Disrupted and challenged learning practices: students' experiences of 2020 as their final year of secondary schooling

The final year of secondary schooling is an intense and important one for many young people. In 2020, Australian students in Year 12 were subjected to a range of disruptions to their learning practices because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting public health measures that distanced them from their schools, teachers and peers. This paper reports on a survey of 241 Australian Year 12 students. The survey sought to collect insights into how these students experienced learning in 2020. This research contributes to an emerging body of literature seeking to understand student learning during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We found that the provision of engaging content with clear understandings of performance, access to motivational events and activities, and strong and supportive relationships with teachers and peers were challenges to learning practices in 2020 and that these are important to the learning experiences of final year students.