The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2016 report paints a concerning picture of primary school-level reading literacy in South Africa, with no significant progress made since the last report in 2011, and South Africa placed last out of the 50 countries participating in the study. Researchers from the University of Pretoria (UP) completed the South African portion of this global study on reading and literacy levels among Grade 4 and 5 students. This third South African PIRLS report builds on ten years of rigorous research in reading literacy at UP.
“Being able to read is the key to academic and future success,” says Celeste Combrinck, Acting Director at UP’s Centre for Evaluation and Assessment (CEA). “If you can't read, your opportunities in school or after that will be limited, so reading ability should be developed from a very young age.”
Specialised training developed at UP has provided 11 000 healthcare workers with the skills required to deliver complicated births, saving mothers and newborns in the process.
The CEA works closely with the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), as well as several international research organisations that coordinate and collaborate on the PIRLS study across the globe. At the end of 2015, the CEA tested the reading ability and literacy skills of 12 810 Grade 4 learners across South Africa in all 11 languages. In addition, more than 5 000 Grade 5 learners were tested in Afrikaans, English and isiZulu. This data was processed and analysed by the international research group and then returned to the CEA for further analysis.
The Department of Basic Education (DBE) supported the study with funding and logistical support, while a national steering committee provided guidance.
The results of the study, which are carefully validated internationally and reviewednationally to ensure accuracy, suggest that almost 80% of South African Grade 4 learners fall below the lowest internationally recognised level of reading literacy in their language of learning. According to Prof Sarah Howie, National Research Coordinator (NRC) for PIRLS 2016 South Africa, this suggests that the majority of learners cannot read well enough to learn successfully, across the curriculum.
What is troubling to note is that this is true across all languages in South Africa, as less than a quarter of learners could reach the lowest international benchmark. While approximately half of learners writing tests in English and Afrikaans reach the lowest international benchmark, 80% of those learning in one of the other nine official languages effectively cannot read.
Learners from the Western Cape, Free State and Gauteng performed best in the assessments. According to the report, learners’ reading ability in Sepedi, isiXhosa, Setswana and Tshivenda was the weakest. Boys performed worse than girls, with 84% of boys not reaching the lowest benchmark, in comparison to 72% of girls. This is an international trend that is reflected in South Africa.
Combrinck suggests that part of the problem may stem from two difficult transitions in the fourth year of school. Learners have to transition from learning to read to reading to learn, meaning that they are expected to understand the language of learning well enough to study textbooks and other written material. At the same time, in South Africa, learners at African language schools transition from being taught in an African language to being taught in English. This double whammy is almost certainly having a negative impact on Grade 4 reading literacy.
The PIRLS findings seem to support this suggestion: in one aspect of the study, comparisons with PIRLS 2006 data indicate that Grade 5 learners have made progress in reading literacy in isiZulu. This suggests that given an extra year to settle into a new language, reading literacy does improve, although learners still fall well short of the international average.
Alongside the reading literacy tests, CEA researchers also investigated over 1 000 other factors in the school, classroom and home environment to find potential reasons for the reading problems they observed, and to better understand the South African learning environment.
“The groups most at risk are those in deep rural areas and townships, those learning in African languages, and boys,” says Combrinck. She hopes that this study will set in motion a process to address these challenges.
One way that the CEA is hoping to assist in addressing the problem is by compiling a diagnostic report for the DBE. This document will be developed in partnership with experienced teachers, and will provide material and resources that will help teachers across South Africa improve how they teach reading and reading comprehension at primary school level.
The CEA is also planning to share these results with education faculties at South African universities to improve teaching and reading assessment skills in the country. In particular, says Combrinck, teachers should be taught how to assess reading more effectively.
“Assessment in teacher education is neglected in many South African universities,” she explains. “Most teachers say they figure it out on their own, when they start teaching. They don't know how to prepare the children for literacy testing or how to assess them afterwards.”
Prof Howie hopes that they have done enough to illustrate the scale of the problem, and that others will now take up the torch.
We can provide evidence and suggestions, but other experts need to come on board and do the work now,” she says. “If we can bring together like-minded people with honourable intentions who can use funds and resources for education effectively, there is no reason we can't fix this, although it will take time and hard work.”
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Education in South Africa is facing severe challenges, but the scale of the problem is not clear without detailed, rigorous research. For the team at the Centre for Evaluation and Assessment (CEA) at the University of Pretoria (UP), assessing the education system effectively meant designing assessments and questionnaires in all 11 official languages, reaching schools across the country, and mining vast quantities of data for useful answers. The small dedicated team were more than up for the challenge.
Prof Sarah Howie, National Research Coordinator for PIRLS South Africa, understands the education system. Its well-being is very close to her heart as she and her team want to prevent “another lost generation” of South African learners.
The PIRLS SA study measured more than 1000 variables in the home, classroom and school environments, using the assessment instruments designed by the team. This process is extremely complex when one factors in the different languages spoken at home and in the classroom, the language spoken by the teacher, parents or guardians, and the fact that all these variables are interlinked.
For the the 2016 survey specifically, Howie worked with a team that included Gabriel Mokoena, Mishack Tshele, Nelladee McLeod Palane, Karen Roux and Celeste Combrinck; each of whom played an important role in designing and implementing the survey, and processing the resulting data.
Mokoena provided logistical support that included the packaging of testing material, such as achievement booklets and questionnaires and also worked as a fieldwork coordinator. One of his tasks was to contact the randomly selected schools to arrange times to test the learners.
During the project he had to overcome challenges like community protests, as well as the difficulties associated with accessing schools in remote rural areas. These schools were difficult to contact as they often had no landlines or fax machines at the school, or the correct contact numbers were not available.
Mokoena explains that data collection happened mainly around November, which is exam time. “We often had to convince schools to cooperate, especially with Annual National Assessments being conducted at the same time,” he says.
Mishack Tshele, a data manager at the CEA, was responsible for the huge amounts of data produced as a result of the PIRLS project. He was the link between the CEA and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) data processing centre in Hamburg for everything involving national and international data. Tshele was also responsible for making sure that the translated surveys were still laid out correctly and accurate. He says he personally ensured the correct layout of more than 200 survey instruments.
Celeste Combrinck, Project Coordinator for the PIRLS study and Acting Director of the CEA, relished the research challenges of getting the PIRLS study design and implementation just right.
Ms Combrink works in the area of psychometrics and, as part of the PIRLS team, used statistics to measure how well an instrument was functioning in the real world. She explains that she used principles of measurement similar to those used in the natural sciences.
“The major challenge in the social sciences is quantitative measurement, since the things we measure are usually qualitative in nature. Even aptitude or ability, like reading literacy, is qualitative,” she says. “Psychometrics is like trying to build a ruler, by using questions in a test.
"Measurement elevates a discipline to a science.”
While other countries participating in the PIRLS project may also encounter logistical hurdles, South Africa has the unique challenge of having many more languages to work with while still quantifying the data to make sure that, in Combrinck’s words, “all the points on the ruler are equal”.
Howie says that the researchers have risen admirably to the challenge of PIRLS 2016.
“The team at the CEA are fantastic. They are a small team - we were 13 when we were doing the fieldwork and every person had a job,” she says. “Each time we do this, I think it's impossible. Each time the team was different and each time the team rose to the occasion. We’ve been lucky to have such smart and driven people at the CEA working on the PIRLS project.”
The final PIRLS report was recently released both internationally and in South Africa.
CEA researchers will now embark on a new journey focussing on producing knowledge and recommendations from all of the data they have carefully produced and published.
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As part of the recently-published international PIRLS 2016 study, researchers at the Centre for Evaluation & Assessment (CEA) at the University of Pretoria (UP) asked principals and teachers of Grade 4 and Grade 5 learners about learning conditions in their classrooms. The researchers compared their answers to measures of reading literacy among learners in Grade 4, which was also measured as part of this international study.
“More than half of the surveyed schools said that they lack resources, and this is clearly hampering teaching and learning,” says Karen Roux, who is currently completing a PhD evaluating span-scale assessments in the country. “Learners at schools with inadequate resources achieve 96 points lower in the PIRLS literacy test than peers at schools with no resource shortages.”
She says that a 40-point difference equates to a year of schooling, according to the international PIRLS standard. That means that students in schools that lack libraries, computers and textbooks are two years off pace.
In rural areas, Roux says, the lack of resources is even more severe - some schools do not have enough classrooms to teach in, and often very few books for learners to read. Conditions like this make effective learning almost impossible, she says.
Another CEA researcher, Nelladee McLeod Palane, has just completed her PhD looking at how these classroom factors and the language of instruction interact. She found that learners who attend English schools often do better in literacy tests, despite having an indigenous language as their home language. She says that factors in the classroom play an important role here.
“Almost half (46%) the learners we surveyed learn in English, even though their home language is something else,” she says. “Those being taught in English often perform better in Grade 4 literacy tests than learners being taught in their home language if this is one of the African languages, regardless of their socioeconomic status.”
Language of instruction is a controversial topic in South Africa. At Grade 4 level, learners transition to English as language of instruction, regardless of the language they were taught in up to that point.
“The theory is that if during the foundation phase you learn in your home language, then you do better when you transition to English,” McLeod Palane explains. “Then, when you start learning in English in Grade 4, you should do better thanks to that foundation in your home language.”
In South Africa, that is however just not the case. The lack of reading and other resources coupled with poor schooling conditions means that the home language foundation is not there to build on.
There are other concerns at SA schools too: weekly bullying was reported by 42% of students surveyed, and was linked to lower reading literacy. Furthermore, learners are coming to school hungry and tired - both of which are conditions that are known to make learning more difficult, if not impossible.
“Nearly three-quarters of Grade 4 learners at schools we surveyed are suffering from some lack of nutrition, while more than half report going to school feeling tired,” she says.
Both researchers say that to address these classroom issues, school conditions and resources need to be improved urgently. Schools need teachers and resources that will get learners to engage with reading materials, and really get them excited about reading.
“Good-quality reading resources in the classroom, and across all 11 official languages - that is where South Africa really needs to invest,” concludes McLeod Palane.
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These findings stem from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) project, coordinated in South Africa by the Centre for Evaluation & Assessment (CEA) at the University of Pretoria (UP) . In the recently published PIRLS 2016 report on reading literacy in Grade 4 learners, researchers looked at which factors at home had the biggest impact.
They found that socioeconomic status, indicated by resources like books in the home, a desk to work at and internet access, as well as the parents’ education levels and occupations, made the biggest difference to learners’ performance in the PIRLS literacy test.
When the researchers compared reading test performance between those learners with a lot of reading and study resources at home and those with just some, the results were shocking. They found a difference of more than 140 points, which equates to almost 4 years of schooling, using the international scale developed by the PIRLS study.
This underlines how important it is for young children to have books to read at home, says Nelladee McLeod Palane, another CEA researcher involved in the study.
“We found that a large percentage of households on average have some reading resources at home,” says Karen Roux, a researcher at the CEA. “Almost three quarters have some resources, but only 1% said they have a lot.”
The second home factor that influenced learners’ performance was whether parents engaged with their children - “activities like reading books together, telling stories, singing songs, or playing with educational toys,” according to Roux. This was also true for helping learners with their homework.
“Reading literacy is much better in homes where parents are involved with their children’s homework every day,” says McLeod Palane. “We saw a two-year score difference between kids who do homework every day and those who never get homework.”
Both researchers point to the critical role that parents or guardians play in encouraging behaviours that improve reading ability.
In a seeming contradiction, PIRLS 2016 revealed that most parents expect their children to attain postgraduate qualifications like a Masters or Doctoral degree, despite not taking an active part in supporting their children in learning activities.
Lastly, both Roux and McLeod Palane highlighted that attending preschool provided learners with a strong advantage in reading literacy.
“Attending preschool for three years provides a clear benefit to literacy, which is also true internationally,” says McLeod Palane. “Time spent at preschool help learners achieve later in life.”
She hopes that this data-intensive research can now be complemented with more in-depth, qualitative case study research of home environments in different parts of South Africa.
“I think it is crucial that we complement PIRLS’ quantitative approach with more detailed case studies, particularly in different areas and socioeconomic groups,” she says. “That approach could really help us understand the complexities of reading across SA and our underachievement in relation to the international results.”
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April 25, 2017
Dr Celeste Combrinck undertook her undergraduate studies at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). She has been doing research at the University of Pretoria (UP) for the past 10 years and says that UP offers scholars the opportunity to advance their research fields and create new knowledge.
On her field of research, measurement in the social sciences, she says: “Measurement drives learning and innovation, but it is difficult to measure aspects of being human, such as potential, deep learning and wellness. When we measure accurately and what is important, we change the outcomes by changing the focus. To quote William P Fisher, Jr [an American academic of measurement theory and practice]: ‘We are what we measure. It’s time we measured what we want to be.’”
Dr Combrinck says that while the social sciences offer insight into the human experience, the discipline should be geared towards enhancing human growth and wellness.
She adds that measurement always matters. “What we measure is what we care about, invest in and ultimately strive to achieve. If we accurately measure what matters and promotes well-being, lives will improve.”
Dr Combrinck is leading an initiative to train colleagues, students and other stakeholders in the application of statistical models for objective measurement. In 2021, she presented a three-day workshop for the Military Psychological Institute, Pretoria, and in 2020, published two scholarly chapters on her measurement work.
She is co-investigator on a project in UP’s Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology (EBIT), called Pathways to Success for Engineering Students. The project entails creating African theories of student success and tailoring interventions. The team has collected qualitative and quantitative data, which it has found to be illuminating in terms of how connecting socially can boost academic and personal success.
A recent milestone in Dr Combrinck’s research was presenting the findings of this project, which began in early 2020, at the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South Conference.
Dr Combrinck has many academic role models, especially in the field of measurement. Of Dr John Michael Linacre, Research Director of Winsteps and former Director of the MESA Psychometric Laboratory at the University of Chicago, she says: “He is committed to using measurement to improve human life, learning and health; and he is always quick to provide detailed feedback.” Similarly, she has found Prof David Andrich, an esteemed member of the measurement community, always willing to share his wisdom.
In her academic field, Dr Combrinck hopes to never stop learning. “It would be even better if what I learn enhances the lives of others, and if I can travel the road of knowledge and beauty with fellow researchers.”
Her advice to school learners or undergraduates who are interested in her field is to find their calling. She adds that being a researcher is a passion, and if they discover their passion, they should keep learning. “To be a researcher is to be an eternal student and explorer of the world. I can think of no better way to spend my time on Earth,” she says.
Outside academia, Dr Combrinck is interested in photography and appreciates art in its many forms; she also loves reading fantasy novels and travelling to new places.
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This edition explores the theme of ‘Just Transitions’ which is generally characterised by ideas of sustainability and the greening of the economy, and supported by the ideas of resistance, rethinking and restructuring society for a better and more equitable future. As one of the most impactful producers of research in South Africa, UP has several specialised research teams that are on the...
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This issue features research from all of the University of Pretoria's nine faculties and our business school, the Gordan Institute of Business Science (GIBS) and shows how our research is opening a new world and a better future.
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Constance Ntuli's research matters because she wants to change mindsets and help others who, like her, have little or no functional speech. “With assistive technology, and specifically AAC, I can demonstrate how one can live a life of meaning and purpose, and a life of abundance.”
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