An analysis of the grade distribution for final year secondary school students in Italy before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

Sammanfattning: The advancement of technology has played a vital role in the tremendous strides taken within the field of education throughout the last decades, allowing for individuals of all backgrounds to learn and teach from across the globe with fewer limitations. With the recent outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, the method of teaching and working has shifted from in-school learning to remote/distance learning, resulting in the large increase for the use of online communication services. To test the effectiveness of online learning, I collected data from the Italian Government in regards to the grade distribution of the Maturitá exams from previous years in comparison to a year taught during the pandemic. This could aid in finding a correlation between distance learning and its impact on the performance of students during the exam. After the gathering and analysing of the data, even though there was an increase of the average grade from the previous years to the year taught online, other factors such as the change in exam style and teacher bias, are thought to have aided in the observed change. Additionally, background research and previous literature suggest that distance learning tends to have a negative effect on areas such as: participation, focus and engagement, as well as autonomy and motivation, while keeping stress at roughly a similar level. Therefore, further research is needed to get a more accurate result if it was indeed the change in teaching style which caused the increase in grade average and which type of resources - recorded video lectures, live video lectures, email, tv, radio would prove to be most successful.