The COVID-19 pandemic has caused challenges for schools, care-givers and learners. For high school students in particular, the switch to online learning resulted in disruptions in many activities that would foster school connectivity and familiarity in the normal school year, such as sports and after school programs. A growing body of research connects the last academic year’s online learning experience to lack of physical activity, sleep and a healthy lifestyle. In addition, the consequences of the pandemic resulted in mental health concerns for students and caregivers. As a result of these occurrences, students did not have the most supportive and positive environments to learn. The current study will look at Social-Emotional learning curriculums and how they can best serve students to develop school connectivity, communication and healthy habits in the upcoming school year. To do this, two Social-Emotional learning (SEL) interventions will be provided to participants. One intervention will focus on direct SEL instruction while the other will focus on SEL instruction which is embedded into social studies class. The expected findings is that a combination of direct and indirect SEL in a positive school climate will better allow students to form and practice SEL skills and further improve learning environments after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study will inform strategies that schools use to support students after events that disrupt familiar learning environments.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an abrupt transition to emergency remote instruction across the United States. With many schools planning to reopen with in-person instruction for the 2021-2022 school year, adolescent students will undergo a transition period to readjust from a virtual to physical school climate. This project will highlight the importance of social-emotional learning (SEL) skills being developed and utilized by adolescent students during this time, particularly middle school students. The aim of this work is to investigate the relationship between middle school students’ SEL, and both their levels of engagement in extracurricular activities as well as school connectedness. This study plans to undergo a sequential explanatory mixed methods design among 60 students enrolled in a northeastern public middle school for the 2021-2022 school year. T-scores from the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA) measure will be used to inform the creation of three comparison groups: students with high, average, or low SEL competency. Focus groups will then be conducted, transcribed, coded, and analyzed to assess relationships between levels of SEL competency and engagement and connectedness in schools among middle school youth. This study expects to find that students with high SEL will be more likely to be actively engaged in extracurricular activities and have more positive perceptions of their school climate than their peers with average or low SEL. These findings will illustrate the influential effects of SEL and its role in creating a positive and engaging school climate post-pandemic.

This study examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health and wellbeing of collegiate athletes. This research will address the help-seeking behaviors of collegiate athletes in order to destigmatize mental health concerns within athletics. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to acknowledge the mental health challenges that athletes face and are currently facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. This case study will consist of the researcher asking several open ended questions to the student athletes and recording their responses. A total of five student athletes will be interviewed for this study, varying in gender, race, and sport. The interview questions will address their experiences at the beginning, middle, and present day of the pandemic. After getting the participants' responses, the results and findings of the study will be recorded. The researchers expect to find that student athletes experienced higher levels of anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also expect to see athletes report higher stress levels during the academic semester since they are balancing COVID testing, their sport, and their academics. Finally, they expect to find that the mental wellbeing of athletes overall was worse when they were sent home abruptly at the beginning of the pandemic.

College students are a vulnerable demographic, as a result, the pandemic had a negative impact towards the population. This study will focus on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on undergraduate Rutgers University students. Mental health, physical health, emotional health, and social interactions are being analyzed through a Qualtrics survey distributed to 500 Rutgers undergraduate students. This survey also examines COVID-19 stressors which were present in student’s lives such as distractions, technology issues, coping methods, unemployment, and family income. Preliminary results show an increase in depression and anxiety. Students also reported a growth in boredom, loneliness, and feelings of sadness. The purpose of this study is to fully understand the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and how the transition to a virtual environment, in addition to living through a pandemic changed the lives of students. It should be noted that Camden and Newark campuses were not included in this study, only New Brunswick.