Relationship between Reading Literacy with Mathematical and Science Performance of Female Students in TIMSS Test

Investigating the factors affecting student performance in international tests such as the TIMSS and PIRLS tests has always been of interest to researchers, but could reading literacy be effective in this relationship?

This study aimed to investigate the relation of reading literacy of 4th grade female students in  elementary school to their math and science performance in the TIMSS study.    

The research method was a descriptive-correlational design. The statistical population of the study included all  elementary school 4th grade students in the city of Khoy in the academic year 2017-2018 (1398 people). Among these students, 127 students were selected using convenience sampling method. To collecte data,  the PIRLS (2016) reading literacy test and the TIMSS (2016) math and scince performance test were used. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation coefficient.

Results showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between reading literacy and math performance in the TIMSS test (p<0/001), but there was no significant relation between reading literacy and students’ science performance in the TIMSS test (p>0/05). Also, there was a positive and significant relationship between  students’ math and science performance in the TIMSS test (p<0/001).

According to the results of this study, enhancing reading literacy in students could be effective to increase their performance in the TIMSS test.