Abstract:

Abstract This study aims to determine variables predicting students’ reading literacy in the PISA application. Turkey’s PISA 2018 sample data that consisted of 186 schools and 6890, representing 12 regions from Turkey were analyzed by conducting a two-level hierarchical linear modeling to examine students’ reading literacy at the student and school levels. The results indicated that, according to the student-level predictors, female students had higher reading literacy and the reading literacy was positively influenced by an increase in predictors of father’s education level, predictors showing metacognition levels, socioeconomic levels, parents’ emotional support to the students, reading pleasure levels, and reading attitudes. Considering the school-level predictors, deficiencies in educational materials and student behaviors hindering learning reduced achievement, whereas teacher behaviors hindering learning had a positive effect on achievement. Offering extracurricular creative activities in the school environment reduced the negative impact of the educational status of the mother to a certain extent. The sub-dimension of the metacognitive level assessment had an increased impact on reading literacy, but student behaviors hindering learning had a negative effect on it. Considering the findings, the reasons for the low level of reading literacy of students and how it can be increased were discussed.

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