The Relationships Among ICT-Related Psychological Factors, School Contextual Factors and Secondary Students’ Reading Performance: A Multilevel Analysis Across 47 Economies

Abstract

Evolving information and communication technology (ICT) reshapes people’s reading activities by popularizing digital reading. Past studies focused on the relationships between students’ frequency of ICT use and reading performance but neglected the possible interrelationships between students’ ICT-related psychological factors, school contextual factors and reading performance. This study applied the Self-determination Theory (SDT) to explore the relationships between students’ ICT-related psychological factors (perceived interest, autonomy, competence, and social interaction in using ICT) and reading performance. The possible moderation effects of schools’ contextual variables (schools’ support in ICT devices and schools’ support in teachers’ capacity to integrate technology in teaching) were also investigated. Data from 222,293 secondary students from 10,103 schools in 47 economies who participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 were analyzed using three-level hierarchical linear modeling. The results provided support for the SDT by confirming the positive correlations between students’ ICT-related interest, autonomy and competence and reading performance, and the accentuating moderation effect of schools’ contextual factors. However, students’ perceived social interaction in ICT use was negatively correlated with reading performance, and this negative correlation worsened with increasing schools’ support in ICT devices while buffered with increasing schools’ support in teachers’ capacity to use technology.

The Relationship Between ICT Perceived Competence and Adolescents’ Digital Reading Performance: A Multilevel Mediation Study

“…On the one hand, schools are recommended to build a competence-supportive environment, for instance, to give positive feedback (Deci & Ryan, 2000), which could help satisfy students’ basic psychological needs for competence (Areepattamannil & Santos, 2019). Moreover, providing more quality-oriented support for technology-integrated instruction at school are likely to strengthen the positive effects of ICT perceived competence on students’ digital reading performance (Xiao & Hew, 2022). On the other hand, positive attitudes can derive from school use as well as from home use (Petko et al, 2017).…”

“…Lim and Jung (2019) found that students’ self-confidence in completing high-level ICT tasks was positively related to their digital reading performance. Similarly, studies utilizing the PISA 2015 (Hu et al, 2018) and PISA 2018 database (Xiao & Hew, 2022) revealed that students who perceived themselves as competent in using ICT performed better in digital reading tasks. Moreover, when students perceive ICT as useful but uncontrollable, their performance in digital reading assessment deteriorates (Naumann & Saelzer, 2017).…”