Kids with a desk and a quiet place to study do better in school, data shows
The Conversation
Ask what students need to learn at home, and the answer often involves access to Wi-Fi or a digital device. For example, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 sets aside US$7.1 billion to support access to high-speed internet for schools and libraries. What often gets overlooked is whether kids have a desk at home or a quiet place to study. As researchers who focus on education policy and how students perform on standardized tests, we decided to take a closer look – on a global scale – at the degree to which students have desks at home and whether that’s linked to how well they do in school. To do this we turned to the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study, also known as TIMSS, an international assessment administered every four years by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, where one of us is the executive director. Besides providing information about reading and math scores of students around the world, TIMSS also looks at whether students have desks at home, as well as a quiet place to study, a computer or a tablet and their own room. We took a look at TIMSS data collected in 2019 – just before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education around the world and led hundreds of thousands of schools to go remote. We found that many students around the world lacked suitable resources to study at home during a time when they needed those things the most.
