Use and Impact of PIRLS
Hungary has participated in every PIRLS study and was a top performer in PIRLS 2001, 2006, and 2011.12 Despite this success, PIRLS is not widely known in Hungary—the media attention it receives usually is related to average Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results and is limited to educational publications. Reasons for this might include the fact that PISA was the first major large scale study in which Hungary participated, and that the unsatisfactory results somewhat shocked the public in 2001. Probably as a consequence, PIRLS was less discussed, and most articles and publications simply shared the results of the study and praised the performance of Hungarian 10-year-olds.13 The Educational Authority’s Department of Educational Assessment and Evaluation published a national report both in Hungarian and in English.
It is noteworthy that the main concern both of the general public and educators is about the performance gap of Hungarian students on PIRLS as opposed to PISA. The results of these studies indicate that the reading literacy abilities of Hungarian students do not develop in the same way as other PIRLS and PISA participants. This raises questions: What is it in lower grades that ceases to work later? What measures should be taken for the sake of improving reading literacy development?14
Meanwhile, partly due to the impact of international large scale studies, Hungary has implemented an assessment system and experimented with competency-based educational programs. It has become common knowledge that the development of reading literacy is vital to further education, success in the labor market, and personal growth. The understanding of teaching and learning has undergone a paradigm shift so that, instead of encyclopedic knowledge, a growing set of personal abilities and competencies is regarded as the aim of education.