Research pick: The lockdown learning curve - "Quality insight: exponential decay of quality learning curves during COVID-19 lockdown"

How rapidly does a learning curve decline during a period of prolonged interruption? That’s the question asked by US researchers in the International Journal of Quality Engineering and Technology. Adedeji Badiru of the Air Force Institute of Technology in Dayton, Ohio, USA, has specifically looked at how the “lockdown” response to the global Covid-19 pandemic has affected business, industry, academia, and government.

There is perhaps insufficient “live data” to draw solid conclusions. Badiru has nevertheless found that workers, as a result of being barred from practising their normal functions and learning on the job, have experienced a decline in performance. The restrictive nature of lockdown implemented to reduce the spread of the virus has led to performance degradation.

He has postulated an analytical framework that researchers can use as new data emerges to allow empirical modelling of the adverse impacts of the lockdown on learning curves. The inherent concern with such adversity in the face of the global pandemic is that a decline in learning can translate to a decline in quality of work and quality of products. He suggests retrospective research might now follow in the wake of his IJQET column.

Badiru, A. (2020) ‘Quality insight: exponential decay of quality learning curves during COVID-19 lockdown’, Int. J. Quality Engineering and Technology, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp.106–117.