Reading practices 114. Beside motivation,
reading practices have previously been measured as
the self-reported frequencies of reading different types of texts in various media, including online reading . In PISA
2018, the list of online reading practices scales will be updated and extended in order to take into
account emerging practices (e.g. e-books, online search, short messaging and social networking).
Awareness of reading strategies 115. Metacognition, an individual’s ability to think about and control his or her reading and
comprehension strategies, has both a significant correlation with reading proficiency and is
responsive to teaching and learning. A number of studies have found an association between
reading proficiency and metacognitive strategies (Artelt, Schiefele, & Schneider, 2001; Brown,
Palincsar, & Armbruster, 1984). Explicit or formal instruction of reading strategies leads to an
improvement in text understanding and information use (Cantrell et al., 2010). More specifically, it
is assumed that the reader becomes independent of the teacher after these strategies have been
acquired and are applied without much effort. By using these strategies, the reader can effectively
interact with the text by conceiving reading as a problem-solving task that requires the use of
strategic thinking and by thinking strategically about solving reading comprehension problems. In
previous PISA cycles, engagement and metacognition proved to be robust predictors of reading
achievement, mediators of gender or socioeconomic status (OECD, 2010, b vol. III) and also
potential levers to reduce achievement gaps. In the questionnaire framework, the measures of
these motivational, metacognition and reader practices are updated and extended in order to take
into account the recent and emerging practices (e.g. e-books, online search, social networking) as
well as to better cover measurement of teaching practices and classroom support that support
reading growth.
116. Skilled reading requires students to employ strategies in order to make the best use of text
given their purposes and goals. For instance, students must know when it is appropriate to scan a
passage or when the task requires the sustained and complete reading of the passage. In PISA
2009, information about reading strategies was collected. Two reading scenarios were presented
to students. In the first scenario, students were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of different
reading and text comprehension strategies to reach the goal of
summarising information ; in the
second, students had to evaluate the effectiveness of other strategies for
understanding and remembering a text ). For PISA 2018, in accordance with the new frame of reading processes (see
Figure 2), information will also be collected about reading strategies specifically linked to the goal
of “
assessing the quality and credibility of sources ”, which is particularly prominent in digital
reading and when confronted with multiple texts.