Trends in youth civic engagement before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic

We examined how youth civic engagement changed across the pre-, during-, and post-COVID-19 pandemic periods in dimensions of civic intent, political participation, community service participation, expressive activity participation, and beyond-the-self motivation. The data was collected from college students attending a public university in the Southern United States from 2019 to 2024. We compared the trends in civic engagement among students who participated in our study before, during, and after the pandemic. We conducted the measurement invariance test, Bayesian regression analysis, and equivalence test to examine the trends in civic engagement variables across the periods. Our Bayesian analysis demonstrated that political and community service participation were significantly lower during- and post-pandemic periods compared with the pre-pandemic period. In contrast, such significant differences were not found in other domains. Furthermore, item-wise examinations provided in-depth insight into changes in participation in different civic activities, with additional information.