Declining Reading Culture? Analysis of NAEP 2017–2019 Results on Reading Habits and Attitudes

• In Event: Correlations Between NAEP Achievement and Other Outcomes

Abstract

Reading attitudes, habits, and performance are all indicators of reading culture. With the decline of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading scores from 2017 to 2019, we examine whether there was a concurrent decline in reading attitudes and habits among eighth graders both nationally and at state-level. The results suggest that reading culture as a whole may be declining, with eighth-grade declines in reading attitudes and habits happening concurrently to declines in reading performance. Evidence on the interrelationship between these declines and NAEP reading performance is mixed, with cross-sectional results showing a sizable relationship but results of correlations between state-level mean-changes in attitudes and habits and state-level mean-changes in reading performance showing no relationship.

Authors

• Martin Hooper, American Institutes for Research

• Yifan Bai, American Institutes for Research

• Samuel Correa, American Institutes for Research

• Stephanie Straus, Georgetown University