Social Class and Emotional Well-being: Lessons From A Daily Diary Study of Families Engaged in Virtual Elementary School During COVID-19

In Spring 2020, the University of California San Diego New Vistas Project initiated an Experience Sample Method text-message based study to better understand how parents and children were spending their time during COVID-19 mandated stay at home orders and California state school closures. All primary caregivers participating in an existing longitudinal study were invited to participate in a text message ESM protocol over two different weeks during Spring 2020. The first time point (Early Spring 2020) began 3 weeks after the district launched its Virtual Learning Platform via Google Classroom and the second time point occurred four weeks later (Late Spring 2020), in the second to last week of school. ESM procedures were explained to each participant prior to being enrolled in the anonymous texting program. Each time point consisted of participants receiving five text messages sent randomly throughout the day from 7:30am to 9pm for five consecutive days. In order to capture variation in the participants’ lives, the first time point occurred from Sunday through Thursday and the second time point ran from Tuesday through Saturday. Each text message included a link to a Qualtrics survey that participants completed in approximately five minutes. Participants were asked to complete the survey as close to when they received the text message and were informed the survey link would expire after one hour.