Linguistic competence and academic achievement of schoolchildren before and after the pandemic in the context of digital educational practices

Context and relevance. Approaches to teaching and developing the linguistic competence of schoolchildren have significantly changed due to digital educational practices introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and these changes have influenced students’ mastery of academic subjects, especially in language disciplines. In this study, educational practices are understood as sustainable forms of educational activity, including methods of presenting and assimilating material in a digital context (such as working with online resources, educational applications, virtual assignments, etc.). Objective. The goal is to identify the impact of the digital educational environment on the linguistic competence and academic performance of students who studied before and after the pandemic. Hypothesis. Digital educational practices weaken the relationship between linguistic skills and academic performance compared to traditional teaching methods. Methods and materials. The study involved two groups of 7th-grade students: before the pandemic (93 people, M = 13,42, SD = 0,54, 49,5% boys) and after the pandemic (51 people, M = 13,2, SD = 0,66, 54,9% boys). The results of linguistic tasks, average grades in academic subjects, and responses to a survey on digital educational practices were assessed. Results. In the pre-pandemic group, more connections were found between the results of linguistic tasks and academic performance than in the post-pandemic group, where the number of connections decreased, especially for tasks with deep understanding of language. Gender differences in academic performance are more pronounced in the pre-pandemic group and cover a wide range of subjects and tasks, whereas after the pandemic they remained only in certain tasks. Frequent attendance of clubs is associated with an increase in academic performance, and the use of social networks for studying is associated with a decrease. Conclusions. The obtained results highlight the need for further research into the influence of the digital environment on the development of linguistic skills and the development of methods that deepen the understanding of language material in the digital environment.