Investigating Factors that Affect Reading Literacy Skills in PISA Turkey Sample

Abstract

Introduction: In this study, it was aimed to examine the relationships between the variables that related the reading skills of the students and the variables related to the opportunities that the student, family, and the school have. Variables related to students’ reading skills (reading skills scores/PV1READ, perception of competence in reading/SCREADCOMP and perception of difficulty in reading/SCREADDIFF) comprised the criterion variable set, and variables related to students’ socio-economic and cultural characteristics (cultural possessions/CULTPOS, home educational resources/HEDRES, index of economic, social, and cultural status/ESCS, joy/like reading/JOYREAD, teacher’s stimulation of reading engagement perceived by student/STIMREAD, subjective well-being: Sense of belonging to school/BELONG, student-teacher ratio/STRATIO, shortage of educational material/EDUSHORT, student behavior hindering learning/STUBEHA, teacher behavior hindering learning/TEACHBEHA) comprised the predictive variable set. Methods: Between two sets of variables, used canonical correlation analysis to examine, simultaneously, the relationship between these two sets and the contribution of the variables to each set. Turkey data of the PISA 2018 organized by OECD was used as the sample. PISA 2018 Turkey data consisted of 6890 Turkish students from the 15-year-old age group. The variables PV1READ, SCREADCOMP, SCREADCOMP, SCREADDIFF, CULTPOS, HEDRES, ESCS, BELONG, STIMREAD and JOYREAD in the student survey and the variables STRATIO, STUBEHA, TEACHBEHA, EDUSHORT in the school survey in the PISA 2018 were used as data collection tools. Results: A summary of the results of the canonical correlation analysis revealed that the most important factor in the predictive variable set was liking/enjoying reading, followed by the student behaviours that hinder learning, economic and socio-cultural status, cultural position, sense of belonging to the school, and teacher behaviours that hinder learning, respectively. In the criterion variable set consisting of students’ reading skills, the most important factor was the perception of reading competence, followed by reading scores and perception of reading difficulty, respectively. In this context, it can be said that the variable that had the most relationship with the reading literacy skills of the students was the variable of like/enjoy reading. Discussion: It is important for teachers to include additional materials that students can enjoy in the teaching process. Positive school climate is one of the factors that help increase student achievement. Limitations: This study focused on variables related to students’ socio-economic and cultural characteristics and school-related variables as predictors of reading literacy. In addition to the variables, studies can examine the effect of the categorical variables such as gender and school type. Conclusions: The results of the study showed that the variable that had the most relationship with the reading literacy skills of the students was the variable of like/enjoy reading. This variable was followed by student behaviours that hinder learning and the socio-economic cultural status of the students respectively. In line with the results of this study, positive school climate is one of the factors that help increase student achievement. In order for the school climate to be positive, student or teacher behaviors that prevent learning should be minimized. Thus, students can learn more easily in a school climate where there are no obstacles to learning. Finally, as the socio-economic and cultural status of the students increased, it was observed that the reading scores increased.