[This post is a part of a series investigating the "boy crisis" in reading. Start here.]
At this time, PISA 2018 results are the most recent available. Reading also happened to be the primary focus area for PISA 2018. COVID delayed the next round of assessment to be 2022 and these results are not yet available mid-2023. For my purposes here, I'll be focusing on the book-length report . Page references will refer to this report unless otherwise noted.
Parts of the 2018 reading assessment are available online. I have to say I was impressed! For example, check out these series of questions about a chicken-themed Internet forum. This is literacy in action in a relevant situation. This goes beyond surface-level interpretation to navigating a common information structure and thinking about the use of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary language. In other words, not just what someone said but also what they are implying and what they're trying to accomplish by saying it. This means we should interpret PISA reading assessment results as being about a broad approach to applied literacy, beyond decoding and even reading fluency.
"PISA assesses reading literacy, as opposed to reading. Reading is often interpreted, in a general, non-academic context, as reading aloud or simply converting text into sounds. PISA conceives of reading literacy as a broader set of competencies that allows readers to engage with written information, presented in one or more texts, for a specific purpose." PISA 2018 Results (Volume 1) What Students Know and Can Do, p. 34.
There is considerable care put into vetting the questions for international use. If you want to know more about that or how the points scale is constructed and interpreted, read here. The key take-away is that the scores only give answers about relative performance among students, which allows for comparisons among demographics within a country, among countries, and between different years of PISA testing. All of these have calculated error ranges. As far as the gender gap in reading performance on the PISA 2018 test, this is the most useful overview graph (context here):
"In 11 PISA-participating countries and economies, namely B-S-J-Z (China), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Chinese Taipei and the United States, there was no difference between boys and girls at the top of the distribution of reading performance. But in all countries/economies, the first decile of the performance distribution amongst boys was significantly lower than that amongst girls." (emphasis added) PISA 2018 Results (Volume II): Where All Students Can Succeed, p. 148.
Socio-Economic Status
On average, the top quarter of students per country in terms of socio-economic status vs. the bottom quarter of students in the same country showed an average reading gap of 88 points, as compared to an average gender-based reading gap of 30 points. Not only is this a larger gap overall, but it consistently beats out the gender gap on a country-by-country basis:
"[I]n all PISA-participating countries and economies, socio-economically advantaged boys outperformed disadvantaged girls in reading (see Figure II.7.6). But in all countries, advantaged girls significantly outperformed advantaged boys in reading, while disadvantaged girls significantly outperformed disadvantaged boys. The only exception is Peru, where advantaged boys and girls performed at a similar level, on average." PISA 2018 Results (Volume II): Where All Students Can Succeed, p. 149.
Reading for Enjoyment
PISA 2018 asked a series of questions related to reading enjoyment. Even if the differences in reading performance (as discussed above) is factored in, 15 year old girls showed reported higher reading enjoyment than 15 year old boys in all participating countries.
"When asked how much time they usually spend reading for enjoyment, more than 75% of boys reported either none at all or less than 30 minutes a day, on average across OECD countries; less than 3% reported that they read more than two hours a day. By contrast, 43% of girls reported that they read at least 30 minutes a day, and 8% of them reported reading more than 2 hours a day." PISA 2018 Results (Volume II): Where All Students Can Succeed, p. 159.
What I find most astonishing here is that the performance differences are as small as as they are with this 18% difference from 25% of boys reading at least 30 minutes per day for enjoyment and 43% of girls reporting the same.
What did the United States numbers look like for reading enjoyment questions? I gathered the following from the data tables Table II.B1.8.1 & Table II.B1.8.2.
Percentage of 15 year old students who agreed or strongly agreed with the following statements about "reading for enjoyment" (U.S. only):
I read only if I have to — 62% boys; 47% girls
Reading is one of my favorite hobbies — 25% boys; 41% girls
I like talking about books with other people — 32% boys; 48% girls
For me, reading is a waste of time — 36% boys; 20% girls
I read only to get information that I need — 61% boys; 45% girls
I don't read or I read less than 30 minutes a day — 76% boys; 63% girls
I read between 30 minutes to 2 hours a day — 21% boys; 28% girls
I read more than 2 hours a day — 3% boys; 9% girls
Whoa there, why in the world do they clump "I don't read" and "I read less than 30 minutes a day" into the same answer?! I'm a librarian who probably reads something like 20 minutes a day for enjoyment on average.
Another thing that jumps out to me is the gap between the first two questions, from "I read only if I have to" to "Reading is one of my favorite hobbies." U.S. boys gave 62% and 25%, respectively, which leaves 13% boys who take some kind of moderate view of reading. U.S. girls gave 47% and 41%, respectively, which leaves 12% girls with an in-between view. This seems very polarizing! I'm going to suggest that we should be just fine about those students in the middle; reading doesn't have to be your top thing to enjoy it.
Overall Impressions
I admire the way assessment is being done in PISA and the openness of information about the process. (You can read a lot more details via the reference links above!) I feel like I have a much better sense of scale when it comes to these gender-related reading gaps. My take-aways:
- The vast majority of 15 year olds fared similarly in reading proficiency, especially in the middle and high end. So much for "boys aren't good readers."
- There is an issue where boys are dramatically over-represented at the lowest end of reading proficiency.
- Reading enjoyment shows a larger gender gap than reading proficiency does. In this area, I wish the questions would attempt to explore the issue where only certain types of reading—primarily fictional chapter books—are considered "reading" by many students (and, sadly, by many adults).