The effect of online learning on students' academic performance in Italy

This study identifies the academic effects of online learning mandates on high-school students separately from the overall effect of the pandemic. We exploit exogenous variation in 2020/2021 Italian schooling mandates that imposed online learning on upper secondary school students while preserving in-person teaching for lower grades. Relying on students' performance on standardised tests, we implemented a matched difference-in-difference strategy comparing grade 13 and grade 8 students before and after the introduction of the online learning mandates. We find that, on average, students who were subject to online learning in the 2020/2021 school year (i.e. grade 13 students) performed 0.25 and 0.15 standard deviations worse in reading and mathematics, respectively, than those who were taught in person (i.e. grade 8 students). The learning loss associated with online learning in 2021 is equivalent to around 75 % of the expected yearly learning gain in reading, and around 45 % in mathematics. The losses registered by the subsequent cohorts are very similar to those of 2021. This suggests that, even 1 or 2 years after being exposed to online learning, students are still suffering from the associated learning losses.