, governance arrangements and implementation strategies. The implementation strategies domain includes 20 strategies targeted at healthcare workers. Numerous EPOC strategies were assessed in the review including educational strategies, local opinion leaders, reminders, ICT-focused approaches and audit and feedback. Some strategies that did not fit easily within the EPOC categories were also included. These were social media strategies and toolkits, and multi-faceted interventions (MFIs) (see Table  2 ). Some systematic reviews included comparisons of different interventions while other reviews compared one type of intervention against a control group. Outcomes related to improvements in health care processes or patient well-being. Numerous individual study types (RCT, CCT, BA, ITS) were included within the systematic reviews.

We excluded papers that:

Focused on changing patient rather than provider behaviour

Had no demonstrable outcomes

Made unclear or no reference to research evidence

The last of these criteria was sometimes difficult to judge, and there was considerable discussion amongst the research team as to whether the link between research evidence and practice was sufficiently explicit in the interventions analysed. As we discussed in the previous review [ 8 ] in the field of healthcare, the principle of evidence-based practice is widely acknowledged and tools to change behaviour such as guidelines are often seen to be an implicit codification of evidence, despite the fact that this is not always the case.

Reviewers employed a two-stage process to select papers for inclusion. First, all titles and abstracts were screened by one reviewer to determine whether the study met the inclusion criteria. Two papers [ 14 , 15 ] were identified that fell just before the 2010 cut-off. As they were not identified in the searches for the first review [ 8 ] they were included and progressed to assessment. Each paper was rated as include, exclude or maybe. The full texts of 111 relevant papers were assessed independently by at least two authors. To reduce the risk of bias, papers were excluded following discussion between all members of the team. 32 papers met the inclusion criteria and proceeded to data extraction. The study selection procedure is documented in a PRISMA literature flow diagram (see Fig.  1 ). We were able to include French, Spanish and Portuguese papers in the selection reflecting the language skills in the study team, but none of the papers identified met the inclusion criteria. Other non- English language papers were excluded.

figure 1

PRISMA flow diagram. Source: authors

One reviewer extracted data on strategy type, number of included studies, local, target population, effectiveness and scope of impact from the included studies. Two reviewers then independently read each paper and noted key findings and broad themes of interest which were then discussed amongst the wider authorial team. Two independent reviewers appraised the quality of included studies using a Quality Assessment Checklist based on Oxman and Guyatt [ 16 ] and Francke et al. [ 17 ]. Each study was rated a quality score ranging from 1 (extensive flaws) to 7 (minimal flaws) (see Additional file 2 : Appendix B). All disagreements were resolved through discussion. Studies were not excluded in this updated overview based on methodological quality as we aimed to reflect the full extent of current research into this topic.

The extracted data were synthesised using descriptive and narrative techniques to identify themes and patterns in the data linked to intervention strategies, targeted behaviours, study settings and study outcomes.

Thirty-two studies were included in the systematic review. Table 1. provides a detailed overview of the included systematic reviews comprising reference, strategy type, quality score, number of included studies, local, target population, effectiveness and scope of impact (see Table  1. at the end of the manuscript). Overall, the quality of the studies was high. Twenty-three studies scored 7, six studies scored 6, one study scored 5, one study scored 4 and one study scored 3. The primary focus of the review was on reviews of effectiveness studies, but a small number of reviews did include data from a wider range of methods including qualitative studies which added to the analysis in the papers [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ]. The majority of reviews report strategies achieving small impacts (normally on processes of care). There is much less evidence that these strategies have shifted patient outcomes. In this section, we discuss the different EPOC-defined implementation strategies in turn. Interestingly, we found only two ‘new’ approaches in this review that did not fit into the existing EPOC approaches. These are a review focused on the use of social media and a review considering toolkits. In addition to single interventions, we also discuss multi-faceted interventions. These were the most common intervention approach overall. A summary is provided in Table  2 .

Educational strategies

The overview identified three systematic reviews focusing on educational strategies. Grudniewicz et al. [ 22 ] explored the effectiveness of printed educational materials on primary care physician knowledge, behaviour and patient outcomes and concluded they were not effective in any of these aspects. Koota, Kääriäinen and Melender [ 23 ] focused on educational interventions promoting evidence-based practice among emergency room/accident and emergency nurses and found that interventions involving face-to-face contact led to significant or highly significant effects on patient benefits and emergency nurses’ knowledge, skills and behaviour. Interventions using written self-directed learning materials also led to significant improvements in nurses’ knowledge of evidence-based practice. Although the quality of the studies was high, the review primarily included small studies with low response rates, and many of them relied on self-assessed outcomes; consequently, the strength of the evidence for these outcomes is modest. Wu et al. [ 20 ] questioned if educational interventions aimed at nurses to support the implementation of evidence-based practice improve patient outcomes. Although based on evaluation projects and qualitative data, their results also suggest that positive changes on patient outcomes can be made following the implementation of specific evidence-based approaches (or projects). The differing positive outcomes for educational strategies aimed at nurses might indicate that the target audience is important.

Local opinion leaders

Flodgren et al. [ 24 ] was the only systemic review focusing solely on opinion leaders. The review found that local opinion leaders alone, or in combination with other interventions, can be effective in promoting evidence‐based practice, but this varies both within and between studies and the effect on patient outcomes is uncertain. The review found that, overall, any intervention involving opinion leaders probably improves healthcare professionals’ compliance with evidence-based practice but varies within and across studies. However, how opinion leaders had an impact could not be determined because of insufficient details were provided, illustrating that reporting specific details in published studies is important if diffusion of effective methods of increasing evidence-based practice is to be spread across a system. The usefulness of this review is questionable because it cannot provide evidence of what is an effective opinion leader, whether teams of opinion leaders or a single opinion leader are most effective, or the most effective methods used by opinion leaders.

Pantoja et al. [ 26 ] was the only systemic review focusing solely on manually generated reminders delivered on paper included in the overview. The review explored how these affected professional practice and patient outcomes. The review concluded that manually generated reminders delivered on paper as a single intervention probably led to small to moderate increases in adherence to clinical recommendations, and they could be used as a single quality improvement intervention. However, the authors indicated that this intervention would make little or no difference to patient outcomes. The authors state that such a low-tech intervention may be useful in low- and middle-income countries where paper records are more likely to be the norm.

ICT-focused approaches

The three ICT-focused reviews [ 14 , 27 , 28 ] showed mixed results. Jamal, McKenzie and Clark [ 14 ] explored the impact of health information technology on the quality of medical and health care. They examined the impact of electronic health record, computerised provider order-entry, or decision support system. This showed a positive improvement in adherence to evidence-based guidelines but not to patient outcomes. The number of studies included in the review was low and so a conclusive recommendation could not be reached based on this review. Similarly, Brown et al. [ 28 ] found that technology-enabled knowledge translation interventions may improve knowledge of health professionals, but all eight studies raised concerns of bias. The De Angelis et al. [ 27 ] review was more promising, reporting that ICT can be a good way of disseminating clinical practice guidelines but conclude that it is unclear which type of ICT method is the most effective.

Audit and feedback

Sykes, McAnuff and Kolehmainen [ 29 ] examined whether audit and feedback were effective in dementia care and concluded that it remains unclear which ingredients of audit and feedback are successful as the reviewed papers illustrated large variations in the effectiveness of interventions using audit and feedback.

Non-EPOC listed strategies: social media, toolkits

There were two new (non-EPOC listed) intervention types identified in this review compared to the 2011 review — fewer than anticipated. We categorised a third — ‘care bundles’ [ 36 ] as a multi-faceted intervention due to its description in practice and a fourth — ‘Technology Enhanced Knowledge Transfer’ [ 28 ] was classified as an ICT-focused approach. The first new strategy was identified in Bhatt et al.’s [ 30 ] systematic review of the use of social media for the dissemination of clinical practice guidelines. They reported that the use of social media resulted in a significant improvement in knowledge and compliance with evidence-based guidelines compared with more traditional methods. They noted that a wide selection of different healthcare professionals and patients engaged with this type of social media and its global reach may be significant for low- and middle-income countries. This review was also noteworthy for developing a simple stepwise method for using social media for the dissemination of clinical practice guidelines. However, it is debatable whether social media can be classified as an intervention or just a different way of delivering an intervention. For example, the review discussed involving opinion leaders and patient advocates through social media. However, this was a small review that included only five studies, so further research in this new area is needed. Yamada et al. [ 31 ] draw on 39 studies to explore the application of toolkits, 18 of which had toolkits embedded within larger KT interventions, and 21 of which evaluated toolkits as standalone interventions. The individual component strategies of the toolkits were highly variable though the authors suggest that they align most closely with educational strategies. The authors conclude that toolkits as either standalone strategies or as part of MFIs hold some promise for facilitating evidence use in practice but caution that the quality of many of the primary studies included is considered weak limiting these findings.

Multi-faceted interventions

The majority of the systematic reviews ( n  = 20) reported on more than one intervention type. Some of these systematic reviews focus exclusively on multi-faceted interventions, whilst others compare different single or combined interventions aimed at achieving similar outcomes in particular settings. While these two approaches are often described in a similar way, they are actually quite distinct from each other as the former report how multiple strategies may be strategically combined in pursuance of an agreed goal, whilst the latter report how different strategies may be incidentally used in sometimes contrasting settings in the pursuance of similar goals. Ariyo et al. [ 35 ] helpfully summarise five key elements often found in effective MFI strategies in LMICs — but which may also be transferrable to HICs. First, effective MFIs encourage a multi-disciplinary approach acknowledging the roles played by different professional groups to collectively incorporate evidence-informed practice. Second, they utilise leadership drawing on a wide set of clinical and non-clinical actors including managers and even government officials. Third, multiple types of educational practices are utilised — including input from patients as stakeholders in some cases. Fourth, protocols, checklists and bundles are used — most effectively when local ownership is encouraged. Finally, most MFIs included an emphasis on monitoring and evaluation [ 35 ]. In contrast, other studies offer little information about the nature of the different MFI components of included studies which makes it difficult to extrapolate much learning from them in relation to why or how MFIs might affect practice (e.g. [ 28 , 38 ]). Ultimately, context matters, which some review authors argue makes it difficult to say with real certainty whether single or MFI strategies are superior (e.g. [ 21 , 27 ]). Taking all the systematic reviews together we may conclude that MFIs appear to be more likely to generate positive results than single interventions (e.g. [ 34 , 45 ]) though other reviews should make us cautious (e.g. [ 32 , 43 ]).

While multi-faceted interventions still seem to be more effective than single-strategy interventions, there were important distinctions between how the results of reviews of MFIs are interpreted in this review as compared to the previous reviews [ 8 , 9 ], reflecting greater nuance and debate in the literature. This was particularly noticeable where the effectiveness of MFIs was compared to single strategies, reflecting developments widely discussed in previous studies [ 10 ]. We found that most systematic reviews are bounded by their clinical, professional, spatial, system, or setting criteria and often seek to draw out implications for the implementation of evidence in their areas of specific interest (such as nursing or acute care). Frequently this means combining all relevant studies to explore the respective foci of each systematic review. Therefore, most reviews we categorised as MFIs actually include highly variable numbers and combinations of intervention strategies and highly heterogeneous original study designs. This makes statistical analyses of the type used by Squires et al. [ 10 ] on the three reviews in their paper not possible. Further, it also makes extrapolating findings and commenting on broad themes complex and difficult. This may suggest that future research should shift its focus from merely examining ‘what works’ to ‘what works where and what works for whom’ — perhaps pointing to the value of realist approaches to these complex review topics [ 48 , 49 ] and other more theory-informed approaches [ 50 ].

Some reviews have a relatively small number of studies (i.e. fewer than 10) and the authors are often understandably reluctant to engage with wider debates about the implications of their findings. Other larger studies do engage in deeper discussions about internal comparisons of findings across included studies and also contextualise these in wider debates. Some of the most informative studies (e.g. [ 35 , 40 ]) move beyond EPOC categories and contextualise MFIs within wider systems thinking and implementation theory. This distinction between MFIs and single interventions can actually be very useful as it offers lessons about the contexts in which individual interventions might have bounded effectiveness (i.e. educational interventions for individual change). Taken as a whole, this may also then help in terms of how and when to conjoin single interventions into effective MFIs.

In the two previous reviews, a consistent finding was that MFIs were more effective than single interventions [ 8 , 9 ]. However, like Squires et al. [ 10 ] this overview is more equivocal on this important issue. There are four points which may help account for the differences in findings in this regard. Firstly, the diversity of the systematic reviews in terms of clinical topic or setting is an important factor. Secondly, there is heterogeneity of the studies within the included systematic reviews themselves. Thirdly, there is a lack of consistency with regards to the definition and strategies included within of MFIs. Finally, there are epistemological differences across the papers and the reviews. This means that the results that are presented depend on the methods used to measure, report, and synthesise them. For instance, some reviews highlight that education strategies can be useful to improve provider understanding — but without wider organisational or system-level change, they may struggle to deliver sustained transformation [ 19 , 44 ].

It is also worth highlighting the importance of the theory of change underlying the different interventions. Where authors of the systematic reviews draw on theory, there is space to discuss/explain findings. We note a distinction between theoretical and atheoretical systematic review discussion sections. Atheoretical reviews tend to present acontextual findings (for instance, one study found very positive results for one intervention, and this gets highlighted in the abstract) whilst theoretically informed reviews attempt to contextualise and explain patterns within the included studies. Theory-informed systematic reviews seem more likely to offer more profound and useful insights (see [ 19 , 35 , 40 , 43 , 45 ]). We find that the most insightful systematic reviews of MFIs engage in theoretical generalisation — they attempt to go beyond the data of individual studies and discuss the wider implications of the findings of the studies within their reviews drawing on implementation theory. At the same time, they highlight the active role of context and the wider relational and system-wide issues linked to implementation. It is these types of investigations that can help providers further develop evidence-based practice.

This overview has identified a small, but insightful set of papers that interrogate and help theorise why, how, for whom, and in which circumstances it might be the case that MFIs are superior (see [ 19 , 35 , 40 ] once more). At the level of this overview — and in most of the systematic reviews included — it appears to be the case that MFIs struggle with the question of attribution. In addition, there are other important elements that are often unmeasured, or unreported (e.g. costs of the intervention — see [ 40 ]). Finally, the stronger systematic reviews [ 19 , 35 , 40 , 43 , 45 ] engage with systems issues, human agency and context [ 18 ] in a way that was not evident in the systematic reviews identified in the previous reviews [ 8 , 9 ]. The earlier reviews lacked any theory of change that might explain why MFIs might be more effective than single ones — whereas now some systematic reviews do this, which enables them to conclude that sometimes single interventions can still be more effective.

As Nilsen et al. ([ 6 ] p. 7) note ‘Study findings concerning the effectiveness of various approaches are continuously synthesized and assembled in systematic reviews’. We may have gone as far as we can in understanding the implementation of evidence through systematic reviews of single and multi-faceted interventions and the next step would be to conduct more research exploring the complex and situated nature of evidence used in clinical practice and by particular professional groups. This would further build on the nuanced discussion and conclusion sections in a subset of the papers we reviewed. This might also support the field to move away from isolating individual implementation strategies [ 6 ] to explore the complex processes involving a range of actors with differing capacities [ 51 ] working in diverse organisational cultures. Taxonomies of implementation strategies do not fully account for the complex process of implementation, which involves a range of different actors with different capacities and skills across multiple system levels. There is plenty of work to build on, particularly in the social sciences, which currently sits at the margins of debates about evidence implementation (see for example, Normalisation Process Theory [ 52 ]).

There are several changes that we have identified in this overview of systematic reviews in comparison to the review we published in 2011 [ 8 ]. A consistent and welcome finding is that the overall quality of the systematic reviews themselves appears to have improved between the two reviews, although this is not reflected upon in the papers. This is exhibited through better, clearer reporting mechanisms in relation to the mechanics of the reviews, alongside a greater attention to, and deeper description of, how potential biases in included papers are discussed. Additionally, there is an increased, but still limited, inclusion of original studies conducted in low- and middle-income countries as opposed to just high-income countries. Importantly, we found that many of these systematic reviews are attuned to, and comment upon the contextual distinctions of pursuing evidence-informed interventions in health care settings in different economic settings. Furthermore, systematic reviews included in this updated article cover a wider set of clinical specialities (both within and beyond hospital settings) and have a focus on a wider set of healthcare professions — discussing both similarities, differences and inter-professional challenges faced therein, compared to the earlier reviews. These wider ranges of studies highlight that a particular intervention or group of interventions may work well for one professional group but be ineffective for another. This diversity of study settings allows us to consider the important role context (in its many forms) plays on implementing evidence into practice. Examining the complex and varied context of health care will help us address what Nilsen et al. ([ 6 ] p. 1) described as, ‘society’s health problems [that] require research-based knowledge acted on by healthcare practitioners together with implementation of political measures from governmental agencies’. This will help us shift implementation science to move, ‘beyond a success or failure perspective towards improved analysis of variables that could explain the impact of the implementation process’ ([ 6 ] p. 2).

This review brings together 32 papers considering individual and multi-faceted interventions designed to support the use of evidence in clinical practice. The majority of reviews report strategies achieving small impacts (normally on processes of care). There is much less evidence that these strategies have shifted patient outcomes. Combined with the two previous reviews, 86 systematic reviews of strategies to increase the implementation of research into clinical practice have been conducted. As a whole, this substantial body of knowledge struggles to tell us more about the use of individual and MFIs than: ‘it depends’. To really move forwards in addressing the gap between research evidence and practice, we may need to shift the emphasis away from isolating individual and multi-faceted interventions to better understanding and building more situated, relational and organisational capability to support the use of research in clinical practice. This will involve drawing on a wider range of perspectives, especially from the social, economic, political and behavioural sciences in primary studies and diversifying the types of synthesis undertaken to include approaches such as realist synthesis which facilitate exploration of the context in which strategies are employed. Harvey et al. [ 53 ] suggest that when context is likely to be critical to implementation success there are a range of primary research approaches (participatory research, realist evaluation, developmental evaluation, ethnography, quality/ rapid cycle improvement) that are likely to be appropriate and insightful. While these approaches often form part of implementation studies in the form of process evaluations, they are usually relatively small scale in relation to implementation research as a whole. As a result, the findings often do not make it into the subsequent systematic reviews. This review provides further evidence that we need to bring qualitative approaches in from the periphery to play a central role in many implementation studies and subsequent evidence syntheses. It would be helpful for systematic reviews, at the very least, to include more detail about the interventions and their implementation in terms of how and why they worked.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Before and after study

Controlled clinical trial

Effective Practice and Organisation of Care

High-income countries

Information and Communications Technology

Interrupted time series

Knowledge translation

Low- and middle-income countries

Randomised controlled trial

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Professor Kathryn Oliver for her support in the planning the review, Professor Steve Hanney for reading and commenting on the final manuscript and the staff at LSHTM library for their support in planning and conducting the literature search.

This study was supported by LSHTM’s Research England QR strategic priorities funding allocation and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration South London (NIHR ARC South London) at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Grant number NIHR200152. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR, the Department of Health and Social Care or Research England.

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Boaz, A., Baeza, J., Fraser, A. et al. ‘It depends’: what 86 systematic reviews tell us about what strategies to use to support the use of research in clinical practice. Implementation Sci 19 , 15 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-024-01337-z

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Abstract: The development of artificial intelligence systems is transitioning from creating static, task-specific models to dynamic, agent-based systems capable of performing well in a wide range of applications. We propose an Interactive Agent Foundation Model that uses a novel multi-task agent training paradigm for training AI agents across a wide range of domains, datasets, and tasks. Our training paradigm unifies diverse pre-training strategies, including visual masked auto-encoders, language modeling, and next-action prediction, enabling a versatile and adaptable AI framework. We demonstrate the performance of our framework across three separate domains -- Robotics, Gaming AI, and Healthcare. Our model demonstrates its ability to generate meaningful and contextually relevant outputs in each area. The strength of our approach lies in its generality, leveraging a variety of data sources such as robotics sequences, gameplay data, large-scale video datasets, and textual information for effective multimodal and multi-task learning. Our approach provides a promising avenue for developing generalist, action-taking, multimodal systems.

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Learning in two languages: Lessons from francophone Africa on what works best

by Kaja Jasinska and Mary-Claire Ball, The Conversation

language

Children living in multilingual communities often learn in a language at school that does not match the language they speak at home. This mismatch makes it challenging for them to participate in classroom discussions and learn to read. In turn, this contributes to poor learning outcomes, grade repetition, and dropping out of school.

Bilingual education programs that include mother tongue languages have become increasingly popular for improving learning outcomes. Bilingual education is associated with better language and literacy skills , reduced grade repetition and school dropout rates across the globe . Including mother tongue languages in education also places value on children's cultural identities, improving confidence, self-esteem and learning .

But simply providing bilingual education does not guarantee better learning results. This is the conclusion of a recent paper we published in which we reviewed bilingual programs in six francophone west African countries: Niger, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Cameroon.

We found mixed results, across and within countries and programs.

We identified two sets of factors that constrain or contribute to the quality of bilingual education. These were:

  • implementation factors, such as teacher training and classroom resources
  • socio-cultural factors, such as perceptions of mother tongue languages in education.

Our findings emphasize the need to consider the local context when applying bilingual education programs.

Bilingual education in francophone west Africa

Our research team conducted research in Côte d'Ivoire from 2016 to 2018. We measured children's language and reading skills in both their mother tongue and in French, and compared outcomes between children attending French-only or bilingual Projet École Intégrée schools.

Children in French-only schools outperformed their peers from bilingual schools on the language and reading assessments . Teachers revealed they had better teaching resources and felt better prepared in French-only schools.

We were interested in whether bilingual education programs in other francophone countries in the region had had similar experiences. In 2022, we searched academic databases for literature in English and French that discussed program implementation and measured learning and schooling outcomes within bilingual education programs. We reviewed nine programs from six countries: Niger, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, and Cameroon.

These countries are former French colonies or territories. French is the official or working language and often the language of instruction in school. However, these countries are highly multilingual. About 23 living languages are spoken in Niger, 39 in Senegal, 68 in Mali, 71 in Burkina Faso, 78 in Côte d'Ivoire and 277 in Cameroon.

Our review showed that children can benefit from learning in two languages. This is true whether they are two official languages like in Cameroon's Dual Curriculum Bilingual Education (French and English) schools, or in a mother tongue and French, like in Mali's Community Schools . Children can also benefit regardless of whether they are gradually introduced to a language throughout primary school or whether both languages are introduced at the same time.

But a lack of resources, and a failure to take into account local conditions, affected the outcomes. The programs that resulted in positive schooling and learning outcomes recognized and targeted common school-related and community-related challenges.

Teacher training and resources

One common school-related challenge was teachers not having teaching materials in all languages of instruction.

The Pédagogie Convergente program in Mali, for example, ensured teachers had materials in both French and the mother tongue. Children had better French and math scores.

But some teachers from the same program did not always have teaching materials in mother tongue languages. And some children struggled with literacy and writing skills.

Another common challenge was teachers not feeling prepared to teach in all languages, as teacher training often occurred in an official language, like French. The Program d'éducation bilingue in Burkina Faso, for example, made an effort to train teachers in the mother tongue language so they felt confident following the bilingual curriculum.

Children in bilingual Burkina Faso schools had higher than average pass rates on the primary certificate exam, repeated grades less , and stayed in school more than children in traditional French schools.

Both examples are in contrast to the bilingual schools in Côte d'Ivoire, where teachers lacked materials and training in mother tongue languages. In turn, children demonstrated worse language and reading skills compared to their peers in French-only schools.

Socio-cultural factors

We identified common community-related challenges, particularly related to community buy-in and perceptions of mother tongue instruction.

For example, families with higher socioeconomic status were worried that Niger's Ecole Experimentale schools would hinder children's French proficiency and compromise their entry into secondary school.

Programs such as the Support Program for Quality Education in Mother Tongues for Primary Schools in Senegal worked to combat negative perceptions by educating families about the benefits of bilingual education. Children in the Senegalese program outperformed their peers in traditional French schools in all school subjects.

The same programs sometimes experienced different outcomes depending on the community. For example, although children in Burkina Faso's bilingual schooling showed favorable outcomes, parents felt that French programs were better suited for continuing to secondary school.

What does this mean for bilingual education?

Efforts to provide teachers with the resources they needed, and efforts to foster community support, were both consistently linked with positive schooling and learning outcomes in our review.

However, these efforts might work better in some communities compared to others, due to different resource constraints and socio-cultural differences. Studies that found poorer outcomes also found common challenges present. Therefore, bilingual education has the potential to facilitate positive learning outcomes if efforts are made to overcome common challenges based on communities' needs.

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Green Chemistry

Environmental impact of different scenarios for the pyrolysis of contaminated mixed plastic waste †.

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* Corresponding authors

a Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Sciences, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain E-mail: [email protected] , [email protected]

b Department of Agrifood Chain Economics, Institute of Agricultural and Fisheries Research and Training (IFAPA), Centre ‘Camino de Purchil’, 18080 Granada, Spain

Every day, large amounts of plastic are disposed of all over the world. Most of it is not recycled and ends up polluting the environment. Therefore, waste collection and management must be improved to reduce the environmental impact caused by plastic waste. Pyrolysis has been explored as an alternative to treat contaminated mixed plastic waste and obtain valuable materials, such as oil and char. These materials can effectively substitute fuel and activated carbon, respectively. However, the pyrolysis process also has a significant environmental impact, mainly due to gas emissions. It is important to quantify this environmental impact and compare it with alternative treatment methods to identify the best management strategy for contaminated mixed plastic waste. This study applies the Life-Cycle Assessment methodology to evaluate the environmental impact and compare it with the conventional practice of landfilling. Three different pyrolysis scenarios are considered: one in which the char is used as fuel and therefore combusted, and two in which the char is activated by carbon dioxide and potassium hydroxide, respectively, to be used as an adsorbent. Our results show that pyrolysis is environmentally superior to landfilling for the treatment of contaminated mixed plastic waste. This is mainly due to the production of oil, which substitutes commercial diesel, the production of which has a high environmental impact. Pyrolysis followed by char combustion has the lowest environmental impact of all pyrolysis scenarios considered.

Graphical abstract: Environmental impact of different scenarios for the pyrolysis of contaminated mixed plastic waste

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research paper for home schooling

Environmental impact of different scenarios for the pyrolysis of contaminated mixed plastic waste

G. Garcia-Garcia, M. Á. Martín-Lara, M. Calero and G. Blázquez, Green Chem. , 2024, Advance Article , DOI: 10.1039/D3GC04396G

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Science | Eureka! How a Stanford study revealed the success of research failures

Faced with experiments that can’t be reproduced, academia seeks to improve and “future proof” research.

Stanford neuroscientist Dr. Thomas Südhof, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, co-authored a paper with postdoc Kif Liakath-Ali that revealed flaws in previous research. Faced with a disturbing flurry of experiments that can't be reproduced, academia is ramping up efforts to “future proof” experiments.

An important paper recently published by an esteemed Stanford research team reported an unusual result: An experiment went wrong.

Usually, scientists seek to burnish their reputations by announcing positive news of a discovery that solves a problem or transforms how we view the world.

But this negative news — which revealed that earlier neuroscience research was flawed — can also be positive. It builds a stronger scientific foundation and helps restore public trust, according to a growing consensus of scientists and journal editors.

Faced with a disturbing flurry of experiments that can’t be reproduced, academia is ramping up efforts to “future proof” its research.

While headlines are dominated by fraud or research misconduct cases, including a scandal that led to the resignation of Stanford University President Dr. Marc Tessier-Lavigne , these instances are relatively rare. A bigger problem is experimentation that lacks robust design, methodology, analysis and interpretation of results — so arrives at the wrong conclusions.

“Our efforts highlight the importance of experimental rigor,” said Stanford postdoctoral neuroscientist Kif Liakath-Ali , who conducted the work with Nobel Laureate Thomas Südhof.

His revelation — that sometimes a negative can be a positive — came while he was trying to reproduce and build upon a 2017 study about the behavior of brain cells. He wanted to understand the regulation of brain cells, with major implications for memory, behavior and neurological disease. He discovered that the previous approach in the lab had killed cells, leading to “a skewing of results and biased conclusions,” he said.

I t was a professional setback for Liakath-Ali, who had aimed to build on this research to make a new and meaningful discovery.

A junior scientist, he worried that his insight, based on almost two years of work, would not advance his career. Instead, Liakath-Ali has been honored by the School of Medicine ’s new Program on Research Rigor and Reproducibili ty with an award for his integrity.

His finding has emboldened other research teams to come forward to describe their own failed attempts, he said. Although those teams had stayed silent, “they had seen the same thing.”

“That’s what good science is about,” said Dr. Steven Goodman , who leads Stanford’s Program on Research Rigor and Reproducibility. “It detected that some really important findings … were just wrong.”

“We want to reward how people do science,” he said, “and if they do it better than the last person.”

Science is famed for its “Eureka” moments. We love the tale of Scottish microbiologist Alexander Fleming, who came home from vacation to discover a mold producing penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic, growing inside a neglected Petri dish..

Real experimentation takes many twists and turns and doesn’t always deliver the expected outcome.

“I have not failed,” inventor Thomas Edison famously said. “I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

But modern science is competitive. In today’s “publish or perish” academic culture, careers are advanced by insights, so scientists are incentivized to announce only positive findings.

In the worst cases, this can foster fraudulent or sloppy practices. Tessier-Lavigne resigned his post after an independent review found multiple errors in five papers he had overseen , concluding that “multiple members of (his) labs over the years appear to have manipulated research data and/or fallen short of accepted scientific practices.”

Journals also favor papers that are “hot,” with impact that will be widely cited and elevate a journal’s reputation.

“A challenge for scientists has been that (experimental) repetitions are difficult to publish, no matter whether they are positive or negative,” said Südhof, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. “This is bad because it creates a disincentive for repeating experiments.”

Journals are trying to change, said Holden Thorp, editor of the prominent journal Science, at last week’s Stanford conference on research integrity. “It’s a very, very challenging problem, because all of the emphasis is on novelty and ‘being first…We don’t take a lot of papers that say, ‘We tested this hypothesis and we found that it’s still correct.’”

But repetition may reveal problems, and “ensures that people have the full story,” said Emily Chenette, editor-in-chief of PLOS ONE , published by the Public Library of Science, which evaluates research on scientific validity, methodology and ethical standards — not perceived significance. PLOS ONE publishes a collection called “Missing Pieces,” which lists studies that present inconclusive, null findings or demonstrate failed replications of other published work.

A negative finding can suggest promising new directions, approaches and hypotheses. It may warn other investigators to steer clear, saving time and money, Chenette said.

“It has real life implications for people,” she said.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, use of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was spurred by anecdotal reports from China and France of patients who seemed to improve and laboratory findings of a possible antiviral effect. But a rigorous study found that the drug didn’t work — a discovery that saved many lives.

In the prestigious British journal Lancet, a doctor linked vaccines to autism, a claim that has led to clusters of resistance to inoculation. It was refuted by multiple studies, and a subsequent investigation showed his work to be bunk. 

This week, in a surprise announcement, a precious 280-million-year-old fossilized lizard turned out to be mostly … black paint. An Italian team had hoped to make history by using high-tech tools — electron microscopy, spectroscopy and micro x-rays — to reveal the cellular structure of one of the world’s oldest reptiles. Instead, they found forgery. But their revelation could lead to a rethinking of ancient taxonomy.

Stanford’s Liakath-Ali sought to better understand how brain cells, called neurons, communicate via trillions of synapses — and how things go wrong. Synapses connect using a vast network of molecules, governed by genes whose function may change if subjected to stress, causing devastating ailments like schizophrenia, autism and other neurological disorders.

He based his work on a 2017 report by scientists from China’s Tsinghua University published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. They had found that when we learn something, brain cells change in a way that helps us remember it better. But brain cells’ regulatory mechanism can be altered by stress.

He took a closer look at the Chinese research and found fault with their technique, which caused the cells to be so stressed — “hammered,” he said — that they died. This skewed their results.

“Liakath-Ali did what no one else had done: He took the care to look at the cells,” said Goodman.

Nobel Laureate Südhof commended his perseverance.

“Science operates by a trial-and-error process in which scientists, like all other humans, also make mistakes,” he said. “To distinguish valid results from erroneous ones, it is necessary to repeat experiments independently.”

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  1. A Review of research on Homeschooling and what might educators learn?

    A Review of research on Homeschooling and what might educators learn? Authors: Brian Ray University of Delhi Abstract Abstract This article reviews research on homeschool learner outcomes and...

  2. RESEARCH FACTS ON HOMESCHOOLING

    Brian D. Ray, Ph.D. February 9, 2024 Copyright © 2024 National Home Education Research Institute This article gives key research facts on homeschooling General Facts, Statistics, and Trends There were about 3.1 million homeschool students in 2021-2022 in grades K-12 in the United States (roughly 6% of school-age children).

  3. PDF RESEARCH FACTS ON HOMESCHOOLING

    Brian D. Ray, Ph.D. January 6, 2015 General Facts and Trends Homeschooling - that is, parent-led home-based education - is an age-old traditional educational practice that a decade ago appeared to be cutting-edge and "alternative" but is now bordering on "mainstream" in the United States.

  4. The Research on Homeschooling

    About 4 to 5 million children in the United States (or approximately 8 to 9% of school-age children) were homeschooled in March 2021. This statistic increased dramatically during the pandemic: Only...

  5. Full article: A systematic review of the empirical research on selected

    This article gives the demographic characteristics of the U.S. homeschooling population and the reasons that parents choose to homeschool, summarizes the findings of studies on the homeschool learner outcomes of academic achievement, social development, and success in adulthood, and proposes future research on parent-led home-based education.

  6. Exploring the Impact of Home-Schooling on the Psychological Wellbeing

    The research findings will discuss the impact that home-schooling has had on family psychological wellbeing. It will examine how parents are managing their children's education and learning while handling the other stresses associated with COVID-19.

  7. PDF Research and Trends in the Studies of Homeschooling Practices: A ...

    Murphy (2014) summarizes that studies on overall impacts of homeschooling are still lacking. To further investigate the above argument, the current paper explored 11 recent studies (from 2011 to 2014) in understanding and mapping the trends and patterns of the selected studies. RESEARCH PURPOSE

  8. PDF Homeschooling: The Ultimate School Choice

    4 HOMESCHOOLING: THE ULTIMATE SCHOOL CHOICE the universal tenet of homeschoolers is the importance of parental choice and the conviction that parents are best equipped to make the educational decisions that affect their children. History

  9. The home learning environment and its role in shaping children's

    Over the past three decades, a growing number of studies have provided empirical evidence that the home learning environment (HLE) is an important predictor of differences in children's academic and social development (e.g., most recently, Rose, Lehrl, Ebert, & Weinert, 2018; Tamis-LeMonda, Luo, McFadden, Bandel, & Vallotton, 2019 ).

  10. Why Do Parents Homeschool? A Systematic Examination of Parental

    Results suggest that home-schooling parents appear to be motivated by an active role construction, strong sense of efficacy for helping the child learn, and positive perceptions of life context. ... Cizek, G. J. (1993, April) Home education research: On the right road? Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research ...

  11. PDF Homeschooling: A Comprehensive Survey of the Research

    This paper aims to distill from this decidedly mixed body of work the most ... synthesize homeschooling research (Chapman & O'Donoghue, 2000; Cizek & Ray, 1995; Lawrence, 2007; Meehan & Stephenson, 1994; Meighan, 1995; Nemer, 2002; Ray, 1999; Wright, 1988). But most extant research reviews are dated, limited in

  12. (PDF) HOMESCHOOLING: AN ALTERNATIVE TO MAINSTREAM

    research paper, no5. Morehead State University. Aurini, J. & Davies, S. (2005). Choice without markets: ... Home schooling is a subject of great fascination, but little solid knowledge. Despite ...

  13. [PDF] Home schooling : An emerging research agenda

    Over the last two decades there has been an increasing trend for parents to choose home schooling as an alternative to traditional education for their children. Despite this trend, however, there exists a relatively small, and certainly incomplete, research base in this area of education. Accordingly, this paper is offered as one contribution to the construction of an emerging research agenda ...

  14. Parental perspectives of home‐schooling of children with special

    In this paper, home‐schooling is used to specifically refer to the phenomenon necessitated by the COVID‐19 outbreak. Whilst this term has been commonly used prior to the recent pandemic, here it is used in the context of the abrupt transfer of learning from the school classroom to the home environment, still mainly carried out by teachers ...

  15. PDF Homeschooling in the United States: Results from the 2012 and 2016

    1 The Web Tables show data on homeschooling in the United States, including percentage homeschooled; reasons for homeschooling; providers of homeschool instruction (including virtual instruction and schools); teaching style and curriculum source; subjects taught; and homeschool activities.

  16. The Effects of Online Homeschooling on Children, Parents, and Teachers

    The homeschooling behaviors and feelings of school-age children were assessed with 2010 online surveys obtained separately from students, parents, and teachers of grades 1-9 in 15 Chinese provinces. Answers were compared among low- (grades 1-3), middle- (grades 4-6), and high- (grades 7-9) grade groups.

  17. The Academic and Social Benefits of Homeschooling

    A one-of-its-kind review of only peer-reviewed research by Ray revealed that 11 of the 14 peer-reviewed studies on academic achievement found that homeschool students significantly outperformed conventionally schooled children. Both of the publicly available state-provided data sets showed higher-than-average test scores for homeschooled children.

  18. Psychosocial impacts of home-schooling on parents and caregivers during

    The COVID-19 pandemic has been highly disruptive, with the closure of schools causing sudden shifts for students, educators and parents/caregivers to remote learning from home (home-schooling). Limited research has focused on home-schooling during the COVID-19 pandemic, with most research to date being descriptive in nature. The aim of the current study was to comprehensively quantify the ...

  19. (PDF) To Study the Impact of Homeschooling on Students ...

    This finding is supported by a study conducted by Aram, Meidan, and Deitcher (2016) (as referenced in Ray, 2017) on traditional schooling and homeschooling of Kindergarten pupils, which...

  20. Homeschooling Research Papers Samples For Students

    Research Paper On Home Schooling Vs. Public Schooling [Subject/Course] [Submission Date] Introduction Homeschooling can be described as "the practice of providing education to youth outside of publicly and privately funded educational institutions" (Kridel 448).

  21. 82 Homeschooling Research Topics & Essay Examples

    📝 Homeschooling Research Papers Examples "School as Prison" Perception: Arguments Against The primary reason schools are not suitable for successful learning is "the top-down, teach-and-test method" that demotivated children to learn willingly. How Colleges Can Reach Out to Homeschooled Children

  22. 93 Homeschooling Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

    This article examines the concept of home schooling. 4, 2002, p.197. Homeschooling as a Valid Alternative to Formal Education One of the main questions that should be examined is the academic performance of children who were educated in this way. Homeschooling, Its Advantages and Disadvantages

  23. PDF Homeschooled Children's Social Skills Richard G. Medlin, Ph.D

    Homeschool Group. Seventy homeschooled children--32 boys and 38 girls in grades 3 through 6--participated in this research. Table 1 shows the number of boys and girls in each grade with their mean ages. All these children were White. Participants were volunteers from two homeschool support groups. Both groups were explicitly

  24. 'It depends': what 86 systematic reviews tell us about what strategies

    The gap between research findings and clinical practice is well documented and a range of interventions has been developed to increase the implementation of research into clinical practice [1, 2].In recent years researchers have worked to improve the consistency in the ways in which these interventions (often called strategies) are described to support their evaluation.

  25. [2402.05929] An Interactive Agent Foundation Model

    The development of artificial intelligence systems is transitioning from creating static, task-specific models to dynamic, agent-based systems capable of performing well in a wide range of applications. We propose an Interactive Agent Foundation Model that uses a novel multi-task agent training paradigm for training AI agents across a wide range of domains, datasets, and tasks. Our training ...

  26. Learning in two languages: Lessons from francophone Africa on what

    Bilingual education in francophone west Africa. Our research team conducted research in Côte d'Ivoire from 2016 to 2018. We measured children's language and reading skills in both their mother ...

  27. PDF The Impact of Infrastructure on Development Outcomes

    microeconomic literature covering over 300 research papers focusing primarily on specific infrastructure sectors, especially in developing countries. While the dataset covers studies conducted between 1983 and 2022, more attention is given to the period since 2010, during which an increasing volume of studies has looked at how different types ...

  28. Environmental impact of different scenarios for the pyrolysis of

    b Department of Agrifood Chain Economics, Institute of Agricultural and Fisheries Research and Training (IFAPA), Centre 'Camino de Purchil', 18080 Granada, Spain ... Paper. Submitted 21 Nov 2023. Accepted 13 Feb 2024. First published 21 Feb 2024. This article is Open Access. Download Citation.

  29. Stanford study reveals success of research failures

    Stanford neuroscientist Dr. Thomas Südhof, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, co-authored a paper with postdoc Kif Liakath-Ali that revealed flaws in previous research ...