IEA's PIRLS (Progress is International Reading Literacy Study) -- PIRLS 2021 International Results in Reading

 

885 views May 16, 2023

IEA's PIRLS (Progress is International Reading Literacy Study) is the global standard for monitoring reading achievement at the fourth grade. PIRLS 2021 was the 5th cycle of PIRLS, providing 20 years of trend data in reading achievement. 57 countries and 8 benchmarking participants participated in PIRLS 2021. Notably, PIRLS 2021 is the only international assessment of educational achievement that collected data during COVID-19's disruption in students' schooling.

PIRLS 2021 INTERNATIONAL RESULTS IN READING

PIRLS 2021 is the fifth cycle of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. Since 2021, PIRLS has provided high-quality data for monitoring progress in students’ reading achievement at the fourth grade, covering 20 years of trends. The PIRLS reading assessment is based on a comprehensive framework that focuses on two overarching purposes for reading — for literary experience and to acquire and use information. PIRLS 2021 results provide descriptions of students’ reading skills and strategies at four international benchmarks on the PIRLS reading achievement scale for meaningful interpretation of reading achievement scores.

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Reporting the PIRLS 2021 Achievement Results

Reading achievement results are included in PIRLS 2021 International Results in Reading for all 57 countries and 8 benchmarking entities that participated in PIRLS 2021. Concerns about the comparability of the data resulting from COVID-19 school disruptions and delayed testing complicated reporting the PIRLS 2021 results.

PIRLS and TIMSS have built a reputation for reporting high quality data, but not all data collected meet the expected guidelines. In such cases, PIRLS and TIMSS use annotations to identify results based on data that for some reason fell short of meeting the expected guidelines. The goal is to be clear about issues while still reporting countries’ data. See discussion “Impacts of Modifying the Assessment Schedule on Students’ Achievement” in Countries’ Reading Achievement.

The achievement results for all countries that assessed fourth grade students at the end of the school year are presented according to average achievement in Exhibit 1.1, with the countries that assessed the fourth grade students one year later annotated. Exhibit 1.1 is followed by Exhibit 1.2, which has guidelines for determining significant differences in average reading achievement between the Exhibit 1.1 countries. Exhibit 1.3 includes all the countries presented according to average achievement, with the delayed assessment countries that assessed the fourth grade cohort at the beginning of the fifth grade highlighted in pink.

While PIRLS cannot determine cause and effects, in general there are downward trends in PIRLS 2021 that likely are evidence of the assessment taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because the pandemic was unprecedented in the history of PIRLS trend assessments, the trends between 2016 and 2021 are shown with dotted lines. This should alert researchers that care should be taken when interpreting the PIRLS 2021 results. Similar to the approach used for the PIRLS 2021 achievement data, the trend results for the countries that assessed fourth grade students are in one exhibit, with the “one year later countries” clearly annotated as having a 6-year trend instead of a 5-year trend between 2016 and 2021. Trend results for the countries with delayed assessments at the fifth grade need to be interpreted with great care due to the age difference and are shown in a separate exhibit.