The Effect of Online Education on Children’s Social Skills During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This study aimed to determine whether there is any conspicuous difference in the social adaptation skills of five-year-old preschool children who did not attend any social skills intervention program besides the ongoing curriculum but continued their education process in different environments (face-to-face/online) because of the pandemic. Included in the study were 296 children enrolled in independent kindergartens, who were within the five-year-old age group and were from similar socioeconomic families. Among them, 159 attended face-to-face and 137 attended online classes. At the beginning of their formal education, the Social Adaptation Skills Scale (SASS) was administered to the children in both groups as a pre-test. At the end of the trimester, the SASS was repeated as a post-test. A significant difference was found between the face-to-face education group and the online education group, in favor of the former, in terms of the social adaptation sub-factor of the SASS. Furthermore, the social incompatibility sub-factor scores of the face-to-face education group were significantly lower than those of the children in the online education group.