School Reading Resource Shortages and U.S. PIRLS Reading Performance 2021
PIRLS 2021 asked school principals how shortages or inadequacies in school and reading-instruction resources affected their capacity to provide instruction. In the United States, 53% of students attended schools classified as not affected by reading resource shortages.
U.S. School Reading Resource Results
U.S. Reading Scores by School Resource-Shortage Category
Average PIRLS reading achievement based on principals’ reports of how resource shortages affected instruction.
The displayed U.S. means differ by 24 points between the not-affected and somewhat-affected categories. The 2% affected-a-lot group is not plotted because IEA reports insufficient data for a U.S. achievement estimate.
IEA PIRLS 2021 International Results in Reading, Exhibit 6.3
PIRLS 2021 School Resource-Shortage Categories
| Not affected | 53% | 558 | 31% | 519 |
| Somewhat affected | 46% | 534 | 61% | 498 |
| Affected a lot | 2% | Not reported | 8% | 472 |
Percentages are rounded independently and may not sum to exactly 100%. IEA uses a tilde for the U.S. affected-a-lot achievement result because there were insufficient data to report the estimate.
School Resource Shortages and Reading Performance
U.S. results by principal-reported resource conditions
- More than half of U.S. students were in schools classified as not affected by reading resource shortages. The U.S. share of 53% was above the PIRLS international average of 31%.
- Students in the U.S. not-affected category had an average reading score of 558, compared with 534 for students in schools classified as somewhat affected. These are descriptive group results and do not establish that resource shortages caused the score difference.
- Only 2% of U.S. students were classified in the affected-a-lot category. IEA did not report an average achievement score for that U.S. group because the available data were insufficient for reporting.
- NCES reports that the 53% U.S. not-affected share was lower than the corresponding percentage in 3 participating education systems, higher than the percentage in 37 systems, and not measurably different from 24 systems.
What the Reading Resource Shortages Scale Measures
The PIRLS Instruction Affected by Reading Resource Shortages scale is based on school principals’ responses about how much shortages or inadequacies affected the school’s capacity to provide instruction. The PIRLS 2021 scale used 13 school and classroom resources.
| Resource group | Items included in the scale |
|---|---|
| General school resources | Instructional materials; supplies; school buildings and grounds; heating, cooling and lighting systems; instructional space; technologically competent staff; technology and media resources for teaching; technology and media resources for student learning and expression; internet connection. |
| Resources for reading instruction | Teachers with a specialization in reading; computer software or applications for reading instruction; library resources; instructional materials for reading. |
Principals rated each resource as affecting instructional capacity not at all, a little, some, or a lot. IEA combined the responses into the not-affected, somewhat-affected and affected-a-lot scale categories rather than treating any single resource item as the category definition.
School Resources Are Separate from Home Resources
This is a school-level contextual measure. The reading resource shortages scale comes from the School Questionnaire completed by principals. It is separate from student-reported resources at home and from the parent-based PIRLS Home Socioeconomic Status scale.
The United States did not administer the PIRLS 2021 Home Questionnaire, which prevents reporting the parent-based U.S. Home SES categories. That limitation does not make the school resource-shortage scale unavailable because the data on this page come from principals rather than parents.
Data Sources, Measurement and Comparability
U.S. selected finding
NCES PIRLS 2021 U.S. Highlights reports the official U.S. finding that 53% of students attended schools where instruction was not affected by reading resource shortages and compares that percentage with other participating education systems.
Category percentages and achievement
IEA PIRLS 2021 International Results in Reading, Exhibit 6.3, reports student percentages and average reading achievement for the not-affected, somewhat-affected and affected-a-lot categories.
School questionnaire
NCES PIRLS 2021 School Questionnaire documents the principal-reported school and reading-instruction resource items used in the U.S. administration.
Reporting basis
The U.S. administration was delayed until fall 2021. The fourth-grade cohort was assessed after entering fifth grade, and the published U.S. achievement results use the paper-bridge sample.
Scale interpretation
The shortage categories summarize responses across multiple school resources. They do not identify which individual resource accounted for a school’s classification, and the category-to-achievement comparisons describe associations rather than causal effects.
International database
IEA PIRLS Data Repository provides the PIRLS 2021 international database and documentation for analyses requiring achievement plausible values, school-context variables and survey weights.
Small U.S. affected-a-lot group: The U.S. percentage rounds to 2%, but IEA reports insufficient data for an achievement estimate in this category. The missing score should not be replaced with the U.S. overall mean or inferred from the other two categories.