IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/injoed/v78y2020ics0738059320304004.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Independent reading in rural China’s elementary schools: A mixed-methods analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Huan
  • Guan, Hongyu
  • Yi, Hongmei
  • Seevak, Emma
  • Manheim, Reid
  • Boswell, Matthew
  • Rozelle, Scott
  • Kotb, Sarah

Abstract

Independent reading—unassigned reading for personal pleasure—has been shown to be an important driver of reading skills and academic success. Children that commonly read for pleasure exhibit higher academic performance. However, little research has been done on independent reading in rural China, where the education system is charged with schooling tens of millions of students. Many rural students fall behind their urban counterparts in school, with potentially troubling implications for China’s ongoing development. This article explores the prevalence of independent reading and its associations with reading ability and academic performance among rural students. Using a mixed methods approach, we analyze quantitative data from a survey of 13,232 students from 134 rural schools and interviews with students, teachers, principals, and caregivers. We find that independent reading is positively and significantly correlated with reading ability as well as standardized math and Chinese tests scores. Despite such correlations, only 17 percent of students report reading for pleasure for an hour a day. Interview findings suggest that inaccessible bookstores, curriculum constraints, unsupportive home environments, low availability of appealing and level-appropriate books, and insufficient school investment in reading resources may explain the low prevalence of independent reading.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Huan & Guan, Hongyu & Yi, Hongmei & Seevak, Emma & Manheim, Reid & Boswell, Matthew & Rozelle, Scott & Kotb, Sarah, 2020. "Independent reading in rural China’s elementary schools: A mixed-methods analysis," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:injoed:v:78:y:2020:i:c:s0738059320304004
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2020.102241
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059320304004
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2020.102241?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Renfu Luo & Yaojiang Shi & Linxiu Zhang & Huiping Zhang & Grant Miller & Alexis Medina & Scott Rozelle, 2012. "The Limits of Health and Nutrition Education: Evidence from Three Randomized-Controlled Trials in Rural China," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 58(2), pages 385-404, June.
    2. Paul W. Glewwe & Eric A. Hanushek & Sarah D. Humpage & Renato Ravina, 2011. "School Resources and Educational Outcomes in Developing Countries: A Review of the Literature from 1990 to 2010," NBER Working Papers 17554, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Esther Duflo & Pascaline Dupas & Michael Kremer, 2011. "Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1739-1774, August.
    4. Sylvie Moulin & Michael Kremer & Paul Glewwe, 2009. "Many Children Left Behind? Textbooks and Test Scores in Kenya," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 112-135, January.
    5. Sylvia, Sean & Luo, Renfu & Zhang, Linxiu & Shi, Yaojiang & Medina, Alexis & Rozelle, Scott, 2013. "Do you get what you pay for with school-based health programs? Evidence from a child nutrition experiment in rural China," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-12.
    6. Gao, Qiufeng & Wang, Huan & Mo, Di & Shi, Yaojiang & Kenny, Kaleigh & Rozelle, Scott, 2018. "Can reading programs improve reading skills and academic performance in rural China?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 111-125.
    7. Roland Cheo & Euston Quah, 2005. "Mothers, Maids and Tutors: An Empirical Evaluation of their Effect on Children's Academic Grades in Singapore," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 269-285.
    8. Linxiu Zhang & Hongmei Yi & Renfu Luo & Changfang Liu & Scott Rozelle, 2013. "The human capital roots of the middle income trap: the case of China," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 44(s1), pages 151-162, November.
    9. Yi, Hongmei & Zhang, Linxiu & Ma, Xiaochen & Congdon, Nathan & Shi, Yaojiang & Pang, Xiaopeng & Zeng, Junxia & Wang, Lei & Boswell, Matthew & Rozelle, Scott, 2015. "Poor vision among China's rural primary school students: Prevalence, correlates and consequences," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 247-262.
    10. Ho Lun Wong & Yaojiang Shi & Renfu Luo & Linxiu Zhang & Scott Rozelle, 2014. "Improving the Health and Education of Elementary Schoolchildren in Rural China: Iron Supplementation Versus Nutritional Training for Parents," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(4), pages 502-519, April.
    11. Mo, Di & Swinnen, Johan & Zhang, Linxiu & Yi, Hongmei & Qu, Qinghe & Boswell, Matthew & Rozelle, Scott, 2013. "Can One-to-One Computing Narrow the Digital Divide and the Educational Gap in China? The Case of Beijing Migrant Schools," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 14-29.
    12. Tsang, Mun C., 1996. "Financial reform of basic education in China," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 423-444, October.
    13. Yihua Yang & Xiao Hu & Qinghe Qu & Fang Lai & Yaojiang Shi & Matthew Boswell & Scott Rozelle, 2013. "Roots of Tomorrow's Digital Divide: Documenting Computer Use and Internet Access in China's Elementary Schools Today," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 21(3), pages 61-79, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Smith, Hilary A & Simoncini, Kym M & McDonald, Rebecca & Haslett, Stephen, 2023. "The impacts of a culturally relevant book flood on early literacy in Papua New Guinea," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sabrin Beg & Waqas Halim & Adrienne M. Lucas & Umar Saif, 2022. "Engaging Teachers with Technology Increased Achievement, Bypassing Teachers Did Not," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 61-90, May.
    2. Karthik Muralidharan & Abhijeet Singh & Alejandro J. Ganimian, 2019. "Disrupting Education? Experimental Evidence on Technology-Aided Instruction in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1426-1460, April.
    3. Rosangela Bando & Francisco Gallego & Paul Gertler & Dario Romero, 2016. "Books or Laptops? The Cost-Effectiveness of Shifting from Printed to Digital Delivery of Educational Content," NBER Working Papers 22928, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Harounan Kazianga & Leigh Linden & Ali Protik & Matt Sloan, 2015. "Impact Evaluation of Burkina Faso's BRIGHT Program: Design Report," Mathematica Policy Research Reports c0250cd3f27d448ea70d909c3, Mathematica Policy Research.
    5. Marchionni, Mariana & Pinto, Florencia & Vazquez, Emmanuel, 2013. "Determinantes de la desigualdad en el desempeño educativo en la Argentina [Determinants of the inequality in PISA test scores in Argentina]," MPRA Paper 56421, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Marchionni, Mariana & Vazquez, Emmanuel & Pinto, Florencia, 2012. "Desigualdad educativa en la Argentina. Análisis en base a los datos PISA 2009 [Education Inequality in Argentina. An analysis based on PISA 2009 data]," MPRA Paper 56420, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Valente, Christine, 2015. "Primary Education Expansion and Quality of Schooling: Evidence from Tanzania," IZA Discussion Papers 9208, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Alejandro J. Ganimian & Richard J. Murnane, 2014. "Improving Educational Outcomes in Developing Countries: Lessons from Rigorous Impact Evaluations," NBER Working Papers 20284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Ben Kelcey & Zuchao Shen & Jessaca Spybrook, 2016. "Intraclass Correlation Coefficients for Designing Cluster-Randomized Trials in Sub-Saharan Africa Education," Evaluation Review, , vol. 40(6), pages 500-525, December.
    10. Pedro Carneiro & Sokbae Lee & Daniel Wilhelm, 2020. "Optimal data collection for randomized control trials," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 23(1), pages 1-31.
    11. Yongqing Dong & Quheng Deng & Shaoping Li, 2022. "The Health Inequality of Children in China: A Regression-Based Decomposition Analysis," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 15(1), pages 137-159, February.
    12. Abhijit Banerjee & Rukmini Banerji & James Berry & Esther Duflo & Harini Kannan & Shobhini Mukerji & Marc Shotland & Michael Walton, 2017. "From Proof of Concept to Scalable Policies: Challenges and Solutions, with an Application," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 73-102, Fall.
    13. Rodriguez-Segura, Daniel & Campton, Cole & Crouch, Luis & Slade, Timothy S., 2021. "Looking beyond changes in averages in evaluating foundational learning: Some inequality measures," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    14. Cardim, Joana & Molina-Millán, Teresa & Vicente, Pedro C., 2023. "Can technology improve the classroom experience in primary education? An African experiment on a worldwide program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    15. Jörg Peters & Jörg Langbein & Gareth Roberts, 2018. "Generalization in the Tropics – Development Policy, Randomized Controlled Trials, and External Validity," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 33(1), pages 34-64.
    16. David K. Evans & Arkadipta Ghosh, 2008. "Prioritizing Educational Investments in Children in the Developing World," Working Papers 587, RAND Corporation.
    17. Isaac Mbiti & Karthik Muralidharan & Mauricio Romero & Youdi Schipper & Constantine Manda & Rakesh Rajani, 2019. "Inputs, Incentives, and Complementarities in Education: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1627-1673.
    18. Hongyan Liu & Yaojiang Shi & Emma Auden & Scott Rozelle, 2018. "Anxiety in Rural Chinese Children and Adolescents: Comparisons across Provinces and among Subgroups," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-14, September.
    19. Daniel Bennett & Asjad Naqvi & Wolf‐Peter Schmidt, 2018. "Learning, Hygiene and Traditional Medicine," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 545-574, July.
    20. Hahn, Youjin & Wang, Liang Choon & Yang, Hee-Seung, 2018. "Does greater school autonomy make a difference? Evidence from a randomized natural experiment in South Korea," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 15-30.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:injoed:v:78:y:2020:i:c:s0738059320304004. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-educational-development .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.