A Heterogeneous Study on Online Education Outcomes during the Quarantine Period

This paper examines the impact of learning environments, educators’ attention, and students’ personal qualities on the outcomes of online learning. To approach conclusions, this paper describes the heterogeneous effect of these three types of factors on online learning outcomes and employs a fixed-effect regression to examine what exact factors constitute a good learning environment, appropriate educators’ attention and personal qualities that benefit students’ learning efficiency. The fixed-effect regression is applied on data of students’ answers to questionnaires and their final exam scores collected anonymously at three high schools in northern China during COVID-19 quarantine periods when Chinese high schools all conduct lessons and mid-term exams online but the final exam off-line, which is a major differentiation factor of this study. This paper contributes to three major findings: students who are more self-disciplined benefit more from the improvement of learning environments, practicing sports regularly improves online learning outcomes, and educators should find a balance between ensuring students are focused and not giving students too much pressure.