tandfonline.com – Reading promotion, behavior, and comprehension and its relationship to the educational achievement of Mexican high school students

Abstract

Reading is one of the aspects that help students achieve optimal performance in their education. There are several determining factors that can affect reading, particularly its promotion by teachers, and the students’ behavior and comprehension. This paper seeks to determine the relationship between reading promotion, behavior, and comprehension and educational achievement in Mexican high school students. Our sample consisted of 7,299 students, with an average age of 15.8 years. We analyzed their answers to a questionnaire as well as the database from the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) test. A theoretical model was built using the reading promotion, reading behavior, reading comprehension, and educational achievement factors; the model was evaluated using the structural equation modelling technique. We found a positive and significant relationship between reading promotion, behavior, and comprehension and educational achievement. We conclude that, in order to improve educational achievement, teachers should perform specific actions to promote favorable reading behavior and comprehension among high school students in Mexico.