PIRLS 2011 OUTCOME MEASURES
- Reading literacy
SCALE CREATION
The PIRLS international achievement scales were developed based on item response theory and population models using plausible values, with each student respondent being assigned 5 plausible values on each of the achievement scales.
Scale scores range from 0 to 1000.
Each international scale was established by PIRLS 2001 to have a midpoint of 500 located at the mean of the combined achievement distribution across all countries and 100 scale score points corresponding to one standard deviation of the combined distribution.
In order to measure trends over time, the results of all subsequent PIRLS assessments (2006, 2011) were converted to this metric.
LIST OF ACHIEVEMENT SCALES
- Overall achievement (Reading)
- Purposes for Reading
- Literary Experience
- Acquire and Use Information
- Processes of Comprehension
- Retrieving and Straightforward Inferencing
- Interpreting, Integrating, and Evaluating
Overall achievement results were reported in terms of the percentages of students reaching the following four international benchmarks:
- Advanced International Benchmark (625)
- High International Benchmark (550)
- Intermediate International Benchmark (475)
- Low International Benchmark (400)
The descriptions of the competencies of students reaching each of these benchmarks were determined by means of a scale-anchoring process.
SCALE CREATION
PIRLS 2011 created a variety of background questionnaire scales to report the context questionnaire data.
Scales were calculated using item response theory (IRT), specifically a Rasch partial credit model.
In addition, categorical variables were created using these scales by classifying respondents into one of three groups: High, Middle, and Low. Cut-off points for categorization were determined on a scale-by-scale basis.
LIST OF BACKGROUND SCALES
- Home environment support
- Home Resources for Learning
- Parents Like Reading (PLR)
- Early Literacy Activities Before Beginning Primary School
- Could Do Early Literacy Tasks When Began Primary School (ELT)
- School resources
- Instruction Affected by Reading Resource Shortages (RRS)
- Teacher Working Conditions (TWC)
- School climate
- School Emphasis on Academic Success–Principal Reports
- School Emphasis on Academic Success–Teacher Reports
- Safe and Orderly Schools
- School Discipline and Safety
- Students Bullied at School
- Students’ attitudes
- Students Like Reading
- Students Motivated to Read
- Students Confident in Reading
- Instruction
- Emphasis in Early Grades on Reading Skills and Strategies
- Teacher Career Satisfaction
- Collaborate to Improve Teaching
- Instruction to Engage Students in Learning
- Students Engaged in Reading Lessons