Differential Influences of Contextual and Affective Factors on Young Adolescent Reading Performance

Abstract

A person’s reading performance is the result of a combination of various factors. The current study was to investigate the influences of student and school background characteristics on student overall reading achievement. A sample of 2,922 tenth-grade students from 140 schools was included in this study from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 database. Several background characteristics were examined at each level. At the student level, home literacy environment (HLE), reading attitudes and reading self-concept as well as parental emotional support were included. School-level variables include student misbehavior in school, student SES composite, and class size. Multilevel linear modelling (MLM) was utilized to model the relationship between student and school-level variables and students’ overall reading achievement. The results suggested that students’ HLE, reading attitudes, and reading self-concept had significant positive influences on the reading outcome. Moreover, model comparisons revealed that the model with both student and school-level variables had the best model fit. All the variables at the school level were significant predictors for reading achievement (i.e., school SES composition, class size, and student misbehavior). Finally, the findings of the current study were discussed in the context of previous studies, and limitations, as well as recommendations for future research, were addressed.