STEER tracks the impact of lockdown on students' mental health
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a UK government policy decision to lockdown schools from March- September to reduce transmission of the virus. This unprecedented action raised many questions for educators:
- What impact was the virus going to have on the mental health of children and young people across the UK?
- How was young people's mental health affected locked in at home and deprived of the structure, support and relationships of school?
- With some schools providing more virtual student pastoral support than others during lockdown, were some groups more adversely disadvantaged by lockdown than others?
These questions have proved difficult for the UK government to answer because it lacked a consistent, historical benchmark of young people's social-emotional wellbeing prior to lockdown. In addition, few organisations had the ability to obtain any new, real-time data whilst lockdown was occuring.
STEER's historic data tracking since 2013 has provided a unique insight
STEER Education is one of the very few organisations in the UK which was in a position to both provide historical benchmark data, and to collect real-time data on student mental mental health, during lockdown.
STEER's historic 7-year AS Tracking database, gathered since 2013, has provided a high-quality benchmarking dataset for young people aged 8-18 on the impacts of lockdown.
STEER's technology is enabling schools to continue to track during and after lockdown
STEER has developed a modified version of AS Tracking which enabled schools to continue to track students during lockdown. Using the app, school tracked more than 8,000 students between March- July, providing a unique insight into the effects on different populations, demographics and ages of students across the country and indeed, internationally. In addition, STEER is now gathering post-lockdown data from 70,000 students.
DOWNLOAD OUR FREE REPORTS ON the impact of the pandemic on students' mental health
Following our analysis of return-to school AS Tracking autumn data, we are now in a position to publish our national reports. These will be released regularly below and can be downloaded for free.
REPORT 2 JUST PUBLISHED
27.01.2021
Tracking and Mitigating the Psychological Impact of Lockdown on Y7-13 Pupils (2)
A Comparison of Pre-Lockdown (2018-March 2020) to School-Return Period (Nov 1 - Dec 31 2020) Pupil Steering Bias Data collected by the AS Tracking Programme Report Authors: Dr Simon Walker, Dr Jo Walker
REPORT 1
09.11.2020
Tracking and Mitigating the Psychological Impact of Lockdown on Y7-13 Pupils (1)
A Comparison of Pre-Lockdown (2018-March 2020) to School-Return Period (Sept-Oct 23) Pupil Steering Bias Data collected by the AS Tracking Programme Report Authors: Dr Simon Walker, Dr Jo Walker
Join the STEER AS Tracking programme
If you would like your academy group, local authority or school to join the AS Tracking programme please request a virtual demonstration or email fiona@steer.global
Primary quantitative research into steering cognition
Thinking, Straight or True?, Walker Simon P., 2015
A detailed publication of empirical methods and findings from a wide 15 year research programme describing our central claims: the cognitive, social and mental health implications of the self-regulation of Steering Cognition.
Publication of our 2015 study involving nearly 4,000 pupils across 20 UK secondary schools which answered the question: Model. Do pupils at schools which show Motorway Model characteristics exhibit narrower cognitive abilities than pupils at schools which show less of those Motorway characteristics? If so, what might the consequences be for employability beyond school?
Mental health risks of the Motorway Model of education
Publication of our 2015 study involving more than 6,000 pupils across 16 UK secondary schools which answered the question: Is there a link between schools exhibiting the characteristics of the Motorway Model and increased pupil mental health risks?
Publication of our 2015 study involving 4,000 pupils across 20 UK secondary schools which answered the question: Do pupils from private schools develop social, emotional or cognitive skills not currently measured by academic assessments which contribute to them securing more elite roles in industry and society?
Engaging students in optimising their metacognition, Walker Simon P., 2015
Working paper reporting findings from a 6 month study seeking to improve academic outcomes amongst first year UK undergraduates by improving the self-regulation of their Steering Cognition
Navigating the world by heuristic bias, Walker Simon P., 2014
Early studies evidencing that the self-regulation of Steering Cognition was distinct from IQ-like algorithmic cognition and contributed to academic outcomes at secondary school.
Educating the self-regulation of bias, Walker Simon P., 2014
Early studies evidencing that the self-regulation of Steering Cognition is ecologically influenced by secondary school environment and is teachable.
As tracking datamodel: theoretical papers and literature reviews underpinning the datamodel of as tracking
AS Tracking: Self Regulation: the ability to make wise choices, Walker J., 2015
Theoretical paper describing the relationship between Walker and Walker's model of Steering Cognition and theories of self-regulation
AS Tracking: A psychological and developmental understanding of trust of self, Walker J., 2015
Theoretical paper describing the relationship between Walker and Walker's model of Steering Cognition and developmental theories of self
AS Tracking: A psychological and developmental understanding of seeking change, Walker J., 2015
Theoretical paper describing the relationship between Walker and Walker's model of Steering Cognition and developmental theories of risk-taking and self-expansion
AS Tracking: A psychological and developmental understanding of self-disclosure, Walker J., 2015
Theoretical paper describing the relationship between Walker and Walker's model of Steering Cognition and developmental theories of self-presentation and disclosure
AS Tracking: A psychological and developmental understanding of trust of others, Walker J., 2015
Theoretical paper describing the relationship between Walker and Walker's model of Steering Cognition and developmental theories of self-other individuation
Theoretical paper describing the relationship between Walker and Walker's model of Steering Cognition and theories of over self-regulation
Paper describing the theoretical, empirical and statistical evidence for AS Tracking as a measure of pupil Steering Cognition. Describes studies evidencing the validity, reliability and norms of AS Tracking as an instrument.
STEER uses its research into human biases to develop ground-breaking tools
STEER has successfully built a set of ground-breaking educational technologies from its pioneering research. These tools include AS Tracking, developed to detect students' social-emotional risks earlier by tracking their emerging steering biases; CAS Tracking, developed to improve teaching and learning, by identifying biases which are limiting learning in the classroom; and USTEER, developed to train students leaving school to steer their biases in a healthy, independent way, as they prepare for the challenges of the workplace or higher education.
JUST PUBLISHED
21.05.2019
TEACHER EXPERIENCES OF AS TRACKING
The most recent independent report into the efficacy of STEER's mental health programme AS Tracking has just been published. You can read Rosi Lewis' MSc dissertation undertaken at Oxford Brookes University here: ' What are some teachers’ experiences of using Affective Social Tracking data to support proactive, targeted pastoral care in schools? '
Teacher-experiences-of-AS_Tracking-Dissertation.pdf
JUST PUBLISHED
21.05.2019
External evaluations of TRACKING
The impact of AS Tracking on schools' pastoral provision has been recently evaluated in a number of external reports. These include inspectorate bodies and charitable reports from 2019-20. They are summarised in the short report below.'
Evaluated AS Tracking reports 20.03.20.pdf
What literature underpins Steering Cognition?
Steering Cognition is a term coined by Simon P. Walker to describe a novel construct which is associated with the following major existing research literature fields in cognitive and social psychology:
- Executive function
- Metacognition
- Self-regulation
- Mental simulation circuitry
- Conscious / non-conscious
- Dual process theory
- Cognitive biases
- Social priming
- Algorithmic - heuristic cognition
- Human ecology theory
Steering cognition is a model of social and cognitive executive function. It is explains a functional governor mechanism by which the mind coordinates attention and executes responsive action.