Analyzing Gender differences in Secondary School Students’ Perceived Self- Regulation during Covid-19

Abstract

Emerging evidence indicates spillover effects of Covid -19 on education, finding it the greatest turmoil of education systems in human saga as it affected more than 1.5 billion learners in more than 200 countries of the world (Pokhrel & Chhetri ,2021). Moreover, in 45 countries of the Europe and Central Asia, 185 million students have been affected which resulted in their actual learning losses (World Bank Group, 2021). The present descriptive study was planned to investigate gender differences in Secondary School students’ perceived Self-Regulation during Covid -19 to cope up with this public health emergency. For this purpose, Self-Regulation Formative Questionnaire was adapted and participants were requested for response on its 4 subscales focusing and recalling their practices during Covid-19 period. For the study, all secondary school students of 1010 public schools in Lahore (session 2020-2022) were taken as population. Random strata sampling technique was used. Population was categorized in two gender based strata. Then 50 secondary schools were selected through strata sampling. All the 1680 students enrolled in the 10th grade of 50 schools were accessed to collect data. Response rate was 78%. Descriptive statistics, one sided t-test and MANOVA was applied to measure their self-regulation score and gender differences on 4 dimensions of the questionnaire which were plan, control, monitor, and reflect. It was found that secondary school students were self-regulated at considerable level during pandemic and boys were more self-regulated than girls. The present research suggests that factors behind comparatively less self–regulation of girls should be explored and efforts should be made to minimize gender differences in students’ self–regulated learning.