The reading and interpretation skills of Portuguese 4th grade students remained practically unchanged between 2016 and 2021, according to tests carried out during the pandemic that place Portugal in the middle of a table of 43 countries.
In the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, more than eight thousand 4th grade students were asked to take an international test to assess reading literacy, having managed to climb the table that compares their results with students from other countries.
The Portuguese appear in 22nd place in a list of 43 countries that participated in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS 2021), released today by the independent agency International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). This means that Portugal has risen slightly compared to 2016, when it ranked 30th out of 50 participants.
In addition to the contingencies of having been carried out during the pandemic, PIRLS 2021 marked a transition from paper to digital tests, with both models taking place in Portugal: 6.111 students took digital tests and another 2.098 tests on paper.
However, the results of the two formats revealed different realities. Children who took the paper test improved slightly compared to 2016 (up three points), but on the digital tests the average scores dropped eight points (on a scale of zero to one thousand).
Speaking to journalists, the Minister of Education preferred to focus first on the “slight improvement in the results of reading on paper”: “We are happy with this curve, we have gone up again”.
In Portugal, PIRLS took place at the end of the 2021 school year, after the second confinement, and, for João Costa, the study released today confirms the results of last year’s assessment tests and attests to “the work that schools have been doing in the pandemic”.
The minister also recognized the “worst performance in tests in digital format”, attributing part of the responsibilities to the way the test was designed: A “mere transposition” of the paper test to digital was made and not a test from scratch, criticized João Coast.
According to the person in charge, the digital tests did not allow, for example, to visualize the text and the questions simultaneously, contrary to what happens with paper tests.
The idea was supported by the president of the Institute for Educational Assessment (IAVE) who gave as an example the long texts, “occupying two or three pages”, which meant that when the student accessed the questions, a box was opened that overlapped the text.
The minister guaranteed that this situation was taken care of in the digital measurement tests, which begin today, since they were 100% designed to be done on the computer.
The president of IAVE added that in the assessment tests the texts are “much smaller” and the students are able to work as if they were on paper.
Returning to PIRLS, the 2021 test has other peculiarities, such as the fact that data collection lasted for 22 months, between October 2020 and July 2022, taking place in three different waves.
Portugal participated in the first phase, but there were those who only managed to take the tests later: 14 countries carried out the test between August and December 2021 and another three took it between March and July 2022.
In total, 57 countries and eight regions participated and, in this list, which the ministry said has tests taken by older students, Portugal appears in 29th place.
The minister recognized that it is necessary to “continue the work on digital literacy to reinforce the digital skills of students” as well as it is necessary to “continue to work, above all, at the highest levels of complexity” because that is where the main difficulties of students reside.
The report that shows that there are more Portuguese students with better performances in paper tests. The test is divided into four levels of performance, ranging from “low performance”, through “Intermediate”, “High” and “Advanced”.
Among students who took paper tests, 40% of students achieved at least the high level and 9% achieved the advanced level of performance.
On digital tests, 36% of students achieved at least the high level and 6% achieved the advanced level of performance.
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