We examined students’ perceptions of mattering during the pandemic in relation to in-person versus online learning in a sample of 6578 Canadian students in Grades 4–12. We found that elementary school students who attended school in-person reported mattering the most, followed by secondary school students who learned part-time in-person and the rest of the time online (blended learning group). The students who felt that they mattered the least were those who learned online full-time during the pandemic (elementary and secondary students). These results were not driven by a selection effect for school choice during the pandemic—our experimental design showed that students’ perceptions of mattering did not differ by current learning modality when they were asked to reflect on their experiences before the pandemic even though some were also learning online full-time at the time they responded to our questions. No gender differences were found. As a validity check, we examined if mattering was correlated with school climate, as it has in past research. Results were similar in that a modest association between mattering and positive school climate was found in both experimental conditions. The results of this brief study show that in-person learning seems to help convey to students that they matter. This is important to know because students who feel like they matter are more protected, resilient, and engaged. Accordingly, mattering is a key educational indicator that ought to be considered when contemplating the merits of remote learning.

我们在 6578 名加拿大 4-12 年级学生的样本中，研究了学生在大流行期间对面对面学习和在线学习的重要性的看法。我们发现亲自上学的小学生表示最重要，其次是亲自学习兼职的中学生，其余时间在线（混合学习组）。认为自己最不重要的是那些在大流行期间全日制在线学习的学生（小学生和中学生）。这些结果并不是由大流行期间学校选择的选择效应驱动的——我们的实验设计表明，当学生被要求反思大流行之前的经历时，他们对重要的看法与当前的学习方式没有区别，尽管有些人也在他们回答我们的问题时全职在线学习。没有发现性别差异。作为有效性检查，我们检查了重要性是否与学校氛围相关，就像过去的研究一样。结果相似，因为在两种实验条件下都发现重要和积极的学校气候之间存在适度的关联。这项简短研究的结果表明，面对面学习似乎有助于向学生传达他们的重要性。知道这一点很重要，因为觉得自己重要的学生受到更多保护，有弹性，并且投入。因此，重要性是在考虑远程学习的优点时应该考虑的关键教育指标。