Abstract
PISA’s reading literacy test assesses an individual’s skills and competencies to understand, use, reflect on, and engage with written texts. This chapter seeks to understand how the different educational systems in the Asia-Pacific region contribute to students’ reading literacy performance in PISA. Taking the results of the latest cycle of PISA into consideration, this chapter critically reviews and analyses the current trends of reading performance across the Asia-Pacific regions and countries. Comparisons are made between high-performing countries (e.g., Singapore) and low-performing countries (e.g., Philippines) to illustrate further how the individual-level, class-level, and school-level factors contribute to countries’ reading literacy performance. Overall, the chapter argues that students from more established educational systems perform better in PISA reading literacy tests, but that the performance gap differs among nations due to varying influence variables on the three levels.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aikens, N. L., & Barbarin, O. (2008). Socioeconomic differences in reading trajectories: The contribution of family, neighborhood, and school contexts. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 235–251. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.100.2.235
Aldridge, J. M., & Fraser, B. J. (2016). Teachers’ views of their school climate and its relationship with teacher self-efficacy and job satisfaction. Learning Environments Research, 19(2), 291–307.
Allen, K., Kern, M. L., Vella-Brodrick, D., Hattie, J., & Waters, L. (2018). What schools need to know about fostering school belonging: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 30(1), 1–34.
Alsubaie, A. (2020). The effectiveness of multiple intelligence-based differentiated instructions on metacognitive reading comprehension in Arabic language among middle school students in Saudi Arabia. Revista Amazonia Investiga, 9(26), 158–166.
Anderson, J., Chiu, M., & Yore, L. (2010). First cycle of PISA (2000–2006) – International perspectives on successes and challenges: Research and policy directions. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 8(3), 373–388.
Baroutsis, A., & Lingard, B. (2021). A methodological approach to the analysis of PISA microblogs: Social media during the release of the PISA 2015 results. Journal of Education Policy, 1–21.
Behr, A., & Fugger, G. (2020). PISA performance of natives and immigrants: Selection versus efficiency. Open Education Studies, 2(1), 9–36.
Berg, J. K., & Cornell, D. (2016). Authoritative school climate, aggression toward teachers, and teacher distress in middle school. School Psychology Quarterly, 31(1), 122.
Berkowitz, R., Moore, H., Astor, R. A., & Benbenishty, R. (2017). A research synthesis of the associations between socioeconomic background, inequality, school climate, and academic achievement. Review of Educational Research, 87(2), 425–469.
Bodily, R., Nyland, R., & Wiley, D. (2017). The RISE framework: Using learning analytics to automatically identify open educational resources for continuous improvement. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(2), 103–122.
Catalano, R. F., Haggerty, K. P., Oesterle, S., Fleming, C. B., & Hawkins, J. D. (2004). The importance of bonding to school for healthy development: Findings from the Social Development Research Group. Journal of School Health, 74, 252–261.
Chiong, C., & Dimmock, C. (2020). Building trust: How low-income parents navigate neoliberalism in Singapore’s education system. Comparative Education, 56(3), 394–408.
Cohen, J., McCabe, E. M., Michelli, N. M., & Pickeral, T. (2009). School climate: Research, policy, practice, and teacher education. Teachers College Record, 111(1), 180–213.
Deng, Z., & Gopinathan, S. (2016). PISA and high-performing education systems: Explaining Singapore’s education success. Comparative Education, 52(4), 449–472.
Dotterer, A. M., McHale, S. M., & Crouter, A. C. (2007). Implications of out-of-school activities for school engagement in African American adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 36(4), 391–401.
Erb, T. (2000). Do middle school reforms make a difference? The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 73(4), 194–195.
Federici, R., & Skaalvik, E. (2014). Students’ perceptions of emotional and instrumental teacher support: Relations with motivational and emotional responses. International Education Studies, 7(1), 21–36. https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v7n1p21
Fitrawati, F. (2012). Improving senior high school students’ reading comprehension through reading strategies derived from genre based approach. Komposisi: Jurnal Pendidikan Bahasa, Sastra, dan Seni, 10(2), 89–99. https://doi.org/10.24036/komposisi.v10i2.60.
Fowler, S. (2021). Close encounters that foster change: What Alice Sheldon and PPE 2020 can tell us about educational futures. Policy Futures in Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/147821032110527
Gase, L. N., Gomez, L. M., Kuo, T., Glenn, B. A., Inkelas, M., & Ponce, N. A. (2017). Relationships among student, staff, and administrative measures of school climate and student health and academic outcomes. Journal of School Health, 87(5), 319–328.
Gil-Flores, J., & García-Gómez, S. (2017). The importance of teaching practices in relation to regional educational policies in explaining PISA achievement. Revista de Educación, 2017, 52–74. https://doi.org/10.4438/1988-592X-RE-2017-378-361
Heejung, J. (2015). The structural equation modeling approach to examine influencing variables to middle school students’ English reading comprehension. English 21, 28(4), 333–351.
Hoge, D., Smit, E., & Hanson, S. (1990). School experiences predicting changes in self-esteem of sixth- and seventh-grade students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82/1, 117–127.
Kameshwara, K. K., Sandoval-Hernandez, A., Shields, R., & Dhanda, K. R. (2020). A false promise? Decentralization in education systems across the globe. International Journal of Educational Research, 104, 101669. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2020.101669
Kemp, L., & Hall, A. H. (1992). Impact of effective teaching research on student achievement and teacher performance: Equity and access implications for quality education. Jackson, MS: Jackson State University. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED348360)
Kendall Theado, C. (2013). Metaphors we teach by: Examining teacher conceptualizations of literacy in the English language arts classroom. Language and Literacy, 15(2), 20.
Kim, Y. J. (2018). The effects of Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) on Korean College Students’ English-listening performance and English-listening anxiety. Studies in Linguistics, (48), 277–298. https://doi.org/10.17002/sil..48.201807.277
Kuger, S., & Klieme, E. (2016). Dimensions of context assessment. In S. Kuger, E. Klieme, N. Jude, & D. Kaplan (Eds.), Assessing contexts of learning: An international perspective. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45357-6
Lagravinese, R., Liberati, P., & Resce, G. (2020). The impact of economic, social and cultural conditions on educational attainments. Journal of Policy Modeling, 42(1), 112–132.
LaRusso, M. D., Romer, D., & Selman, R. L. (2008). Teachers as builders of respectful school climates: Implications for adolescent drug use norms and depressive symptoms in high school. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 37(4), 386–398.
Lauermann, F., Meißner, A., & Steinmayr, R. (2020). Relative importance of intelligence and ability self-concept in predicting test performance and school grades in the math and language arts domains. Journal of Educational Psychology, 112(2), 364–383.
Lee, J. (2012). The effects of the teacher-student relationship and academic press on student engagement and academic performance. International Journal of Educational Research, 53, 330–340. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.IJER.2012.04.006
Lee, J. (2018). Relationship between vocabulary size, syntactic awareness and reading comprehension in low- and high-level Korean High School EFL Students. Secondary English Education, 11(3), 3–23.
Licorish, S. A., Owen, H. E., Daniel, B., & George, J. L. (2018). Students’ perception of Kahoot!’s influence on teaching and learning. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 13(1), 1–23.
Liddicoat, A. J. (2022). Language-in-education policy in the Asia-Pacific Region. In W. O. Lee, P. Brown, A. L. Goodwin, & A. Green (Eds.), International handbook on education development in Asia-Pacific. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2327-1_22-1
MacNeil, A. J., Prater, D. L., & Busch, S. (2009). The effects of school culture and climate on student achievement. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 12(1), 73–84.
Magnusson, C., Roe, A., & Blikstad-Balas, M. (2018). To what extent and how are reading comprehension strategies part of language arts instruction? A study of lower secondary classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 54(2), 187–212.
Marshella, V. Q. F. (2014). Explaining the important contribution of reading literacy to the country’s generations: Indonesian’s perspectives.
Maslow, A. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370–396.
McCardle, P. (2016). Book review. Journal of School Administration Research and Development, 1(1), 50–55.
Melville-Ross, T. (2010). Leadership, governance and management. Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 14(1), 3–6.
Morgan, H. (2013). Maximizing student success with differentiated learning. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 87(1), 34–38.
Morgan, P. L., Farkas, G., Hillemeier, M. M., & Maczuga, S. (2009). Risk factors for learning-related behavior problems at 24 months of age: Population-based estimates. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 37, 401–413. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-008-9279-8
Mostafa, T., & Pál, J. (2018). Science teachers’ satisfaction: Evidence from the PISA 2015 Teacher Survey (OECD education working papers, no. 168). OECD Publishing.
Nakata, Y. (2019). Encouraging student teachers to support self-regulated learning: A multiple case study on prospective language teachers. International Journal of Educational Research, 95, 200–211.
Ness, M. (2011). Explicit reading comprehension instruction in elementary classrooms: Teacher use of reading comprehension strategies. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 25(1), 98–117.
OECD. (2017). PISA 2015 results (volume III): Students’ well-being. OECD Publishing.
OECD. (2019a). PISA 2018 insights and interpretations. OECD Publishing.
OECD. (2019b). PISA 2018 results (volume III): What school life means for students’ lives. OECD Publishing.
OECD. (2019c). Making decentralisation work: A handbook for policy-makers. OECD Multi-level Governance Studies, OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/g2g9faa7-en
Rintaningrum. (2015). Teaching and learning of English as a foreign language in a global context.
Rocher, T., & Hastedt, D. (2020, September). International large-scale assessments in education: A brief guide (IEA compass: briefs in education no. 10). IEA.
Rodés, V., Gewerc-Barujel, A., & Llamas-Nistal, M. (2019). University teachers and open educational resources: Case studies from Latin America. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 20(1), 165-183.
Sandoval-Hernandez, A., Rutkowski, D., Matta, T., & Miranda, D. (2019). Back to the drawing board: Can we compare socioeconomic background scales? Revista de Educación, 383, 37–61.
Santos-Hermosa, G., Ferran-Ferrer, N., & Abadal, E. (2017). Repositories of open educational resources: An assessment of reuse and educational aspects. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(5), 84–120.
She, H. C., Lin, H. S., & Huang, L. Y. (2019). Reflections on and implications of the programme for international student assessment 2015 (PISA 2015) performance of students in Taiwan: The role of epistemic beliefs about science in scientific literacy. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 56, 1309–1340. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21553
Shouse, R. (2018). Academic press, sense of community, and student achievement. In Coleman. J (Eds.), Redesigning American education (pp. 60–86). Routledge.
Suparwito, H. (2019). Factors influencing the difficulty level of the subject: Machine learning technique approaches. International Journal of Applied Sciences and Smart Technologies, 1(1), 65–82.
Tang, H. (2020). A qualitative inquiry of K–12 teachers’ experience with open educational practices: Perceived benefits and barriers of implementing open educational resources. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 21(3), 211–229.
Turgut, G. (2013). International tests and the U.S. educational reforms: Can success be replicated? The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 86(2), 64–73.
Ugwuegbula, L. (2019). The Asia-Pacific’s Education Crisis. Retrieved from thediplomat.com website: https://thediplomat.com/2019/11/the-asia-pacifics-education-crisis/
Violita, V., & Ena, O. (2021). Using narrative to improve students’ English reading skill in school literacy movement. IDEAS: Journal on English Language Teaching and Learning, Linguistics and Literature, 9(2), 553–563.
Way, N., Reddy, R., & Rhodes, J. (2007). Students’ perceptions of school climate during the middle school years: Associations with trajectories of psychological and behavioral adjustment. American Journal of Community Psychology, 40(3), 194–213.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Sandoval-Hernandez, A., Zhao, D., Chen, Z., Eryilmaz, N. (2023). The Association Between Educational Systems and Reading Literacy Performance in PISA Across Asia-Pacific Region and Countries. In: Lee, W.O., Brown, P., Goodwin, A.L., Green, A. (eds) International Handbook on Education Development in Asia-Pacific. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2327-1_26-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2327-1_26-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-16-2327-1
Online ISBN: 978-981-16-2327-1
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education