Understanding Disruptions: Causes of and Variation in Lost Instructional Time

October 2025

Virtual instruction has boomed after the COVID-19 pandemic, including the use of virtual environments within in-person schools. But, research has provided little evidence about student experiences on these virtual platforms, nor how to improve the use of these platforms. Through natural language processing techniques, this study examines over 26,000 virtual tutoring sessions that took place within in-person schools to identify the frequency of disruptions during virtual learning. We find that 81 percent of allocated instructional time was undisrupted. Technology problems consumed approximately nine percent of planned instructional time, while student disruptions consumed another seven percent. We find substantial variation across schools, with fewer disruptions when tutoring occurred in dedicated environments such as libraries or tutoring-specific classrooms.

Keywords

virtual learning, instructional time, tutoring, natural language processing

Education level

K-12 Education

Topics

Student Learning