Marta Schiera
Fabiola Faraci1
Giuseppe Mannino- 1Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta, Rome, Italy
- 2Gonzaga International School, Palermo, Italy
Introduction: This study examines the social impact and psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the growth of adolescents students, aged 11–13, on well-being and learning.
Methods: Said review, therefore, will consider all the report of scientific works published since 2020 on the following platforms: SCOPUS, PsycoInfo, and Web of Science. Specifically, the research has selected all studies concerning students aged 11–13. Furthermore, the authors have restricted the scope of the study to two fundamental aspects of the above-mentioned subjects, such as their physical and psychological well-being and didactic learning following the COVID-19 pandemic. The justification for choosing such themes lies in the fact that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and the ensuing measures adopted to curb its spread have had -and very likely will continue having- sizable repercussions in the life of each individual, especially in students considered, whose psychological and physical well-being has been considerably affected.
Results: In particular, during the peak of the pandemic and its subsequent phases, the various measures issued to limit contagion have completely compromised and disregarded the rights of children and youngsters. Suddenly, leisure, sport, play, relations, and socialization disappeared from their lives. Besides, in the early stages of the pandemic, remote teaching replaced face-to-face teaching, later to become an intermittent system in the red- and orange-labelled areas of the country. Consequently, such measures have severely limited opportunities for learning, growth, curiosity and creating relationships that are typical of both a school and outside environment. Concerning the well-being of the subjects considered, a review of the target literature indicates a wide range of psychological and physical disorders, such as malaise, eating and sleep disorders, addiction to games, internet, alcohol, and drugs. For what regards, instead, the realm of learning, most studies highlight a diminished school performance as the main implication of remote teaching. Furthermore, a remarkable number of studies reveals substantial social inequalities; specifically, students coming from middle class families have managed to maintain higher quality educational standards in a critical context such as the pandemic, while those students coming from socially disadvantaged families have had fewer learning opportunities both in terms of time and range of experiences (due to lack of electronic devices, Internet connectivity, homework, continuity of after-school activities). In summary, if the school system pre-COVID-19 already presented significant limitations in its ability to reduce existing social inequalities, school closures during lockdowns pose enormous challenges in developing effective policies to compensate learning losses and inequalities.
Discussion: Therefore, based on the results shown, the necessity arises of an emergency plan with social and educational objectives to restore those social, emotional, and cognitive abilities that are compromised. In general, it is the responsibility of countries and governments to guarantee the right to education in these difficult times, while avoiding any type of inequalities and establishing a digital learning system, that allows to face situations such as those generated by the Coronavirus, thus preventing those situations of serious anxiety and stress that have affected most subjects.
Introduction
The aim of this work is to systematically review the research that has studied and analyzed the psychophysical effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the growth of young students (ages 11–13 years), in terms of psychophysical well-being and learning quality, as well as on the implications that the measures adopted to counter the emergency have determined both in terms of mental and physical health (psychophysical well-being) in the subjects studied, both in terms of learning quality.
Psychophysical well-being and learning quality are described through the stages of development of personal autonomy and peer study and socialization. They are also interconnected.
The pandemic has very negatively affected their mental health and led to an increase in emotional disorders, eating and sleep disorders, anxiety, and depression (Cooper et al., 2021; Cenat et al., 2022; Ludwig-Walz et al., 2022). Moreover, recent studies have highlighted a decrease in the age of consumption of heavy drugs below 14 (Villanti et al., 2022; Herzig et al., 2023).
The choice of examining subjects aged 11–13 is not random. In fact, considering their age, these are the main actors in the process of growth and thus more sensitive to sudden events, such as a pandemic.
Adolescence in the first stage (11–13) is a fundamental part of development in the life of a future adult, characterized by several moments of stress (Casey et al., 2010). This is due to the physical, mental, chemical and social changes that the subject goes through in this phase in which the self-regulation system plays a fundamental role, because it allows the subject to learn to manage and control his impulses, to regulate emotions, to modulate behaviors, to respond effectively to environmental demands (Somerville, 2013).
Another typical feature of this early adolescent phase is the marked increase in social sensitivity and the importance of relationships with peers (Somerville, 2013). In fact, adolescents begin to experience their autonomy from the family group and begin to fight for their independence, getting closer and closer to the peer group. Peers become, therefore, the main source of interaction and influence (Meuwese et al., 2017).
If, in fact, in early childhood, a foundational role in the dynamics of learning is given by the family, both in the positive cases of formation of free, open and dialogic thought and in the negative cases of formation of saturated, closed and prejudicial thought (Mannino and Giunta, 2015); from the very early stages of adolescence and up to young adulthood, an increasing role is assumed by the school and the peer group (Mannino et al., 2021).
The uprooting of daily life, social isolation, uncertainty regarding the future, mixed with the fear of contracting the virus for themselves and their dear ones, have provoked a series of effects on young people’s mental health. The sudden disappearance of all those activities that conveyed a sense of daily routine, such as school, university, meeting places caused and worsened various psychological disorders. Indeed, digital devices (PCs, tablets, smartphones) represented the only “window onto the world,” especially during the lockdown stage. Electronic means became the only instruments for conducting virtually every activity, from remote learning to leisure and socialization (Mannino et al., 2017). This implied a 50% increase in the use of the Internet during the spread of COVID-19, therefore heightening dependence on such technologies (Iacolino et al., 2019; UNICEF, 2020).
The spread of the pandemic and the ensuing remote teaching have generated a so-called learning loss, i.e., a serious drop in students’ competence levels caused by the long-lasting disruption of learning trajectories (Yan et al., 2021; Valido et al., 2023). In fact, the school represents the main place where, through dialogue and discussion, every individual forms their identity and personality. Therefore, it is evident how the school environment does not exclusively coincide with the mere teaching, but represents a vital space for a healthy and consistent development -both physical and psychological- of children and adolescents. What characterizes the school environment is a set of diverse and important values, such as relationships with peers, discussion, competition, collaboration, engagement, conflict, trust. All these factors concur to establishing a person’s identity.
Contrary to this, the sudden lack of relations and social isolation caused by lockdowns have implied a real upheaval in the lives of younger people, with inevitable, alarming psychological repercussions. Young people have suddenly felt alone, abandoned, lost, and locked in forced solitude. Such a radical change led them to live an extremely challenging situation for their growth, psychological and physical well-being (Bernasco et al., 2021; An et al., 2022).
In light of this, this study means to suggest that the Ministry of Education and other stakeholders consider introducing digital remote teaching as an alternative educational approach, to encourage students and teachers to become more competent in the use of technologies, while improving their cognitive abilities. Therefore, it is necessary to configure a digital learning system that guarantees adequate, efficient education in view of future pandemics or other events that can disrupt the country’s educational system.
Methodology
Without claiming to be exhaustive, the above-mentioned systematic review of the literature means to explore the psychological effects -in connection with physical, and learning ones- of the social impacts caused by covid-19 on the growth of adolescents (aged 11–13), according to the criteria and objectives indicated in the previous paragraph.
Said systematic review, therefore, aims to answer the following questions: What is the state of the art in COVID-19-related studies on adolescents from 2020 to today? What are the most prominent themes in COVID-19-related studies on adolescence from a psychophysical viewpoint on wellbeing and learning? What are some suggestions for future research?
Criteria for inclusion and exclusion
Based on the objectives of revision and the questions that have guided the research on documents, a revision protocol has been developed to guide the research on the literature. The revision protocol contains databases, keywords and criteria for inclusion and exclusion of the literature.
With regards to inclusion criteria to determine the suitability of the articles for the realization of said revision, the authors have only considered studies meeting the following criteria: (a) participants must be adolescents aged 11–13 (comprising only those works specifically considering that age range or including it); (b) results must highlight the psychological effects -connected with physical, on learning generated by the CoViD-19 pandemic; (c) non-randomized quantitative studies (e.g., case and control studies), quantitative descriptive studies (e.g., transversal studies, longitudinal studies to better comprehend short- and long-term effects), mixed methods (i.e., qualitative and quantitative) or qualitative methods; (d) studies must have been conducted during the various phases of the CoViD-19 pandemic (i.e., during the first and/or second wave and/or final stage).
Non-eligible, excluded studies comprise: (a) studies not specifically focusing on the psychological effects -connected with physical, on learning- generated by the CoViD-19 pandemic on groups of adolescents; (b) studies not conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic or not specifying the exact timeframe of the research; (c) studies that do not clearly and patently specify the age range of the sample considered; (d) studies including clinical subjects; (e) letters to editors, comments or studies that do not detail research protocols.
Keywords and selection of works
In the selection of studies, the authors have utilized the following keywords to explore the psychological effects and the social impact of the pandemic on adolescents aged 11–13: “CoViD-19 AND middle school”; “CoViD-19 AND learning”; “CoViD-19 AND early adolescents”; “CoViD-19 AND well-being.”
We therefore wanted to look for all the scientific literature that in the years indicated covered the area of interest of middle school and that showed research on the quality of learning, psychophysical repercussions and general well-being of adolescents (11–13 years).
To afford a multidisciplinary scope, the relevant literature comes from the most significant electronic data banks that could help authors find works in a psychological, and educational realm: SCOPUS, PsycoInfo, Web of Science. Whenever the literature was not accessible through the above-mentioned data banks, the Google Scholar search engine represented an alternative option.
The terms used for the literature search appear in the title, in the keywords, in the abstract or in the main body of the articles. Furthermore, the search has considered all those documents (both national and international articles) in academic journals in English between 2020 and 2023. As the English language is predominant in international academic publications, this is the principal reason why we have chosen academic reviews published in English that cover the chosen timeframe, as this spans the years when the CoViD-19 pandemic was declared.
Evaluation of the quality of studies
For the identification and subsequent selection of the studies, in addition to the decision and insertion of keywords, the researchers used the Consensual Quality Research (CQR) method. This methodology helps to overcome any underlying bias or biased view, which may compromise the aforementioned systematic study. This is a specific methodology for social research, which allows to monitor and control any semantic or value distortion expressed by the individual researcher through the report and the circular group discussion, mediated by a specific observation grid.
Consensual Quality Research (CQR) finds its definition and description in a paper by Hill et al. (2005), although it had already been introduced by some of them (Hill et al., 1997) in 1997, with the aim of bringing together various qualitative research techniques in the form of a rigorous and easy-to-apply method.
Each researcher was instructed in the method. A working grid has been set up to evaluate the methodological quality of each individual study according to common criteria through some indicators. These indicators were chosen and entered collectively and the grid was shared digitally (included in this paper). Each researcher participated in the decision and insertion of the keywords in the search engine (scopus) and had assigned a part of the search records (second progressive step of the list in alphabetical order) and expressed his evaluation for each individual paper, on the specific shared grid.
Every week for a period of 2 months, sharing and group evaluation sessions were carried out to arrive at a single and definitive grid.
Each article was therefore selected and evaluated in two phases, by the individual researcher and by the group, with reference to a single grid.
Screening methodology for the literature
We have chosen to use the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) methodology for the screening of the literature and for compiling our review (PRISMA, 2019b). The PRISMA (2019a) checklist establishes the necessary steps to implement a review that can be replicated by other scholars and generate reliable data.
Therefore, we believe that a systematic review aligned with the PRISMA checklist would better convey the execution, the quality, and the rigor we have pursued in realizing this systematic review of the literature. Moreover, this methodology would broaden the potential of existing reviews on the matter at hand (Loades et al., 2020; Lee Y. et al., 2021; O’Reilly et al., 2021), thus enriching the results exposed in the literature.
For this reason, the authors preferred the method of systematic review, excluding the meta-analysis procedure, as the objective was to understand the state of the research on the subject, in order to plan and design, at a later time, an updated study in the field.
The literature search began on 13 June 2023 and ended on 21/07/2023, with a total of 156 studies found.
Five researchers performed the ensuing selection engaging in constant dialogue and discussion to limit the risk of errors and incorrect exclusions with the CQR methodology (Hill et al., 2005). In fact, the selected scientific documents only include those works that study the impact on psychophysical well-being and social impacts caused by remote teaching on the learning of adolescents, who have experienced the CoViD-19 pandemic.
The first phase of the screening process has excluded 23 editorials, proceedings of conferences, book chapters and reviews; next, 7 duplicated studies have been removed.
The remaining 126 studies were screened according to the above-mentioned selection criteria. Due to the difficulty in finding research among the documents examined that explicitly and patently indicated the age range of interest for the review (11–13 years), a further 45 articles were excluded, to arrive at a total of 81 studies.
In the final eligibility phase, these remaining 81 studies were carefully examined one by one, based on the selection criteria. If the abstracts did not contain sufficient information, the complete articles were scanned based on the selection criteria.
After completing the various analytical and screening phases, these 81 studies were considered as eligible and therefore selected for the final execution of the systematic review of the literature. Figure 1 illustrates the selection process.
Figure 1. A PRISMA flowchart for literature screening process. Source: Adapted from Moher et al. (2009).
Research review
The international research of the last few years highlights a high incidence of mental health conditions (McQuaid et al., 2021) in the youngest population.
The data show an increase in symptoms of depression, anxiety, psychological malaise, disaffection, mental disorders, and an increase in loneliness (Cooper et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2021) especially in the early and late adolescence (Asscheman et al., 2021).
To these, one must add at-home isolation and social distancing (Loades et al., 2020), lack of physical exercise (Mittal et al., 2020), strain on family relationships (Meade, 2021) and an increase in screen time (Duan et al., 2020).
Cheong et al. (2023) explain that adolescents subjected to high levels of stress due to Covid-19-related worries incurred a higher likelihood of developing mental health disorders (Roche et al., 2022), such as emotional stress (fear, anxiety, depression, neurasthenia) and loneliness. Such difficulties appear to have remained unchanged when the spread settled and even after students returned to school, with the easing of all restrictions (Liu et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2023). Such data have found further confirmation in the questionnaires administered to parents as well. In fact, parents have confirmed their children’s marked psychological malaise, especially in the form of sleep disorders (Zhao et al., 2022), attention deficit (Delvecchio et al., 2022) and difficulty in managing and regulating emotions (Comelli et al., 2021; Huang et al., 2021; Xin et al., 2022). Orgilés et al.’s (2020) study also reinforces parents’ negative opinion, as they noticed that their children appeared to be less engaged in completing homework and less interested and curious to learn new contents.
By examining the evolution of the mental health disorders that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic, scholars have found a peak of such disorders in the period when schools were closed and social isolation ensued (Capurso et al., 2022; Villanti et al., 2022). Therefore, it is possible to affirm that during lockdowns adolescents have found themselves facing a range of challenging scenarios that have heightened their emotional and behavioral vulnerability (Layman et al., 2023), and as a result caused a strong psychological impact on the psychological and emotional well-being of this sector of the population (Borualogo and Casas, 2022). In turn, this has increased the already high incidence of mental health disorders recorded before the pandemic (Sadler et al., 2021).
In a school context, the COVID-19 pandemic has ushered a second technological era and exposed younger students to screens. In fact, thanks to the internet concrete and tangible aspects of reality have become virtual. One of these are schools.
Although noble, the objective of this strategy has generated widespread malaise in students (Dias et al., 2022) of all ages, who have started losing focus and motivation to study (Kirsch and Vaiouli, 2023), as well as a sense of daily routine. In fact, living through a stressful situation has inevitably led most young people to suffer from medium- and long-term psychological consequences (Balayar and Langlais, 2022), as with a stop to all activities adolescents have modified their natural way of living and acting: they no longer wake up to the sound of an alarm (Weingart et al., 2021), they no longer dress adequately and often neglect personal hygiene or take care of it obsessively, they do not leave their homes to go to school, they do not take public or private transport, they do not interact with peers or strangers and do not organize the rest of their day around social or sports activities. Such a lifestyle has generated feelings of sadness, apathy, fear, uncertainty and frustration, poor impulse control, anxiety, routine alterations, insomnia, hypervigilance, and lack of concentration (Kumar and Nayar, 2020).
Beside the above-mentioned psychological and physical issues (Jin et al., 2022), mostly connected to home lockdown, throughout the pandemic adolescents have manifested great concern over school dynamics, as during the various waves distance learning has been one of the first political actions taken by governments, as schools were deemed to be prime places for contagion.
Indeed, research has found that exposure to changes in daily life have generated higher worry and an increase in depressive symptoms (Tao et al., 2023), panic, somatic symptoms and generalize anxiety (Simoës-Perlant et al., 2022). Multivariate analysis suggests that school-related concerns, including sitting through lessons, managing homework and low-quality online lessons, were univocally associated to an increase in depressive symptoms (Hawes et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2022). These findings are confirmed in an Indonesian study, whereby 60% of students have experienced mental health conditions due to social restrictions and online learning (Julianto et al., 2023). According to Han et al. (2023), said symptoms were instead less serious in those subjects with a higher degree of self-reliance and ability to cope focused on the problem at hand. In fact, a negative coping style would bear negative repercussions on mental health.
Furthermore, Jin et al. (2022) state that remote teaching has had a direct impact on the quality of teaching and learning, as they have explored teachers’ perceptions of the concept of online learning. Such perceptions stem from a qualitative analysis. Furthermore, Jin et al. (2022) report that teachers have harshly criticized online teaching, as it allowed neither face-to-face communication nor prompt feedback from students, thus making it impossible for teachers to keep track of students’ understanding in relation to the content covered in a school day. Moreover, teachers have reported students’ learning status was in strong decline and ineffective, unlike with face-to-face teaching.
From a motivational point of view, some studies argue for learning losses during lockdown (Doz, 2021; Feng et al., 2021; Davidovitch et al., 2022; Toker, 2022; Bertoletti et al., 2023; Borgonovi and Ferrara, 2023; Doz and Doz, 2023). This is confirmed by a longitudinal study by Boruchowicz et al. (2021) on a group of young people aged 12–18. Through data obtained from a national statistical office, these authors have remarked that students during the pandemic have overall dedicated 30% less time to studies compared to before. Further studies confirm that students struggled to comprehend online lessons and showed resistance towards involvement in daily school activities (Khlaif et al., 2021; Kirsch and Vaiouli, 2023). In fact, several studies highlight a preference by adolescents for face-to-face learning, as this allows more interaction and a consistent exchange of feedback between pupils and teachers (Ionescu et al., 2020; Lee J. et al., 2021; Swords et al., 2021; Aguilar et al., 2022).
Regarding the breakdown of the relationship between students and schools, experts have expressed concern for young people’s mental health (Yan et al., 2021; Valido et al., 2023), as schools represent an environment of growth and learning, where individuals interact with other significant adults and peers. Such interaction fosters development of their sense of belonging and involvement in learning, something that was cut short by social restrictions.
A study by Perkins et al. (2021) seeks to highlight how the connection with school (Swartz and Benz, 2022) is associated to adolescents’ mental health, especially when related to social connection, i.e., the relationship with peers (Bernasco et al., 2021; An et al., 2022). By examining the changes in adolescents’ mental health over time and studying students’ relationship with school and peers before and after the pandemic, Perkins et al. (2021) have noticed that most students had initially lived school closures with a positive attitude. Later, the lasting home confinement has produced sentiments of uncertainty and loneliness, as adolescents felt little connection with school, even experiencing high levels of anxiety about school (Lane et al., 2021) and social life. This was the case even after the easing of restrictions and the return to the classroom (Alivernini et al., 2020).
Furthermore, school closures have had a direct impact on more vulnerable young people, i.e., those coming from non-urban, less developed areas. Although more than two thirds of countries have introduced a platform for distance learning, such programs have met with limited success in less developed countries. In fact, almost 30% of these countries was not capable of managing such platforms. Such a data was recorded even before the pandemic, possibly leading only to a worse outcome during the COVID-19 pandemic (ONU, 2020). Rivenbark et al. (2020) confirm that adolescents living in economic and social hardship were more likely, compared to peers growing in more equipped environments, to depend on institutional structures for the resources needed to face the pandemic. Some studies have also demonstrated that economic stress was correlated to high levels of mental health conditions (anxiety and depression).
With reference to social and urban provenance, it is still necessary to consider the difficulties in access to online resources that some students have experienced during the pandemic (Conto et al., 2021; Raby et al., 2021; Stefanidou and Mandrikas, 2023).
Despite efforts by schools to maintain learning activities during lockdown, inequalities in academic learning according to family background (income, level of education) and school (level of education, school sector) have impaired the well-being of students (Akbari, 2021). Therefore, the lack of schooling has annulled the benefits of socialization and interrupted those processes of orientation and accompaniment which are particularly important for adolescent students in the transitions between study, work, and life. Furthermore, the digital divide and the evident differences in access to technological devices has caused some students to have no possibility of connecting to online lessons (Haser et al., 2022) for 3–6 months. Such limitations have become more acute when schools have reduced support and students have asked for more independent work (Bonal and Gonzalez, 2020).
Restrictions and lockdowns have limited people’s daily outings, thus exposing adolescents to a frequent and excessive use of the internet, both for school work and leisure activities.
The Internet thus became a prime instrument for entertainment and the only tool for connection among peers. This has determined a further impact on adolescents’ mental health (Kim et al., 2023), together with a higher risk of Internet (Zhang et al., 2022) and cellphone (Hallauer et al., 2021; Shen et al., 2021) addiction. Lin (2020) has studied Internet addiction in 1060 students in junior high school and discovered that the rate of Internet addiction was 24,4% higher compared to same-age samples before the pandemic. Similarly, in a sample of 2050 children and adolescents, Dong et al. (2020) have discovered that the rate of Internet addiction grew with the development of the pandemic.
Therefore, being the only space where frequenting peers was possible, the online world became a meeting place for many, even though adolescents often experienced moments of victimization on the Internet (Bravo-Sanzana et al., 2022; Ye et al., 2022), which increased the risks of developing mental health issues (Garthe et al., 2023).
The above-mentioned variables are influenced by isolation from peers, by the extended family, by the context of school and after school activities (Eales et al., 2021) which, after being initially lived with less concern, as home confinement continued have caused reactions of angst and sadness, moods of depression and feelings of fear, worry, anger, and anxiety (contracting the illness or losing friendships; Akdogan and Ergin, 2022; Pillay, 2023). Such thoughts, which have grown stronger in a context of home confinement, have in turn determined secondary consequences such as irregular sleep patterns, (Li et al., 2022), lower motivation, higher abulia and feelings of discouragement (Montreuil et al., 2023). This shows how incredibly difficult it has been for adolescents to withstand such stress, whose consequences cannot be underestimated, as a risk exists of raising vulnerable young adults, uncapable of establishing relations and dialectic with the surrounding environment.
Although most research states that the consequences deriving from closure and isolation have caused negative effects on the mental and physical health of adolescents, quite a few studies have also investigated that segment of the population which declared to have positively experienced the COVID-19 pandemic (Vira and Skoog, 2021) and to have perceived an improvement in their health during the first lockdown period (Schmiedeberg and Thonnissen, 2021; Ashworth et al., 2022).
Studies conducted in this area report that the pandemic has led to an improvement in emotional health, because the closure of businesses and confinement at home has allowed much more time to be spent with the family (Gray, 2020; Saini et al., 2023), to improve and increase moments of relaxation and experience academic (Pirrone et al., 2022) and extracurricular (Stone et al., 2021; Silk et al., 2022) commitments with less stress. In other cases, the Covid-19 pandemic has generated new positive scenarios, as highlighted by the study by Anyika et al. (2021). These authors believe in the importance of institutionalizing online distance education or web-based learning system in the post-COVID-19 Nigerian education system, as the study identified that students’ engagement in e-education has increased their competence and confidence in acquiring digital knowledge and skills. Additionally, teachers report that technology-based teaching fosters creativity and immense digital literacy to effectively educate students and enhance skill-based learning.
For adolescents, this global event occurred during a delicate period of their development, exactly when young people become less dependent on their families, strengthen their relationships with peers and significant brain maturation occurs. Therefore, social and emotional support from the context of belonging mitigates the probability of developing risky behaviors (Cooper et al., 2021; Xia et al., 2022).
In light of all these aspects, it is necessary to generate preventive and supportive alliances, not only to limit the consequences resulting from the proliferation of the virus, but to contribute to the regeneration of the ecosystem, of the rules of the game, of being together. For example, in studying adolescents’ resilience to COVID-19 pandemic stress and examining key aspects of well-being, Shukla et al. (2022) sought to understand how British, Israeli, and Indian networks have worked to combat negative outcomes of the pandemic. These authors could see that the British and Israeli networks focused on “dealing with problems well,” while the Indian network focused on “feeling useful.” This may have fostered recovery from part of the negative effects generated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Certainly, on such a large-scale problem, any intervention project must start within the social environment. Within this context it becomes a priority to include aid professionals who, thanks to their skills, know how to adequately manage the effects deriving from this pandemic, in a more effective and targeted way. In fact, their knowledge and experience are used to monitor the situation and to coordinate support measures in favor of all those who need support from both a social and psychological point of view (Salmela-Aro et al., 2021; Schwartz et al., 2021).
Discussion
The field of investigation concerning the psychological effects and social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has progressively expanded. In fact, numerous studies have emerged in the literature that seek to examine and connect those that already exist. The results of our analysis highlight this trend, as they show a growing number of reviews and studies of various kinds conducted on the Coronavirus phenomenon. The results examined refer to 81 scientific documents (Table 1), published between 2020 and 2023, which are considered to be quite indicative in order to address and answer the questions on which this research focuses: What is the current state of studies on CoViD-19 on adolescents, from 2020 to today? What are the themes most often addressed in studies on adolescence from psycho-physical, and learning point of view? What are possible suggestions for future research directions?
Table 1. Studies and research.
The scientific works examined for the creation of the aforementioned scientific review are based on studies conducted mainly in the psychological and social fields. They have an exploratory-experimental character, given that the authors’ interest has been focused on delving deeper into the theme of the psychological, social, and academic influences that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the lives of adolescents (11–13 years old), especially from a psychological and learning perspective.
In this case, the research in question aims to confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis that the spread of the Coronavirus and the measures adopted to combat it have had negative repercussions on the mental well-being of adolescents and on their educational learning, following the sudden transition to distance learning.
To analyze the consequences of the pandemic phenomenon on their psychological well-being and on school learning, the samples in these works involved the participation of adolescents (11–13 aged) and, consequently, middle school students. This was because the authors intend to understand whether the adolescents (11–13 aged) who have lived through this period have suffered any negative implications, from a psychological and educational learning perspective.
To provide an accurate response to the aforementioned study hypotheses, many authors have made use of questionnaires, self-report interviews, quantitative measurement tools and scales, to arrive at an objective confirmation of the results obtained from both a both qualitative and quantitative perspective.
The results of the same research highlight that the pandemic has led to psychological disorders of various kinds on most of the subjects under study, a clear decline in learning and has fueled social inequalities, in terms of poor availability of electronic devices and tools and low connectivity. At the same time, a smaller number of studies capture the positive side of distance learning, highlighting the need for its institutionalization, since web-based teaching can increase children’s digital skills and abilities and mastery of their use in learning activities (Anyika et al., 2021).
Our results should be interpreted with some limitations of the present study in mind. We used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) methodology to identify the psychological effects and social impact of the pandemic exclusively on adolescents aged between 11 and 13, thus excluding studies that did not specify the exact age of the sample under examination and which did not focus on the psycho-physical and psycho-social effects and the social impact of the pandemic. Furthermore, when accounting for several possible confounding factors suggested in the literature, studies that did not specify the research protocols were considered ineligible. Therefore, the results cannot be generalized, but they can be a contribution to the development of new areas of investigation and research.
Conclusion
Despite the above-mentioned limitations, we believe that this study makes an innovative and effective contribution to the literature, as it provides concrete data on possible mental health disorders among adolescents resulting from the spread of the Coronavirus.
Assessing psychophysical well-being is essential to providing guidelines to reduce the impact of quarantine on adolescents, who are at a critical age, and prevent the long-term psychological consequences of COVID-19 and related restrictions.
After all, adolescents were seen as more worried than preschoolers, angrier than schoolchildren, and the most fearful of COVID-19 infection. Middle school students showed greater difficulty concentrating, were more worried about COVID-19 infection and were more easily alarmed than preschoolers and schoolchildren and argued more frequently with the rest of the family than young students (14–18) (Delvecchio et al., 2022). The complex picture reported in our study underlines the importance of considering the age of subjects when evaluating their psychological reactions to COVID-19 and related resolution strategies.
As our research shows, the COVID-19 outbreak has had a significant psychosocial impact on adolescents. The findings on current levels of anxiety and depression not only highlight the need to address emotional distress, but also provide researchers with the scientific foundation to formulate targeted interventions based on significant influencing factors.
Regarding the schooling aspect, despite schools’ efforts to maintain learning activities during the lockdown, our analysis reflects significant inequalities, depending on family characteristics (income, education level) and school characteristics (level of education, school sector). Distance learning has also interrupted those orientation and accompaniment processes that are particularly important for adolescent students in study, work and life transitions. Furthermore, the digital divide and visible differences in access to technological devices among students have left some young people without the ability to connect to learning for at least 3 months or, more likely, 6 months (Bonal and Gonzalez, 2020).
Data availability statement
The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
Author contributions
GM: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Data curation, Formal analysis, Supervision. MS: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. FF: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. LV: Data curation, Formal analysis, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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Keywords: COVID-19, adolescents, students, middle school, wellbeing, learning
Citation: Schiera M, Faraci F, Mannino G and Vantaggiato L (2024) The impact of the pandemic on psychophysical well-being and quality of learning in the growth of adolescents (aged 11–13): a systematic review of the literature with a PRISMA method. Front. Psychol. 15:1384388. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1384388
Edited by:
Atsushi Oshio, Waseda University, JapanReviewed by:
Shekhar Seshadri, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), IndiaSanta Giuseppina Tumminelli, University of Palermo, Italy
Copyright © 2024 Schiera, Faraci and Mannino. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Giuseppe Mannino, g.mannino@lumsa.it