Adolescents' enjoyment of reading as a predictor of reading achievement: new evidence from a cross‐country survey

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of enjoyment of reading on reading achievement among adolescents using a sample of 65 countries. Our results indicate that although enjoyment of reading is a significant predictor of reading achievement and can explain as much as 18% of the variation in such achievement on its own at country level, there are significant cross-country differences in the pattern of this relationship. Our main finding is that after controlling for demographic differences such as gender and socio-economic status, enjoyment of reading is positively associated with reading achievement in high academic performance countries and negatively associated with such achievement in low academic performance countries.

Examination of Turkey’s PISA 2018 reading literacy scores within student-level and school-level variables

“…Tavşancıl, Yıldırım, and Bilican-Demir (2019) investigated the relationship between reading enjoyment and reading performance in PISA 2009 and found out enjoyment of reading improved reading performance as the current study did. On the other hand, a study by Cheema (2018) showed differentiation in reading scores according to performance level of the country. Enjoyment of reading was positively related to reading performance in high academic performance countries whereas it was negatively associated with reading performance in low academic performance countries.…”

Debates in English Teaching

“…Multiple studies from across the world and over time indicate that reading enjoyment has a strong bi-directional link with reading attainment (e.g. Anderson, Wilson and Fielding, 1988;OECD, 2002;Sullivan and Brown, 2013;Chema, 2018).These large-scale surveys and cohort studies commonly indicate that the will influences the skill and vice versa. For example, examining data from the 1970 British Cohort study, Sullivan and Brown (2013) show that those children who read in childhood make substantial cognitive progress between the ages of 10 and 16.…”

Year 3 boys’ and girls’ enjoyment for reading across economic demographics in Australia. Implications for boys and students from lower SES communities

“…For instance, Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) (2011b) findings demonstrate that children who enjoy reading perform better than those who do not across all Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) countries. However, there are local variations in the relationship between reading enjoyment and achievement (Cheema 2018;Miyamoto, Pfost, and Artelt 2018;Schaffner, Philipp, and Schiefele 2016), along with nuances associated with gender and socioeconomic status (SES) (Clark 2012;Logan and Johnston 2009;McKenna et al 2012;Millard 1997;OECD 2011a). While large scale data patterns show girls enjoy reading more than boys (Mullis et al 2012;OECD 2011aOECD , 2011b, these findings are often used to homogenise all boys as reluctant readers who only read non-fiction (Greig and Hughes 2009;Martino and Kehler 2007).…”