THE EFFECT OF THE PANDEMIC ON NURSERY STUDENTS’ PERSONAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

The purpose of this research was to understand the effect of the pandemic and online learning on nursery students’ personal and social development. Specifically, the study was done to determine how distance learning impacted nursery students\u27 ability to: (1) persevere, (2) restrain impulsivity, (3) work independently, and (4) participate actively in the whole group activities. The research was conducted with a sample of 450 nursery students from the American School Foundation of Monterrey (ASFM) in Mexico. It consisted of a causal-comparative design in which three generations of nursery students (150 students per generation) were compared: the 2019-2020 generation who coursed nursery on-site before the pandemic, the 2020-2021 generation who coursed the whole nursery school year through distance learning, and the 2021-2022 generation who coursed nursery back in an on-site learning environment. To determine the growth that each of these three generations had in their personal and social skills, two different instruments were used: the ASFM Nursery Report Card, which had specific strands of personal and social development, and a survey with Likert scale questions answered by 16 nursery Homeroom Teachers and Educational Assistants. This study found that distance learning had a negative impact on nursery students’ development of all four of the personal and social skills researched. This reveals some of the implications that the pandemic had on young students’ education and their socio-emotional development