Dr Van Staden presented a paper entitled “Factors That Affect South African Reading Literacy Achievement: Evidence from pre-PIRLS 2011 Using Aspects of Carroll’s Model of School Learning”. The paper was co-written with an expert in evidence-based education, Prof Roel Bosker, from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. This presentation aimed to identify factors that predict reading literacy achievement among Grade 4 learners in South Africa by utilising aspects of Carroll’s model of school learning.

The paper drew on the pre-Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (prePIRLS) 2011 data, which places South African Grade 4 learners’ results substantially below the international centre point.

Dr Van Staden and Prof Sarah Howie are the co-National Research Coordinators (NRC) for PIRLS in South Africa. PIRLS 2011, conducted by the IEA, comprised 48 countries and 9 benchmarking participants.

Mrs Karen Roux, a MEd student in Assessment and Quality Assurance in Education and Training and junior researcher at the CEA, is researching the relationship between parental factors and learner achievement in reading literacy drawn on PIRLS 2011 data.