Globally, the private school share of enrollment increased from about 14 percent in 2000 to about 18 percent in 2019. We estimate the systemic effect of private enrollment share on learning outcomes. Estimates of the systemic effect of private school enrollment capture any competitive effects as well as any differences between public and private…

This report outlines the results of the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) in England. PIRLS is an international comparative study directed by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. The aim of PIRLS is to assess and compare the reading performance of pupils in their fourth year of…

This study comparatively examines variation among the expectations of parents worldwide for the educational attainment of their children. The data are from the 2011 Progress in International Reading and Literacy Study (PIRLS). A two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) was used to estimate multilevel and multi-contextual effects on such…

This study aimed to employ machine learning techniques to uncover the pivotal determinants influencing the reading proficiency of fourth-grade students across 65 regions, as participants in the PIRLS 2021 assessment. The primary objective was to discern and assess key factors at the student, family and school levels that predict high and low…

Has the achievement of U.S. students improved over the past half century? Have gaps between racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups widened or narrowed? These and similar questions provoke near-constant conversation. But answers are uncertain, partly because research to date has yielded inconsistent findings. In this article, the authors bring…

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the…

This study investigates the student- and school-level predictors of reading performance across five top-performing countries in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2021. Utilising a multilevel analysis, the research examines the influence of cognitive development, socio-cultural contexts and educational environments on…

Aims of the study: Compared to other developing countries, the reading achievement of Azerbaijani students remains low. Using the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2016 data, this study examines potential predictors of Grade 4 student reading achievement in Azerbaijan. Background of the research: The study is guided by an…

The reading literacy skills of Australian adolescents, as measured in successive PISA waves, have declined since 2000. Literacy achievement is not low by international standards, but it is lower in Australia than it is in Anglophone countries with which we compare ourselves, e.g. Canada. Using PISA 2018 and PIRLS 2021 data, we investigated both…

This study examined group differences in online reading comprehension (ORC) using student data from the 2016 administration of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (ePIRLS). An explanatory item response modeling approach was used to explore the effects of item properties (i.e., item format, text complexity, and cognitive…

Gender differences in math-related professional achievements have been identified as a worldwide problem. Academic achievement assessments, however, have repeatedly revealed gender similarities. The observed gender similarity might be due to biased assessments that heavily rely on reading skills, which favors girls. The current study analyzed 29…

We investigated effects of tracking students into higher, more academic, and lower, less academic, school types immediately after primary school (early tracking) instead of having a comprehensive secondary school system (late tracking) on school gender segregation and gender gaps in achievement outcomes. We assumed that, in early tracking…

Gender differences in reading seem to increase throughout schooling and then decrease or even disappear with age, but the reasons for this are unclear. In this study, we explore whether differences in the way "reading literacy" is operationalised can add to our understanding of varying gender differences in international large-scale…

Reading strategy instruction is positively related to students' reading literacy. However, little is known about how reading instruction that emphasizes different types of reading strategies affects reading literacy. This study examined how Singapore primary school teachers' reading strategy instruction affected Grade Four students' reading…

Home language (HL) effects on academic language literacy have been extensively discussed. However, previous research has mostly focused on Indo--European languages. This study extends the literature by using data (n = 17,600) collected in a diversified language area: Guangxi, China. We examined the effects of four HLs and four socioeconomic…