Primary and secondary school students’ academic achievement trajectories before and during COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic had dramatic impacts on educational systems worldwide. The current study aimed to investigate whether some students experienced different patterns of mathematics and language arts achievement before and during the pandemic. Therefore, we used latent class trajectory analyses to investigate the distinct trajectories of 50,100 primary and 14,600 secondary school students' academic achievement between fall of 2018 and spring of 2021. We identified four classes of primary school achievement trajectories and five classes of secondary school student achievement. Overall, with the exception of a minority of students in at-risk trajectories, we found that most students' achievement remained relatively stable over time. Furthermore, all trajectories reflected trends that already appeared to be present prior to the pandemic. We also examined sociodemographic characteristics associated with students' membership in different classes. The results revealed that boys and students with special needs were overrepresented in at-risk achievement trajectories. Although our results highlight that the consequences of COVID-19 for students' achievement were less dramatic than expected, they also point out the need to develop interventions for at-risk students.