Mode of Pandemic School Instruction Associated with Mental Health Among Military- and Not Military-Connected Students

Background and Purpose: Though military families have access to numerous resources, military-connected secondary school students consistently report greater behavioral problems and emotional distress compared to civilian students. Though well-established, these findings are grounded in data collected prior to the global COVID-19 pandemic, an event that dramatically shifted the public education landscape. In the 2020-2021 school year, 56% of US secondary school students received fully remote and 24% received hybrid instruction (e.g., partially in person and partially virtual). Limited research has raised concerns about the impact of remote and hybrid instruction on students’ wellbeing, as associations with adverse mental health have been noted. Due to their exposure to unique risk factors, military-connected students may be more likely to experience adverse mental health outcomes related to mode of school instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study considers psychological distress among military and not military-connected secondary school students during the pandemic and explores associations between remote and hybrid instruction and distress for both groups.

Methods: This study is a secondary analysis of 2020-2021 California Healthy Kids Survey data from 409,152 sixth to twelfth grade students in California. Logistic regression assessed the relationship between military-connectedness (e.g., mother, father, guardian currently serving in the military), past 90-days mode of school instruction (in-school, hybrid, remote), and demographic variables (e.g., grade in school, race/ethnicity, gender, transgender identity, and sexual orientation) with past 30-days psychological distress.

Results: In this sample, 70.6% of students received fully remote instruction during the prior 90 days. Military-connected students were significantly more likely to be classified as moderate (OR: 1.14; CI: 1.07-1.21) or high (OR: 1.23; CI: 1.11-1.36) distress compared to non-military peers. Students reporting in-person instruction were significantly less likely to report moderate (OR: 0.77; CI: 0.84-0.92) or high (OR: 0.82; CI: 0.75-0.91) distress. Among only military-connected students, those receiving in-person instruction were less likely to report moderate (OR: 0.81; CI: 0.68-0.98) or high (OR: 0.65; CI: 0.49-0.85) distress. Though not the primary focus of the present study, a number of demographic variables were also associated with significantly elevated distress among the full sample and subsample of military-connected students, including identifying as non-binary or transgender and endorsing any sexual orientation other than straight.

Conclusions and Implications: Relative to civilian students, military-connected students in our sample were 14% more likely to self-report moderate psychological distress compared to low distress and 23% more likely to self-report high psychological distress compared to low distress. This finding has been very robust across time, age groups, geographic regions, and now both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic; the consistency of these results suggests this is a meaningful effect that warrants greater attention to the wellbeing of military-connected youth in schools. Though all students reported elevated distress related to remote instruction, the adverse consequences of remote instruction may be exacerbated among military-connected students, suggesting the need to direct specific resources to these students. More research is needed to understand mechanisms which may account for distress among students experiencing remote instruction and particularly among military-connected students.