Reading Problems: This Many Adults in Austria are Affected

This is shown by the "Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies" (PIAAC) of the OECD, published on Tuesday. Between 2012 and 2023, the group of 16- to 65-year-olds with reading difficulties almost doubled and is now over a quarter.

Compared to the other 30 countries that participated in the "Adult PISA" this time, Austria scores significantly below the OECD average in reading (254 versus 260 points). 29 percent of respondents could only solve the simplest reading tasks at competence level 1 or below (OECD average: 26). Excluding those who could not take the test due to language barriers, the proportion increased from 16 to 27 percent between PIAAC 2012 and the 2023 edition. In the top group of particularly good readers, 10 percent landed (2012: 9, OECD: 12).

29 Percent of Adults in Austria Struggle with Reading

People who can only solve tasks at competence level 1 are essentially functional illiterates, explained OECD Education Director Andreas Schleicher in an online press conference. They fail even tasks that a child should be able to handle at the end of primary school.

In the Austrian education system, Schleicher saw a need for action in view of the development of reading skills. "There is an actual performance drop among people with a low level of education." The performance level of those who do not have a secondary level 2 qualification (AHS, BMHS, vocational school, polytechnic school) has "significantly fallen". At the same time, the secondary school leaving certificate is worth less today, and this also applies to many of the tertiary qualifications. In fact, test participants in Finland with a secondary level 2 qualification achieved better results in PIAAC 2023 than university graduates in Austria (288 versus 285).

Influence of Migration is Minimal

With the deterioration of reading skills, Austria is in line with the OECD trend. Despite many investments and more people with higher educational qualifications in the past ten years, reading skills have only improved in two of the 31 participating countries (Finland, Denmark). "With increasing demands in society and the job market, this is a bitter testimony," says Schleicher. The reasons for the decline in competence can only be speculated, according to Schleicher. However, he suspects one factor to be the increasingly shorter and less complex texts that people read nowadays.

The fact that significantly more people with a migration background now live in Austria than in 2012 is indeed a contributing factor to the poorer performance in PIAAC this time. Because even when the data is adjusted for influences such as educational level or social background, these people have on average poorer reading skills. However, the influence should not be overestimated. "We're talking about four, five points." In addition, the results show that there is hardly any difference in reading between second-generation migrants and those tested without a migration background (265 versus 267 points).

Math and "Adaptive Problem Solving" Better Than OECD Average

Significantly above the OECD average, Austria scored in the domain of mathematics with 267 points (OECD average: 263), 23 percent had particularly weak results (OECD: 25). Excluding those who could not take the test due to the language barrier, the proportion increased from 15 to 21 percent in about a decade. Top performances increased from 14 to 15 percent. Internationally, the math results have at least remained stable compared to 2012, but here too, Schleicher saw "a growing discrepancy between what people can do and what they should be able to do".

Significantly above the OECD average of 251 points, Austria scored 253 points in the newly introduced test domain "adaptive problem solving". But here too, more than one in four (27 percent) achieved competence level 1 at best and can therefore only solve simple problems with few variables that do not change on the way to the solution (OECD average: 29). In the top group, five percent landed in Austria as in the OECD average.

Compared to 2012, the correlation between performance and the social background of the parents of the test participants has "developed unfavorably once again", according to Schleicher - even when factors such as the older population (older people achieve poorer results on average) and migration of the past ten years are taken into account. In Austria, for example, participants with at least one parent with a university degree scored an average of 284 points, while participants with parents with compulsory education only scored 220 points. At the same time, Schleicher emphasized that "this is not a natural correlation". Developments in countries like Spain show that politics can counteract this.

Finland, Japan, and Sweden at the Top

The best results in the adult PISA were achieved in all queried domains by Finland, Japan, and Sweden. Switzerland and Germany each delivered results above the OECD average. Chile was the last in all three domains, and countries like Portugal, Lithuania, Israel, and Italy also performed particularly poorly.

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.