Teacher representations about student trajectories at secondary school during the pandemic: “disengagement”, pedagogical ties and evaluation strategies

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of secondary level teachers’ representations about the school trajectories of their students in the pandemic context during 2020 and 2021. It focuses on three dimensions of the trajectories: the itineraries, considering continuity, discontinuity and factors affecting the rhythm; the pedagogical links and the teacher-student communication; the process of evaluation and accreditation. It discusses partial results corresponding to the project “Identities, experiences and social discourses in conflict around the pandemic and post-pandemic”, developed within the framework of the PISAC COVID-19 Call “Argentine society in the post-pandemic” (R+D+i Agency). The methodological strategy involved a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative approaches: within the qualitative component, developed between March and August 2021, 60 teachers at the primary, secondary and university levels were interviewed. This article is based on 23 interviews with secondary school teachers. Within the quantitative component, between October and November 2021, 4,544 online surveys were conducted with compulsory education teachers and 1,058 with university professors in urban and rural areas throughout the country. Among compulsory level teachers, 2010 corresponded to the primary level and 2,534 to secondary level. The latter will be the surveys analyzed in this work. Among the results, we found a multiplicity of students’ itineraries that outline a varied map of situations (where factors such as the social sector and school management sector are articulated with others such as physical and psychological health situations, institutional issues and connectivity); the modifications in the students-teachers relationships between 2020 and 2021; and the prevalence of critical positions on the modifications in evaluation and accreditation during the pandemic, but also a certain recognition of evaluation strategies that allow the diversity of learning trajectories to be monitored and accompanied.